Buggy's Awakening won't be as powerful as One Piece fans think

Modified Nov 24, 2024 02:20 GMT

Without a doubt, one of the most beloved fan-favorite characters in author and illustrator Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga series is none other than Buggy the Clown. One of the earliest introduced antagonists in the story, fans have watched Buggy hilariously and continuously fail upward, leading them to genuinely root for him.

Understandably, this also led to fans wanting to see Buggy get a power up which would legitimately establish him as a Yonko-level threat. Likewise, many argued that the easiest and most powerful way to do so would be to give Buggy an Awakening.

However, the Chop-Chop Fruit’s Awakened abilities may have the opposite effect that One Piece fans have theorized for years.

Buggy’s Awakening in One Piece can split atoms, but without a resulting explosion

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For years, the argument for Buggy’s Awakening in One Piece has been that he could split atoms, and essentially make infinite nuclear bombs as a result.

This would be achievable by nature of the Chop-Chop Fruit being a Paramecia-type, the Awakenings of which allow the user’s abilities to affect their environment. This is seen during the Dressrosa Arc with Donquixote Doflamingo’s Devil Fruit abilities.

In turn, it’s logical to argue that Buggy would be able to split atoms. However, there’s a major flaw with the argument that these split atoms would create the nuclear weapons-level attacks which fans are hoping for.

While the Chop-Chop Fruit does allow Buggy to split up his body, it is effectively whole in terms of his control over it and damage he sustains.

In other words, Buggy splitting his body doesn’t provide any of the damage or results it reasonably should.

Resultantly, this would suggest that Buggy’s Awakening in One Piece would indeed split the atoms, but be kept effectively whole, not creating any explosion likewise. This assumes that the Awakening wouldn’t allow the user to selectively keep split objects whole, but based on what’s been seen of Buggy’s Fruit so far, this seems likely.

Essentially, like his body, the atom would still be whole as far as it is functionally concerned, leading to no explosive effect.

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One of the biggest arguments for why this would be comes from the fact that Buggy still feels pain when his body is split up. This likewise suggests that his nervous system is still intact and capable of communicating with his brain despite this split.

On an atomic level, it can be presumed that the same logic would apply, keeping the atom whole functionally despite splitting it in appearance.

Likewise, Buggy’s Awakening would likely be similar to the Op-Op Fruit’s base abilities, instead allowing him to split others without the need for a Room or a sword. While certainly still powerful, it isn’t the boon fans were hoping for the manga’s most infamous gag character to receive.

However, there’s also a bright side here, as being able to give Buggy an Awakening that isn’t so overpowered as what fans want makes such a development more likely.

Final thoughts

Buggy's Awakening can still be powerful, just not as strong as fans think (Image via Toei Animation)

While it seems that a beloved fan–theory won’t quite come true, this also makes Buggy receiving an Awakening much more realistic and likely to happen. Further suggesting that this could occur is the role he and his Cross Guild will play in the manga’s final saga.

However, fans will likely have to wait a while before seeing Buggy again with the Elbaph Arc still in its fledgling stages.