6 underrated One Piece Devil Fruits with great Awakening potential

Devil Fruits are a trademark feature of Eiichiro Oda’s world-famous One Piece story. In exchange for their ability to swim, these items give their users permanent superhuman abilities of the most varied types. Broadly speaking, Devil Fruit powers can be grouped into three macro-categories, i.e., Paramecia, Zoan, and Logia.

If the user achieves a superior level of proficiency called Awakening, their Devil Fruit can unleash additional and superior abilities. This evolved stage can only be reached when a Devil Fruit user’s mind and body catch up with the item’s full potential. So far, One Piece has only revealed a few Awakened Devil Fruit users.

Certain Devil Fruits come off as underwhelming even though their powers are quite effective. This is because the users of these items aren’t able to bring out their potential, or are simply too weak to take the spotlight as fighters. If these Devil Fruits were evolved to Awakening, there’s no doubt that their abilities would be much more threatening.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the opinions of the writer

6 seemingly weak One Piece Devil Fruits that may become god-like if Awakened

6) Munch-Munch Fruit (Baku Baku no Mi)

The Munch-Munch Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

The Munch-Munch Fruit can be used to bite and digest any target to gain their properties. From inanimate objects to living creatures, the user of this Devil Fruit can stretch open their mouth to eat anything. The meal is digested and then absorbed into the user’s body. As a result, the user will manifest every characteristic of what he they have eaten.

The eaten items can be merged and reconfigured, leading to countless potential applications. Notably, the user can even eat themselves to alter their own physique. The canon user of this item – the foolish and yet villainous Wapol – didn’t achieve Devil Fruit Awakening, being a rather weak fighter himself.

Nevertheless, a hypothetical Awakened Munch-Munch Fruit would be terrifying. The item’s powers would be magnified, perhaps allowing the user to eat and manipulate even immaterial things such as light, air, energy, and the like. It might also be possible to create giant mouths around the user to devour enemies from from the ground.

5) Boom-Boom Fruit (Bomu Bomu no Mi)

The Boom-Boom Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

Anyone who eats the Boom-Boom Fruit becomes a living bomb. The user gains the ability to blow themselves up without taking any damage. Limbs, hair, and even bodily secretions become bombs that the user can detonate at will.

In One Piece, the Boom-Boom Fruit was eaten by Gem, who is mostly known for being a member of Baroque Works with the codename Mr 5.

Unfortunately, Gem failed to evolve his Devil Fruit to Awakening. In theory, the evolved Boom-Boom Fruit could turn the surroundings into an infinite series of explosions, leaving the user immune to the blasts, which would only affect their intended targets. The Awakened Boom-Boom Fruit could even mimic some of Killer Queen’s abilities in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

In Hirohiko Araki’s story, Killer Queen is the Stand power of the villain Yoshikage Kira. Killer Queen can turn any object or creature into a bomb and detonate it. Any human directly turned into a bomb will be disintegrated by the subsequent explosion, leaving no trace as the body is completely vaporized.

However, while Kira’s Killer Queen has several limitations to its ability, the hypothetical Awakened Boom-Boom Fruit wouldn’t have such restrictions. Granted, it would probably lack more complex abilities such as Killer Queen’s special bombs Sheer Heart Attack and Bites The Dust.

4) Chop-Chop Fruit (Bara Bara no Mi)

The Chop-Chop Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

The canon user of the Chop-Chop Fruit is Buggy, the pirate clown who climbed the ladder of the One Piece world in the most ludicrous ways. Buggy wasn’t able to accomplish Devil Fruit Awakening with the Chop-Chop Fruit, but that doesn’t diminish the item’s powers.

Under normal circumstances, the Chop-Chop Fruit gives its user complete immunity from slashing attacks. No matter how powerful the attack is, slashing the body of a Chop-Chop Fruit user is a wasted effort to begin with, as this item allows the user to split their body into pieces without taking any harm.

Any detached part can be controlled at will. The user can even make them levitate and flank their enemies to perform unpredictable attacks. Combined with the immunity to slashes, this is already an interesting set of abilities. However, a potential Awakened Chop-Chop Fruit would be much more threatening than that.

