Complete One Piece devil fruit guide

Devil fruit awakenings

What are devil fruit awakenings?

Devil Fruit powers can, in rare instances, achieve "Awakening", significantly increasing the user's abilities. According to Kaidou, awakening occurs when a Devil Fruit user's mind and body catch up to their powers. When a Devil Fruit's power is awakened, the increased abilities have been seen to allow significantly greater power, more refined control, and new abilities that would otherwise not be possible. The effects of the awakening depend on the type of Devil Fruit. It has been noted that it takes time to fully master awakened powers; if they are not fully mastered, they can still be used, but they take a serious toll on the user's stamina.

Paramecia Awakenings

For Paramecias, an Awakening allows the user to use their Devil Fruits at a new level of strength and in different manners than they originally could. Luffy, upon seeing the Awakened power of the Ito Ito no Mi, commented that it did not seem like that of a mere Paramecia.

An Awakened Paramecia allows the user to spread their power beyond their own body and transform or alter the properties of the material environment around them to match the nature of their Devil Fruit power, as well as manipulate the transformed material in any way they desire. The transformation effect can be spread over an extensive area. The main difference between an Awakening and the initial state of a Paramecia's abilities when first consuming the Devil Fruit, such as the Hira Hira no Mi, is that Awakening allows one to transform the environment from afar, as well as control it with just their mind whereas unawakened Paramecias require the user to touch what they wish to transform and often require bodily movement to be controlled.

That being said, the ability to transform and manipulate foreign objects remotely is not universal, with a few abilities showcasing unique particularities despite the general idea of property alteration still being present. After Awakening the Jiki Jiki no Mi, Eustass Kid became capable of magnetizing things other than his own body, even other living beings, causing them to strongly attract and be buried under mountains of metal. Similarly, the Awakening of Trafalgar Law's Ope Ope no Mi allowed him to alter the properties of foreign objects to turn them into small space-defying ROOMs in essence, though the application process of this enhanced power is done manually.

Doflamingo awakening the Ito Ito no mi:

Zoan Awakenings

For Zoan-type powers, awakening grants far greater strength, speed, and durability than un-awakened Zoan powers. This array of abilities also includes faster recovery time, which functions involuntarily, even when the user is unconscious.

Zoan Awakenings come with a great risk where the innate nature of the Zoan will consume the user's personality, turning them into simpleminded man-beasts. An example of this is the Jailer Beasts of Impel Down; they have yet to show any signs of complex thought, seemingly acting out on instinct and power, and they are always in a form resembling their full beast form, but with human attributes. It is unknown if they lost themselves and became this way permanently upon awakening or if they retain enough sentience that these forms are a conscious choice.

As seen with Rob Lucci and Kaku, not all Zoan users lose themselves upon awakening though. In those cases, they may even attain a new, powerful transformation known as Awakened Form that is divine in appearance. Such a successful awakening is considered rare.

Mythical zoan awakening

Not much is known about Mythical Zoan awakenings, as only one case has been seen. In the case of the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, the user does not lose their complex thought (though their mental state becomes slightly altered as a side effect of the awakened fruit, becoming overwhelmed with joy). It allows the user to freely alter the shape and size of their rubbery body however they wish. Furthermore, they gain the power to extend their rubber body powers to surrounding non-living materials, similar to how certain awakened Paramecia-type powers affect the environment. Monkey D. Luffy is the only known person to have awakened a Mythical Zoan fruit.