 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today we are going to be wandering back into the domain of the more quirky and unique fruits in the series in order to examine the Mane Mane Nomi. The Mane Mane Nomi is a paramecia type fruit that allows its user to morph their body into a perfect physical copy of anybody whose face they have touched. It was eaten by Bentham, better known by his alias Bon Clay, and was first showcased in all of its glory during the alabaster arc. The name of this fruit was conjured very simply as Mane is the Japanese word for mimicry or imitation and continuing the trend of incredible simplicity, there is also a uniform translation that exists across Viz, Funimation and Poor Kids who have labeled it as the Clone Clone Fruit. So what we have here is a fairly simple concept. The user of the Mane Mane Nomi can take on the form of others that they have touched. However, there is one key restriction when invoking its powers, which is that the user must touch their target's face with their right hand. However, once that condition has been accomplished, then well where in business? And the user of the Mane Mane Nomi simply needs to touch their own face with their right hand to become a copy of their target, and to revert back to their normal form, the user simply needs to touch their face with their left hand. But the resulting effect is becoming a perfect clone of the target. I mean, well, perhaps not a perfect clone, because if the Mane Mane Nomi user touches another Devil Fruit user, then the resulting copy body will not inherit the Devil Fruit powers of the target. But that said, the user does inherit the raw speed and strength possessed by the target, which can be quite advantageous if you choose to target a particularly powerful individual. But it can also be quite a drawback if you choose to target someone with more limited functionality than yourself. Furthermore, should that person have a specific physical weakness, then it's only natural to assume the user of this fruit would receive that as well. For example, let's say that a Mane Mane Nomi user wants to copy Joe Boring here. However, unbeknownst to the user, Joe Boring has crippling rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee. This makes imitating Joe Boring a highly undesirable task. So with all of the above in mind, the Mane Mane Nomi is not really a fruit geared towards combat. And in fact, even if the user were to copy an extremely strong person, there is a major disadvantage associated with instantly entering a new body, which is the general unfamiliarity with the simple functions of the target's fleshy vessel. It might sound weird, but we're all very familiar with our own bodies having spent our entire life in them. And after all of that time, being thrust into a new one is not an easy transition, which we surprisingly have evidence of in the series. During the punk hazard arc, prankster king Trafalgar Law swapped an awful lot of bodies, resulting in beings that were barely able to function in their new human homes, despite some of those people being exceptionally strong in their own right. However, there is a very handy bonus that comes along with consuming the Mane Mane Nomi, which is the ability to permanently recall bodies of those the user has touched, which is very, very necessary because if this fruit was more like Vanderdeckens and had a target limit, then it may as well be in the garbage tier of devil fruits. So the main advantage of permanent access is that if you were to copy a particularly strong individual into your copy repertoire, then you could take the time to train yourself in the use of their body. This may take quite some time, potentially years, but if you were dedicated, you could master the use of multiple bodies and whip them out when specific situations call for your anatomy to be stronger, faster, smaller, larger, whatever. Although there is a question regarding the memory aspect of the fruit, specifically as to whether or not the Mane Mane Nomi also grants the user idetic memory, more commonly known as photographic memory. In the series, Bon Clay has idetic memory and so is able to perfectly recall anybody he has ever touched. However, I think it's fair to point out that it is entirely possible that this is a trait belonging to Bon Clay himself rather than the Mane Mane Nomi. Should this not be a property of the Mane Mane Nomi, then there are obviously strict limitations to your permanent clone bank, which would be entirely based on your own personal memory. The other thing we don't have any particular clarity on is the genetic extent of what the user of the Mane Mane Nomi can copy. And what I mean by that is, is the user restricted to only copying humans or can they take on any life form? It's questionable because in the series, Bon Clay was able to copy Chopper's body despite him only being partly human. So, assumedly the user of the Mane Mane Nomi would be able to copy other partially human forms, like fishmen, mermaids, or even possibly giants. And that idea alone takes the Mane Mane Nomi from just an alright fruit to approaching kind of incredible actually. The thought of being able to transform into a giant at will is very appealing indeed, and being able to become other beings like fishmen would open up whole new worlds for you to explore. But it also makes you wonder if the clones have to be based on humanoid beings at all. I mean, could the user of the Mane Mane Nomi pat an adorable golden retriever and then use their power to