By far the biggest flaw of Luffy’s awakened Devil Fruit power is the fact that it proves to readers that he has been relegated to a cliche shonen hero. Because as it turns out, he suffers from the same trope as other clichéd shonen protagonists, which is the fact that he’s apparently been the “chosen one”.
You see, one of the most interesting parts about One Piece is the fact that it really is an underdog story. Luffy may have incredible strength, but he’s just a rubber man in a world where people can cause earthquakes, summon molten meteors, and siphon souls, to exist and thrive. The odds are always stacked against him. And yet he still survives by sheer force of will, grit and determination.
As it turns out, though, Luffy was a god forever. His power had not yet awakened from sleep. He was designed from the beginning to be a man who gains the power of a god, and fights the whole world. At this point, Luffy’s grandfather, Garp, is more suited to the title of underdog hero than he is. Because unlike Luffy, Garp is still a human who has never eaten a Devil Fruit and only uses Haki and his innate strength to become a sea hero and Vice Admiral.
Don’t get us wrong, he’s still the usually goofy and brawny Luffy we all know and love. But now we know that his story is not the story of an underdog who goes from zero to hero. Because from his lineage to his powers, he is clearly blessed with a lot of things. He is indeed the chosen one. Like the boy who has the power of the nine-tailed fox in his belly, or that other boy whose father turns out to be a Shinigami captain while his mother is a pure-blood Quincy. No wonder they are so strong.