The ability to split everything could be extended to the surroundings, meaning that the user could split people and objects around him at will. Devil Fruit Awakening may also eliminate one of the item’s main weaknesses, which is the fact that, unlike the other body parts, the user’s feet can’t levitate.

Although it’s only a suggestion, the user might be able to perform nuclear fission, splitting atoms to generate an insane amount of energy that would result in nukes. After all, a nuke would just be the perfected version of Buggy’s signature moves Buggy Ball and Muggy Ball.

3) Clone-Clone Fruit (Mane Mane no Mi)

The Clone-Clone Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

The Clone-Clone Fruit allows its user to impersonate anyone they touch with their hand, completely replicating the target’s voice physical appearance. By touching their own face with their left hand, the user can revert back to their normal appearance.

In One Piece, this Devil Fruit was once used by Kurozumi Higurashi. The current owner is Bentham, an individual formerly known as Mr 2 Bon Clay.

Bentham typically uses the Clone-Clone Fruit as a tricky ability to deceive and confuse his enemies. This is because the Clone-Clone Fruit only copies a person’s physical appearance, but not their fighting skills. Thus, the item doesn't give its user any real offensive power.

A hypothetical Awakened version of the Clone-Clone Fruit may allow the user to replicate not only aesthetics, but any combat technique that the target can use, including Haki, Devil Fruits, and a kind of fighting style. Of course, the user would be able to use them at the same level as the person they have copied.

Considering that the canon Clone-Clone Fruit can already store copied people, this would allow the user to stock up an arsenal of strong abilities, becoming a force to be reckoned with.

2) Smoke-Smoke Fruit (Moku Moku no Mi)

The Smoke-Smoke Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

Smoker’s Smoke-Smoke Fruit is widely considered to be one of the least impressive Logia-type Devil Fruits in One Piece. It allows the user to create and freely manipulate smoke, as well as transform their body into the same substance.

All Logia powers are formidable, giving their users control over natural elements, but Smoker uses his Devil Fruit ability in a rather straightforward manner. He unleashes to trap and bind his opponents. He can also solidify smoke by increasing its density in order to strike his enemies with increased force. After the timeskip, he uses Armament Haki to empower his blows.

Last but not least, Smoker can turn his body into smoke to propel himself at high speed towards his opponents.

Awakened Logia Devil Fruits should be able to permanently change the environment into their own element, and the Smoke-Smoke Fruit should be no different. An interesting option for the user would be to saturate the surrounding area with smoke in which they could move freely, as if they were teleporting.

The smoke could be manipulated to harm opponents in more subtle ways, such as suffocating them via asphyxiation. Ther user would surround their enemies with smoke, forcing it into their lungs until they passed out due from oxygen deprivation. To make things worse, the user could turn his smoke into toxic smoke – such as that from cigarettes or industry funnels – to poison their targets.

1) Slow-Slow Fruit (Noro Noro no Mi)

The Slow-Slow Fruit as seen in One Piece (Image via Toei Animation)

One Piece author Eiichiro Oda gave the Slow-Slow Fruit to Foxy, a rather weak fighter, and it’s easy to understand why. In the hands of a powerful individual who can combine its abilities with a trained body and remarkable Haki skills, this Devil Fruit would bean an almost unbeatable asset.

The Slow-Slow Fruit allows the user to emit Noroma Photons, special particles that slow down anything they touch for 30 consecutive seconds. Due to the forced deceleration, the enemy is unable to defend themselves, while the user has enough time to inflict as much damage as they want.

To hit the intended target, the user can fire a beam of photons. The particles will affect living beings, inanimate objects, and even the space itself. However, should someone reflect them back with a mirror, they may affect the user themselves.

Foxy is an extremely creative Devil Fruit user, but his proficiency leaves much to be desired. Someone capable of evolving the Slow-Slow Fruit to the stage of Awakening would probably extend its effects over a wide area, slowing down anyone who approached it.

Another option for the user would be to shroud themselves in Noroma Photons, so that anyone or anything trying to hit them would be slowed down before making contact.

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Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh