One Piece SBS: Oda's Flight-Fruit Answer Backfires on Fans

One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda answered a reader's question in the manga's SBS Q&A column about which flight-granting Devil Fruits the character Pell knows about — and instead of naming them, he replied that Pell doesn't know about every flight-type fruit in existence, dodging the actual question. On a Japanese reaction video collecting comments on the exchange, readers are calling the answer defensive and evasive rather than funny.

Across 245 comments, the most-liked one (217 likes) jokes that a reply this touchy over a simple question must mean something's up. Others go further: one highly liked comment (123 likes) says Oda seems to have mistaken ordinary criticism for an attack, while another with 84 likes breaks down exactly why the answer doesn't logically respond to what was asked in the first place.

Not every comment is pure mockery, though — some end up somewhere more wistful, comparing this answer to how playfully Oda used to handle SBS questions in the manga's earlier years.

In the latest volume's SBS Q&A column, a reader asked One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda which flight-granting Devil Fruits the character Pell specifically knows about, pointing to an in-story encyclopedia Pell had seen during the God Valley arc. Instead of naming them, Oda replied that Pell doesn't know about every flight-type Devil Fruit in existence — technically true, but not actually an answer to what was asked. On a Japanese reaction video collecting comments on the exchange, readers spent far more time picking apart the answer than the question itself.

The SBS column has run in the manga's collected volumes for decades as a lighthearted space where Oda fields reader questions directly, and it's built a reputation for playful, often joke-filled answers rather than defensive ones. That history is exactly why this particular exchange stood out to readers: a straightforward request for specifics got met with something that reads less like an answer and more like a deflection, and the comment section noticed immediately.

Beyond the general sense that the reply felt touchy, commenters started laying out exactly why it doesn't hold up as a response. The thread's most detailed comment goes line by line to show that the question and the answer aren't even talking about the same thing — the reader never asked whether Pell knows every flight-type fruit that exists, only which ones he happens to know.

• “This is such a textbook case of "that hit him" that it's actually kind of sad.”👍58⇄お手本のような「効いてる」で悲しくなってくるよ— @一時一時 · 👍58
• “Honestly, at this point, the series getting cancelled would generate more buzz than finding out what One Piece actually is.”👍58⇄現状、ワンピースの正体が分かるより 打ち切りになった方が、盛り上がる（面白い）と思う— @Qlolokurione · 👍58

From there the comment section splits into two very different reactions. One side takes it all the way to wanting the series ended outright, framing a single evasive answer as a symptom of something bigger. The other side pulls back and gets nostalgic instead, comparing the moment to how playfully Oda — and manga creators in general — used to handle these exact kinds of nitpicky reader questions.

That's the note the thread actually settles on — not outrage, but a kind of quiet nostalgia for a version of the SBS column that could turn a silly, half-baked question into something charming instead of something to brace for. Nobody in the comments thinks a single terse answer means much on its own, but enough readers recognized the same tone shift independently that it became the real story of the exchange, more than whatever Pell actually saw in that encyclopedia.