When you hear “the Big Eater,” you might picture a large person in a pie eating contest or so, but in Eichiro Oda’s mind, he pictured a skinny Jewelry Bonney. With a bounty of 320 million Berries, Jewelry Bonney is a woman you do not want to mess with, and with what’s going to happen in Egghead Arc, it’s definite that she has a role to play in the Final Saga of One Piece.
Who is Jewelry Bonney?
Originating from South Blue, one of the four major seas within One Piece, Jewelry Bonney is a female pirate and captain of the Bonney Pirates. She is part of a group of pirates that are famous as the “Worst Generation.” All of them have bounties over a hundred million berries and fight actively against the World Government. She is also the daughter of Bartholomew Kuma. Before the Timeskip, her bounty was 140,000,000 Berries, and after the Timeskip, it went up to 320,000,000 Berries, showing just how much stronger she has grown over the years. She may look skinny, but her physical strength is nothing to joke about. Despite her slim build, her kicks are powerful enough to hurt a tank like Blackbeard.
She was even able to send Luffy flying away with just one kick. Bonney is also incredibly fast. During the Sabaody Archipelago Arc, she was able to immediately sense Zoro’s killing intent and prevent him from attacking Charlos, a World Noble. She also has an extraordinary metabolism that lets her eat a lot of food, making her temporarily chubby, but she can burn all those calories instantly to regain her energy. Jewelry Bonney might not come across as the most pleasant person, but she does have the capacity to get emotional. Her relationship with her father, Bartholomew Kuma, holds great significance in her life. Witnessing her father’s brutal enslavement at Mary Geoise left her heartbroken, revealing a more vulnerable and caring aspect of her personality. This emotional depth serves as a stark contrast to her typically aggressive and unyielding nature.
The Toshi Toshi no Mi
The Toshi Toshi no Mi or Age Age Fruit is a Paramecia-type devil fruit that gives its user the ability to manipulate their own age and those around them. At an unstated time in the anime, Bonney ate this devil fruit and gained its abilities. Bonny cleverly puts her unique power to good use for stealth and deception. She transforms into a child or an elderly lady, which lets her fool people into thinking she’s someone entirely different from the real Bonney. She has demonstrated this ability on various occasions, such as pretending to be related to someone, as seen at the Sabaody Archipelago, where she claimed to be Roronoa Zoro’s little sister. Who thought this Devil Fruit could be this useful?
This power also allows her to incapacitate her enemies by swiftly aging them into senior citizens or reverting them to frail, young children. When Bonney uses her power to change someone’s age, their memories and thinking abilities remain intact. Even though their appearance might change, they still act the way they normally would. For instance, the Marines and Bonney herself continue to behave as they did before, even if they appear older or younger. In the anime, her powers are depicted with a pink glow.
Master Wielder of Devil Fruit Powers
Bonney’s devil fruit grants her an incredible ability known as “Distortion Future.” With this power, she can age herself into a possible future version, adopting a muscular physique akin to her father’s, increasing her strength. Even more fascinating is that Bonney can use this technique on other people, too. For example, in Chapter 1072, she used it on Luffy at Egghead’s scrapyard, transforming him into a 70-year-old man from a “different future.” Her Devil Fruit also allows her to age metallic objects to the point of corroding and then breaking them. She can also age a target to near death, causing them to briefly become a skeleton, although their flesh later returns as this is not permanent. The main effect of this ability is to make her opponent experience a pseudo-death, resulting in them breaking down mentally.
We see this when she used this on a marine, and he said he saw the Sanzu River (a mythological river that separates the land of the living from the dead). Talking about Bonny’s Devil Fruit has us thinking about the saying that Devil Fruit powers are limitless in the hands of the right user. While Bonny’s Toshi Toshi no Mi isn’t as infamous as Enel’s Goro Goro no Mi or Sabo’s Mera Mera no Mi, she has harnessed its powers to a desirable extent. At face value, the devil fruit is quite unattractive, but Jewelry Bonny has made it quite the talk, just like Luffy’s Gomu Gomu no Mi. Who knew having rubber powers had so much potential?
Backstory of the Big Eater
We don’t get to see or know much of Jewelry Bonney’s History for a while after her introduction. The only information we get for a long time was that she had a personal connection with the Marines and held a major grudge against them. We also get to know that she has some sort of connection with Bartholomew Kuma in Episode 888 of the anime when she cries over how he was acting. Later on, during the Egghead Arc, we get to understand that Jewelry Bonney is actually the daughter of Bartholomew Kuma. She revealed this in Chapter 1062 when she attacked Dr Vegapunk for turning her father into a cyborg.
Asides from this, though, we know nothing of her past except that she somehow knows Kizaru, as we see in their battle on Egghead Island in Chapter 1092 of the manga. What we are sure about, though, is that at some point in her life, Bonney became a pirate, gathered a crew called the Bonney Pirates, took to the sea, and went on into the Grand Line. During this period, she gets famous, acquiring a bounty of 140 million Berries and causing enough mayhem for the World Government. This makes her worthy of being in the ranks of the Worst Generation, being the only female among the twelve.
