How Eiichiro Oda Failed Big Mom

Eiichiro Oda is the author of One Piece, the best-selling manga series of all time. It has sold over 500 million copies, which is more than twice what Naruto has sold. It is worth noting that Naruto was supposed to be the closest thing to One Piece, but the gap proves otherwise. One Piece has been wildly successful because of the quality of writing. Oda has cleverly created an intricate world in which smaller things are just as important as big ones.

He has successfully created a diverse world filled with all sorts of characters. While he has handled most of them with the utmost intricacy, there have been times when his judgment has been questionable. After all, he is not immune to errors. The biggest and most notable character that Oda did not handle well was Charlotte Linlin, or Big Mom. Her debut was splendid, but everything went downhill from there.

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Big Mom Was One Of The Strongest Characters

• Ate the Soru Soru no Mi
• Had access to all kinds of Haki

Big Mom was introduced in the Whole Cake Island arc, where she served as one of the main antagonists. She came off as a vicious individual who wouldn’t stop at anything to achieve her goals. This became clear when she murdered her son because he tried to stand in her way. In terms of power, only a handful of characters could match her strength. She possessed the Soru Soru no Mi, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that allowed her to manipulate souls. Big Mom could steal the soul of her opponent, instantly killing them. Or she could even fuse the stolen souls to increase her own power.

Another special ability of Big Mom’s Devil Fruit was that it allowed her to create Homies. All she had to do was put soul fragments inside inanimate objects. Big Mom could also create powerful Homies by using her own soul. She had a total of four Homies, which included Hera, Prometheus, Zeus, and Napoleon. All these Homies were extremely strong, and they would have absolutely no problem demolishing opponents by themselves. The only real drawback of her devil fruit was that she could not extract the souls of other people if they weren’t scared of her.

Even then, she had other weapons in her arsenal to deal with these problems. As an emperor of the sea, Big Mom had access to all three types of Haki. She had excellent control over all of them, which is why it was extremely difficult to beat her in combat. Finally, it is worth mentioning that her physical strength was just as great as Kaido’s, who had the moniker of the strongest creature in the world.

Eiichiro Oda Let Down Big Mom

With such an amazing character at his disposal, one can’t help but think that Oda could have used her a lot better. For instance, she could have killed every single person on Whole Cake Island, but Oda gave her a unique condition where she was unable to distinguish between right and wrong. She began losing weight, which unquestionably reduced her power to a certain extent. In the end, Big Mom was unable to harm anyone. All she could do was watch as her reputation was destroyed by the Straw Hat Pirates.

Big Mom Returned In The Wano Country Arc

The One Piece author decided to use her in the Wano Country arc, where she ultimately teamed up with Kaido to fight against the Worst Generation. Before their unlikely alliance, Kaido and Big Mom fought each other for several days, and the fight ended in a draw. This proved that the two were more or less equal in terms of strength. So one would expect her to have the same level of performance as her comrade, but it soon turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking, as she was completely sidelined.

Big Mom had to fight Eustass Kid and Trafalgar Law. While both of them were powerful individuals, they had no business beating her. But Oda wanted to remove Big Mom from the story, so he nerfed her once again. This time he didn’t let Big Mom use her Conqueror’s Haki, which enabled the two young pirates to overwhelm and beat her.

In comparison, Kaido was shown as the behemoth. Big Mom’s defeat was truly tragic, and it was needed purely for the sake of the plot. Otherwise, she would have completely annihilated the two Supernovas. Hopefully, Oda does not repeat the same mistake for his other characters.

One Piece is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. The series follows protagonist Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirate crew as they explore the Grand Line to find the King of the Pirates’ ultimate treasure, the One Piece, in order to become the next king. The manga’s popularity helped it spin off into a larger media franchise, including an anime with more than 1,000 episodes.

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Studio

Toei Animation

Creator

Eiichiro Oda