

In Chopper’s case, we have a reindeer who ate the Human-Human Fruit and gained the power to transform into a human. Their parents are content to wait, to let her grow into her lessons of magic and power and duty, but Zaal is not content with that. We’ve met many humans who have eaten Zoan-type Devil Fruits and gained the ability to transform into a dragon, or a leopard, or a giraffe, or a mammoth, or even a freaking tyrannosaurus rex. Their little sister Zelda is four: far too young to have the fate of the world on her shoulders, and yet all the signs point to a confrontation with fate on the horizon. The Human-Human Fruit ( Hito-Hito no Mi, in Japanese) is a Zoan-type Devil Fruit, which means that it gives the user the ability to transform into a species of animal. The inner workings of that Human-Human Fruit, however, can be difficult to remember. They’re just one-sentence descriptions about the world which make the average person go, “Wait, what?” The simplest one is: “The telephones are living snails.” But given that one of my top three characters is Tony Tony Chopper, I also like: “The ship doctor is a reindeer who ate the Human-Human Fruit.” There’s a lot to chew on there, isn’t there? Sometimes I also add that this reindeer struggles with trauma related to intimacy, especially when you first meet him-just for added depth.

When trying to indoctrinate people into the wild and wonderful world of One Piece, I have a few quick sales pitches ready to entice them.