Encounter With Other Worst Generation Pirates
Just like a lot of the members of the Worst Generation, Sabaody Archipelago island is where we first got to meet The Big Eater. By using the routes drawn with a Log Pose, the Bonney Pirates managed to land on Sabaody Archipelago to get ready for their journey into the New World. While there, she and her crew went to a restaurant in Grove 24 to eat and decompress. It is there we get to see why Bonney is called The Big Eater. Her bad table manners, gluttonous appetite, and loud nature completely disgusted others. One of those disgusted customers happened to be Capone Bege, a fellow member of the Worst Generation and a captain of his own pirate crew. His disgust almost resulted in a fight between the two pirates and their crews however, due to how close they were to a Marine base, they called a temporary truce.
She would later prevent Zoro from attacking Charlos, a World Noble, knowing fully well that such an act would call the attention of the Marines and, worse, the Admirals. This action of hers later turns futile when the Straw Hat captain himself, Luffy, attacked a World Noble, leading to the dispatch of the Marines to quell the problem and capture the pirates. Although she managed to escape capture, she did promise to destroy the Straw Hats the next time they met. She also has major grudges against Blackbeard, his crew, the World Government, and the Marines for various reasons.
Bonny’s Short Captivity and Escape
After the events of the Sabaody Archipelago, Bonney stays behind on the island and witnesses the Battle at Marineford that was broadcast. This spurred her to sail towards Marineford, but she was too late though as Shanks had stopped the battle. Bonney would then enter the New World in pursuit of a particular person. As soon as they enter the New World, though, the Bonney Pirates suffer defeat to Blackbeard’s crew. Bonney then got taunted by Blackbeard for being too weak, telling her to become his wife so she could at least have some purpose. Bonney violently rejected the offer by kicking Blackbeard. She would later get freed from the grasp of Blackbeard when the battleship that was to be collected as payment for capturing Bonney was discovered actually to be carrying a Marine Admiral — Akainu.
The Blackbeard Pirates fled at the sight of the Admiral, leaving behind Bonney to get captured by the Marines. While in the custody of the Marines, Akainu hits at having some connection with Bonney, telling her that her father (who we didn’t know at the time) willingly let himself become a human weapon and have his mind erased. She did manage to use her wit and take advantage of an opportunity to escape, leaving behind her crew. During the Dressrosa Arc, while on the run, Bonney read about Donquixote Doflamingo’s supposed resignation from the Seven Warlords of the Sea and, later on, his defeat at the hands of Luffy.
Infiltration Of Mary Geiose
We wouldn’t see Bonney again until the Levely arc. By aging herself to look like Queen Dowager Conney, Bonney infiltrated Mary Geoise. She managed to sneak into the Domain of The Gods when an injured Charlos passed through. It was here she saw the enslaved Bartholomew Kuma getting maltreated. To save Kuma, Bonney managed to break into Pangaea Castle, where she met Sabo, who was also on the same mission. She decided to assist him on this mission to free Kuma. While looking for the keys to Kuma’s handcuffs, they both talked.
Bonney told Sabo that she knew about the Revolutionary Army’s actions and that she trusted they could take care of Bartholomew Kuma. Once they found the keys, Sabo passed them onto Karasu through his soot crows and a message that everything was ready to free Kuma and the other slaves. Sabo then asked Bonney what her plans were now, to which she replied that her next stop was Egghead Island. She wanted to see if Vegapunk could do anything to fix Kuma’s brainwashed mind. Sabo, upon hearing this, gave her the directions to Egghead and helped her escape Mary Geoise as a stowaway on the Tanjine Kingdom’s ship.
Egghead Island Arc
On getting to Egghead Island, Bonney somehow falls into a trap in a warm eddy and has to be saved by Zoro and the Straw Hats. After giving her gratitude, she explains to the Straw Hats that she’s on a mission to capture and kill Vegapunk after he tells her how to fix Kuma. When the group enters the city on Egghead Island, they find a futuristic vending machine that creates food, and without any need for coercion, they start eating, with Bonney finding her gluttonous equal in Luffy. They then meet Atlas, who introduces herself as Dr. Vegapunk. This enrages Bonney, who knew that Vegapunk was an old man. The group then leaves Atlas to explore the island. They managed to get new clothes from a clothes dispenser, but since they couldn’t pay, it counted as theft, leading to a Pacifista attacking them.
As the gang gets ready to fight back, Bonney tearfully intervenes, revealing Kuma to be her father. The Pacifista, though, doesn’t stop attacking, which forces Bonney to change their ages to escape the Pacifista. Now safe, Jimbei starts revealing what he knew about Kuma and his tyrant acts, which Bonney vehemently denies, explaining that he was brainwashed into working with the World Government since he originally had an intense hatred for them. As they kept exploring, they found Dr Vegapunk himself. Bonney threatened Vegapunk with a beam saber she had found during their exploration. Unfortunately, though, the beam saber ended up being defective and was housing a family of insects, which triggered Bonney’s entomophobia and knocked her out. As the arc progressed, Vegapunk took Bonney and the Straw Hats to Labophase, where they got separated.
Bartholomew Kuma’s Sacrifice
Now alone with Vegapunk, she began attacking him, demanding he return her father to normal. Vegapunk refused to do this and also refused to tell Bonney anything because he had made a vow with Kuma to keep it a secret. As she kept attacking him, she found a door that had a bear paw print on it, reminiscent of the one her father used. She entered the door and found a large paw-shaped bubble, which she deduced to contain her father’s memories. Against the wishes and advice of Vegapunk, she touched and accessed all of her father’s memories, which pushed her to tears. We don’t get to see what pushes her to tears just yet but it’s quite evident that Kuma may have sacrificed himself for a greater cause.
