One Piece creator finally addresses a plot hole from 25 years ago

Finally, poor Pell gets vindicated

Let's go back to the beginning of the 21st century. In January 2001, Michael Jordan had just become the fourth player in NBA history to score 30,000 career points. Donnie Darko premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. English-language Wikipedia was just launched. And Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, had a character make a statement in his manga that the author would regret for the following 25 years.

In chapter 169 of One Piece, at the peak of the Alabasta arc that will soon be adapted in season 3 of the live-action show, Luffy and the Straw Hats are dealing with the dangerous members of the Baroque Works organization. Pell, one of Princess Vivi's bodyguards, shows up in the nick of time to save the future Queen of Alabasta. He reveals his Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Falcon powers, making a statement that will become controversial: There are only five Devil Fruit abilities in the world that grant the power of flying.

This has been proved untrue so many times in the course of the series that it became a meme among fans. From the elemental abilities of Logia types to many dozen transformation-based powers, truly a lot of Devil Fruit users in the world of One Piece can soar in the skies. Fans mostly attributed this mistake to the necessary evolution that a series spanning several decades has to go through. Oda simply changed his mind, and that's that. However, in the SBS (Q&A) for volume 115 of One Piece, released in Japan on July 3, the author finally addressed this plot hole, revealing that there's more behind it than a mere change of mind.

As shown in the translation posted on X by @pewpiece, Oda explains the mistake as merely Pell's limited perception of the world. However, he also adds that the line had a different meaning for the author. One Piece is a pirate manga, and Oda wanted it to remain focused on the sea and sailing ships. As his power system developed and more bizarre abilities were introduced, Oda wanted to limit the extent of characters that could fly, as it would be in contrast with the series' focus. Essentially, the author was reminding himself not to overuse the power of flight.

Oda ends his answer with a reminder to himself to maintain the stance that flying is a rare and exceptional thing in One Piece, but it's clearly too late. Just in the latest arc of the manga, almost every major character has the power to take to the sky in some way, be it Luffy's reality-bending Gear 5 powers, Loki's Devil Fruit transformation, or Sanji's classic sky walk technique.

Still, it's quite funny that the author decided to address a small plot hole from 25 years ago, recognizing that his fandom really cares and pays attention to every small detail. It was also very interesting to get a glimpse into Oda's worldbuilding process, and even if he wasn't able to keep the ability to fly such a rare occurrence in his world, he proved that he was always thinking about how to make One Piece feel unique.