Shōnen anime and manga series are known for giving their characters a variety of power-ups in the form of…well, forms. In Dragon Ball, Goku gains levels of Super Saiyan. In Bleach, Ichigo can activate his Bankai and Hollowfication.
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In One Piece, Luffy uses terms he calls “gears” to upgrade himself for combat, coming up with creative ways to improve and use his rubbery body. This can be increases in speed, increases in size, or combinations of both to give him immense durability or access to completely new abilities.
8
Small Luffy
When Luffy first creates and uses Third Gear, it had one pretty nasty — but cute — side effect: afterward, all the air would blow out of the inflated limbs, and cause Luffy to become extremely small.
This form offers no benefits, no hidden power-ups, or anything worthwhile for combat. It is simply an adorable Chibi Luffy, and frankly, that’s enough.
7
Gear Four – Tankman
Luffy’s fourth power up, Gear Four, actually has multiple types of forms, within itself as a form. These are Tankman, Boundman, and Snakeman.
Tankman is arguably the weakest of these forms, as it is made purely as a defensive tank and to eat as many hits as possible. He achieves this after eating a ton of crackers and biscuits when fighting Charlotte Cracker, so we do not know if this is the true form of Tankman or if he only looks this way because he is full of food.
6
Third Gear
Third gear is an interesting one, as it is not a “form” in the traditional sense. Typically, when you think of a character having a form, it is a full-body upgrade or transformation. The rest of Luffy’s forms are like this, but Third Gear, however, is unique.
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With Third Gear, Luffy blows up his limbs like a balloon due to the rubbery nature of his body (and the true powers of the Nika fruit). This allows him to make his arms giant for punching or feet giant for stomping, which offers a quick, often surprising increase in strength against large enemies or groups. His most notable Third Gear move is seen in the film One Piece: Film Strong World, with Gum-Gum Gigant Thor Axe.
5
Nightmare Luffy
During the Thriller Bark arc, Luffy was given the power of 100 souls on the ship in order to attain enough strength to take on Gecko Moria and Oars. This form, causing Luffy to grow in size and become blue, was called Nightmare Luffy.
This form offered Luffy a temporary, but significant, boost in strength and stopping power. At the time, this gave him more power than even Second or Third Gear. While not as strong as the forms that would come later, this was definitely the strongest of his forms at the time of Thriller Bark.
4
Gear Second
This is Luffy’s first power up, which we see in his battle with Blueno at Enies Lobby. By assuming a stance where he crouches down and puts his fist to the ground, Luffy is able to speed up the flow of blood in his body, causing his body to emit steam and greatly increasing his speed and strength.
Even though this is Luffy’s first power-up, it is still one of his best, as after the time-skip, he is able to activate it with a simple flick of his wrist, and it still offers an excellent boost to his base form. This upgrades Luffy’s attacks, turning moves like Gum-Gum Pistol into Jet Pistol and Gum-Gum Gatling into Jet Gatling.
3
Gear Four – Boundman
Gear Four is the first power-up we see from Luffy in multiple arcs after the reveal of Gear Second and Gear Third in Enies Lobby, and it was worth the wait. First shown against Doffy in Dressrosa, Gear Four sees Luffy combining effects from Gear Second and Gear Third, as well as coating his body in Haki.
Boundman (or Bounce-man) is the first form we see of Gear Four. Gear Four takes a lot out of Luffy stamina-wise, and Boundman is the form that offers the most increase in offense and defense without costing too much. He is large and round, with his feet bouncing on the ground and his arms becoming larger as well. This form also unlocks powerful new abilities like Rhino Schneider and Elephant Gatling.
2
Gear Four – Snakeman
Snakeman is a direct damage upgrade to Boundman, as it sees Luffy lose some of the weight and buoyancy of Boundman, and become skinnier with longer hair. While this form makes Luffy considerably weaker defense-wise than in Boundman or Tankman, he gains a huge amount of offensive power.
With Snakeman, Luffy is able to accomplish acts of exceptional speed and power with his punches, using his arms and fists like a snake. He calls this Python, and uses this to create moves like Jet Culverin and Black Mamba.
1
Gear Five
As Luffy himself says, Gear Five is his peak. With the unlocking of Gear Five, we learn that Luffy’s devil fruit is not actually the Paramecia type Gum-Gum fruit, but the Zoan-type Human-Human fruit, Mythical Model: Sun-God Nika. The Sun-God Nika fruit’s true power is to allow the user’s rubbery body to fight in any way he wishes. Luffy can activate this mode by making his heartbeat “sound funny,” which is to the tune of the Drums of Liberation.
In Gear Five, Luffy has achieved true freedom and can do practically anything his goofy heart desires. He can change both the environment and people around him to be rubber or cartoonish, such as when he plays jump-rope with Kaido, grabs lightning bolts out of the sky and swings on them like rubber bands, or turns his fist into the size of Onigashima with Bajarang Gun. Gear Five Luffy truly is limitless in its potential and perfectly personifies the type of character, and fighter, that Luffy is.
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