Chapter 943, SMILE

Wow. Every once in a while Oda shows his genius in storytelling. Creating unexpected twists, clever plot development and heartbreaking moments. One Piece was always and will continue to be the standard for manga, especially shonen manga. In the previous chapter, Yasuie meet his end at the hands of Orochi. This resulted in the towns people laughing while crying. SMILE was introduced back in the Punk Hazard arc (ch: 689). An artificial Zoan Devil Fruit created with SAD, by Doflamingo and Caesar Clown. We were lead to believe that it created devil fruit users and nothing else.

It is explained that SMILE is responsible for stripping the people of Ebisu Town of their sadness. Shinobu explains that SMILE has several effects, they cause the eater to ” lose the ability to swim as well as the ability to express negative emotions, causing them to only be able to express joy.” SMILE also only has an 1 in 10 success rate when giving devil fruit abilities. This explains the why the Beast Pirates aren’t all devil fruit users, while putting a limitation on the drugs effectiveness. She explains the ranks of the Beast Pirates, The Waiters are those who have yet to eat any fruits, the Gifters are those who obtained an ability after eating a SMILE fruit and the Pleasures are those who did not gain any abilities after eating a SMILE fruit and can only smile.

Kiado, Doflamingo and Caesar named it SMILE after the negative effect. With the defective fruits still possessing the negative side effects, Orochi used them to force the civilians of Ebisu Town to lose their ability to express anger and sadness. He hated the sorrow and grief they expressed when their families members died. The saddest part of this chapter comes when Toko tries to bring her father back with medicine. Orochi notices her and takes aim, shooting at her. Sanji and Zoro save her shocking the citizens. As I predicted the corrupt behavior of Orochi will come back to bite him as the citizens will turn on him. I’m excited to see him get what he deserves.