Zoan

Standing beside Paramecia and Logia among the three fruit categories, a Zoan lets whoever eats it turn into a given animal species or into a cross between human and beast. The word derives from the Ancient Greek for animal, and the label was first spoken aloud when Dalton, using his bison Ushi Ushi no Mi, struck at Wapol. Such fruits are said to possess wills of their own even ahead of consumption, and most grant three switchable states: the natural human shape, a hybrid Human-Beast form that often swells the user to unusual or giant size, and a full Beast form. Training or drugs can unlock still more shapes, as with Chopper's points. Fruits within a taxonomic group share a series name and differ only by their Model, and notably a Zoan is the sole type an inanimate object has been shown able to absorb, bringing swords, guns, and even gas to life.

The defining benefit is a surge in bodily power that leaves the user far stronger than a normal person, an edge that keeps climbing with training, so Lucci and Kaku saw their Six Powers grow far deadlier in Human-Beast form. A fruit lends the eater the traits of its animal: bird and flying-insect versions grant flight, the mole grants tunneling, the king cobra grants venom, and carnivorous types make their holders fiercer with fangs and claws. Beyond the standard variety sit rarer branches. Ancient Zoans transform users into extinct creatures and pile on durability and abnormal quirks, such as Sasaki spinning his triceratops frill to fly. Mythical Zoans, rarer still and reckoned by some the strongest class, add Paramecia-like supernatural gifts like Marco's healing phoenix flames or Kaidou's control of fire, wind, and lightning. Artificial Zoans are manufactured, bearing ring patterns instead of swirls, the SMILE line among them succeeding only one time in ten.

The category spans a vast roster. Dalton's bison fruit gave the type its name, while Rob Lucci with the leopard fruit and Kaku with the giraffe fruit rank among its best-known combatants, both able to awaken and keep their minds. Chopper, a reindeer whose Hito Hito no Mi granted him human intellect and speech, stands among the ordinary users. Mythical holders include Marco the phoenix, Sengoku the Daibutsu, Kaidou the Azure Dragon, and Luffy, whose Gomu Gomu no Mi is secretly a Model: Nika fruit of the Hito Hito line. Ancient holders such as X Drake, King, Queen, and Jack fill out the Beasts Pirates, who once fielded over five hundred Zoan users through SMILEs. Awakening can either reduce an ordinary user to a mindless brute, seen in Impel Down's Jailer Beasts, or, in rarer cases, grant a flame-wreathed Awakened Form while the personality stays intact.