One Piece: Is Yamato an Awakened Devil Fruit user? Explored

Yamato first appeared in One Piece during the Wano Arc and soon became quite popular among fans of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate-themed story. The daughter, self-proclaimed son of Kaido, Yamato admires Kozuki Oden to the point of identifying with the legendary samurai. When Luffy and the others stormed Onigashima to overthrow Kaido, Yamato sided with them, believing that it was the best way to honor Oden’s memory.

Yamato’s fighting skills are truly impressive, which is no surprise considering that the former is the lineal descendant of Kaido, the individual known as the “World’s Strongest Creature.” Yamato can use all three types of Haki, including the highest form of Conqueror’s Haki, a rare power that only a few of the very strongest One Piece characters can unleash.

As the user of a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit, the Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Okuchi no Makami, Yamato can also transform into a divine wolf with supernatural powers and enhanced physical capabilities. One Piece fans have always wondered whether or not Yamato is an Awakened Devil Fruit user, and the debate is more intense than ever after the new information revealed in the latest One Piece SBS.

One Piece neither confirms nor denies Yamato's Devil Fruit Awakening

The mysterious cloud of steam

Lucci and Luffy's Awakened forms (Image via Toei Animation)

Devil Fruit Awakening is a higher level of skill that allows One Piece characters to unleash the true potential of their Devil Fruits, developing additional and superior abilities than ever before. It’s not easy to achieve, as evidenced by the fact that only a small number of characters have been confirmed as Awakened Devil Fruit users.

To be fair, there isn’t a lot of information available on this peculiar type of power. With regards to Zoan Devil Fruits – the ones that allow their users to transform into animals or hybrid between humans and animals – many fans have speculated that Awakened users are distinguished by a thin cloud of steam that surrounds their bodies like a ring or a sort of scarf.

One Piece author Eiichiro Oda has never stated that this steam has any connection to Devil Fruit Awakening. However, the assumption is widespread in the fandom, as fans noted that most of the confirmed Awakened Zoan users featured in the series share this common trait.

Yamato's Devil Fruit transformation (Image via Toei Animation)

Kaku and Rob Lucci’s bodies are surrounded by black steam, while Gear 5 Luffy is surrounded by white steam. This suggests that the color of the steam distinguishes between “evil” and “good” Awakened Zoan users. When using their fiendish transformation, the Five Elders are also surrounded by ring-like clouds of black steam.

Admittedly, this only reinforces the aforementioned theory, as the Five Elders can be seen as the embodiment of evilness. When transformed into the Okuchi no Makami’s hybrid human-animal form, Yamato was shown to have a cloud of white steam around the body. Because of this, most fans assumed that Yamato was an Awakened user. However, things are way more complex than they seem.

Yamato's first Devil Fruit transformation

Expand Tweet

Yamato has the same ring-like white steam cloud even when just using the full animal form, while Luffy, Lucci, and the others only have it when using their human-animal hybrid form. So it’s possible that in Yamato’s case, the steam cloud is just a side effect of the Okuchi no Makami’s Mythical Zoan.

Furthermore, Luffy demonstrated this peculiar trait even before evolving his Devil Fruit powers to Awakening with the Gear 5 transformation. His previous Gear 4 form already had a mysterious cloud of white steam. What’s more, One Piece author Eiichiro Oda unintentionally fueled the debate by revealing what Yamato’s Devil Fruit transformation looked like in the past.

In the latest SBS question-and-answer corner, the mangaka showed Yamato’s full animal and human-animal hybrid forms as an 8-year-old child. In fact, Yamato ate the Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Okuchi no Makami several years before the present One Piece narration.

Yamato as a child (Image via Toei Animation)

Compared to the present, Yamato’s childish Devil Fruit transformation lacks some of the adult form’s distinctive traits, such as sharp claws and canine fangs. However, it still features a cloud of white steam. While this would seem to disprove the notion that Yamato is an Awakened Devil Fruit user – a child shouldn’t be capable of achieving such Devil Fruit mastery – the last word on the subject has yet to be said.

Devil Fruit Awakening can only be reached when the user’s mind and body catch up with the item’s full potential, which doesn’t seem like an easy thing to do. With this in mind, it appears preposterous to think that a child was able to evolve a Devil Fruit to its Awakened stage immediately after eating it, when much more experienced individuals, despite being powerful fighters themselves, couldn’t achieve this result.

To be fair, however, it was stated that Devil Fruit Awakening is rare, but it was never stated that it takes a certain amount of time. The potential may play a role, and the fact that Yamato is a natural-born Conqueror’s Haki user – capable of using the Color of Conqueror even at the age of eight, albeit unconsciously – is a testament to the latter’s potential.

Devil Fruit Awakening is particularly rare (Image via Shueisha)

Regardless of Yamato’s age, Devil Fruits are the result of people’s dreams. As such, no one was more in tune with the Okuchi no Makami’s Mythical Zoan than Yamato. This Devil Fruit turns the user into Wano’s guardian deity, and Yamato’s purpose in life is to protect Wano just as Kozuki Oden once tried to do.

Even as a child Yamato already had the genuine drive to protect Wano like Oden. On the other hand, while Yamato has the perfect mindset to evolve this Devil Fruit from the start, it was explicitly mentioned that the user’s body is also pivotal to achieving Awakening. Of course, an 8-year-old child can never be strong enough.

Still, what made Luffy evolve his Devil Fruit was going through a near-death experience, and Lucci and Kaku may have had similar moments during their CP0 training. Despite being a child, Yamato also faced death. Kaido beat up or starved Yamato to death on several occasions, While it remains unclear whether this was enough for a child to be ready for Devil Fruit Awakening, it can’t be completely ruled out.