One Piece: Gear 5 - Luffy's Peak, Explained

Monkey D. Luffy is the protagonist of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece and he set out to sea with the aim of becoming the Pirate King in a time known as the Great Pirate Era. With the power of a Devil Fruit known as the Gomu Gomu no Mi, Luffy became a rubber man and has, on his journey, grown tremendously powerful. With time, Luffy has taken his abilities to the next level by inventing what he calls "gears."

During the Enies Lobby arc, Luffy invented his Gear Second and Gear Third. Following the two-year timeskip, Luffy came up with the idea of Gear Fourth with multiple forms. While all these power-ups were incredible and enabled him to take on some of the most powerful people on the seas, he didn't truly hit his peak until the Wano Country arc. In the fight against Kaido, Luffy finally tapped into what is his strongest transformation of all time and supposedly him at his peak – Gear 5.

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What Is Luffy's Gear 5?

Luffy has developed all his gears based around the rubbery properties of his Devil Fruit. Gear Second makes use of his rubbery body to pump blood faster through his body and increase his physical abilities drastically. Gear Third sees him inflate his rubbery bones with air to gain the limbs of a giant and use devastating attacks. With Gear Fourth, Luffy takes things a step further by incorporating Haki with his Devil Fruit and combining them together. By doing so, Luffy is able to increase the tension of rubber and use the power of compression and elasticity in combat to pull off some of the most incredible things such as flying through the air.

With Gear 5, however, Luffy doesn't make use of his basic Devil Fruit abilities at all. Gear 5 is actually based on the true nature of Luffy's Devil Fruit, the real name of which is the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika. In the Wano Country arc, Luffy managed to awaken his Devil Fruit after being defeated by Kaido for the third time. Somehow, this caused his Devil Fruit to finally break through its limits and awaken. Since Luffy's Devil Fruit is actually a Mythical Zoan instead of a Paramecia, it granted him a completely new transformation instead and typical of Luffy, he ended up naming it Gear 5.

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Luffy's rubber is much tougher than before and he can easily manipulate the size of his body without even using any air. At his best, he can even turn himself into a giant with ease, which just goes to show how ridiculous his Devil Fruit truly is. Furthermore, Luffy can even take deadly hits and his body is so malleable that it simply adapts to the blow, as seen when Luffy retained the shape of Kaido's Kanabo after being hit by it.

Perhaps one of the most strange things about Luffy's Gear 5 is that it also allows him to affect his immediate surroundings with rubber, which is a trait of the Paramecia types. Despite being a Mythical Zoan, Luffy can achieve this due to the special nature of his Devil Fruit, something that even Kaido noticed in combat. Luffy can immediately turn his surroundings into rubber but he doesn't just stop there. Luffy can even turn other people into rubber upon touching them, which no substance-based Paramecia Devil Fruit awakening user has achieved so far. Katakuri could turn his surroundings into Mochi but not Luffy and, just like him, Doflamingo was able to turn Dressrosa into strings and not affect the people around him.

In Luffy's fight against Kaido, he showed the ability to turn everything he touches into rubber, which helps him fight with even more freedom. Luffy could turn Kaido into rubber and hurt him from the inside. He could even expand his arms from his eyes to catapult himself out of his mouth. What's more, Luffy even turned Kaido into a jumping rope which is utterly ridiculous, given that he's a Yonko.

By the looks of it, Luffy could even turn inanimate things, such as lightning, into rubber when in Gear 5. Towards the end of One Piece Chapter 1046, Luffy showed the ability to grab a bolt of lightning itself by presumably turning it into rubber. Despite Kaido's tremendous power, facing off against such a monster in combat is quite difficult. Luffy's Gear 5 lets him pull off some of the most ridiculous feats in the story such as making his fist as big as an entire island, as is expected of a power termed to be the most ridiculous ability in One Piece. Without a doubt, Luffy is at his very peak and his abilities have put him on the same level as the Yonko and the legends such as Whitebeard and Roger, if not higher.

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