become an adorable golden retriever themselves? Although even if we continue to be restricted by humanoid forms, where exactly is that limit? For example, if the user of the fruit touches and becomes Frankie, do they receive a cyborg body? Or do they receive only the human portion of Frankie? Personally, I'd be inclined to say that it would be the latter because the Mane Mane Nomi does not replicate items or clothing held by the target, so that more than likely extends to bodily modifications. So it's probably best not to target a cyborg, particularly if their arms are completely cybernetic, because essentially you'd transform into your target and you'd never be able to revoke back to your real self because you have no left hand to touch your face. Come to think of it, this also applies to completely humanoid targets who have lost their limbs, like shanks for example. If the user of the Mane Mane Nomi chose to replicate shanks, then well, they'd be stuck as shanks for the rest of their life due to his missing left arm. Probably not a bad trait at all considering he's one of the four emperors and whether that would also paint a pretty big target on one's back. Basically what I'm saying is, be careful whom you choose to dopplegang because things have the potential to go very, very wrong. And with that we should probably examine exactly how Bonclay uses the Mane Mane Nomi in the series and the result is quite well actually. Despite his extraordinarily flamboyant persona, Bonclay was once employed as an agent of espionage for the organization Baroque Works, and the Mane Mane Nomi was a surprisingly crucial aspect of their plans. Using this Bonclay was able to impersonate the king of alabaster Nefertari Cobra and directly steer the kingdom towards civil war. There was also a very handy moment down the line in the series where he impersonated the head warden of Impel Down, allowing Luffy and the rest of the jailbreak squad to escape the hellish compound. Other than that I have to say that Bonclay's use of the fruit is primarily for comic effect. He's a pretty upbeat guy and likes to have a lot of fun with his powers, which is cool and all, but they're not particularly useful unless they're being put to work in some sort of plot that involves impersonating someone. Bonclay is also heavily restricted by his combat style Okama Kempo. This martial art requires a body perfectly sculpted to wield the true force of its techniques, which means that in any other body, Bonclay is completely unable to use any form of the martial art he has painstakingly mastered, and due to his focus on Okama Kempo, it's also highly unlikely that he would ever put in the time and effort to master another person's body for the use of combat. So the Mane Mane Nomi really isn't the most helpful of fruits in the hands of Bonclay. Hilarious, but largely ineffective. As for any potential awakening, here we have yet another example of a bit of a weird paramecia. If we stick with the motif of an awakened paramecia affecting the user's environment, we could hypothesize that perhaps this would result in the user being able to become copies of objects like trees, rocks or buildings, and somehow not requiring a hand to turn themselves back. Or perhaps they'd be able to do sort of the opposite, by turning environmental objects into clones of people, although I'm not entirely sure that that would be too useful. Or maybe of some benefit though, would potentially be the ability to create more than one clone body, similar to the multi-form technique from Dragon Ball just without the decrease in power. Or like how Nico Robin is able to create clones of herself. Or maybe we could go with an even simpler solution and say that the user is now capable of imitating people that they haven't touched, which would be pretty amazing. Some other miscellaneous things to consider when becoming an imitating human. One little extra feature of the Mane Mane Nomi is the capability for the user to change individual portions of their face. In the series, Bonclay uses power to create the world's funniest face, although it did end up just being his own face with who's up snows. Furthermore, given this level of facial control, it may be entirely possible to apply that to the rest of the user's body, allowing them to Frankenstein themselves, by being particularly selective about what limbs or other parts they may wish to take from their targets and create an entirely new body. In closing, the Mane Mane Nomi is really more of a niche devil fruit. It holds an exceptional amount of potential within a single area of use, but not a whole lot of general utility. Although the permanent bodily memory bank is fantastic and it does open the doors for a truly dedicated individual to copy and master a wide variety of different vessels, but for the most part, it's an okay fruit at best. I wouldn't be complaining if I'd eaten it, but there are certainly a legion of better choices out there. And with that, we are going to commit the Mane Mane Nomi to the devil fruit encyclopedia. Next week, we'll be cranking up the heat somewhat in order to investigate one of the most popular devil fruits in the series, the Meromera Nomi. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon, because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also, I've recently launched a Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies and other miscellaneous items, with proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. 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