If you’re one of the few One Piece readers that hates Luffy’s Gear 5 transformation, you’ve really got the right idea.
According to a 2022 interview between author Eiichiro Oda and famed Detective Conan author Gosho Aoyama, One Piece mangaka first thought of Gear 5 as a joke for readers who took the elements too seriously. manga fighting in his series. Oda stated that he knew his fans would be “disgusted by it” and considered Tom and Jerry as role models for Gear 5. He expressed his disappointment at the animated aspects of the chapters. outdated Loony Toons style and fix that by throwing as many outmoded jokes as possible in the Gear 5 launch, such as Luffy’s legs spinning when he runs, or His eyes popped out of his head. Oda said that when he drew Gear 5, he was “really happy”, which is understandable after the long and serious fight building process throughout the Wano Arc.
How Gear 5 changed the course of One Piece
Luffy’s unlocking of Gear 5 changed the series forever, giving him the ultimate strength to defeat Kaido, the enemy he fought and fought for three and a half years in the anime, and fundamentally changed understanding. our knowledge of his Devil Fruit. While fans previously believed their rubber hero ate a “Gum-Gum berry,” an unremarkable Paramecia, Gear 5 has revealed the true nature of what we now call it. is “Human Fruit, Model: Nika”. Giving Luffy the attributes of the legendary “Sun God” Nika, a hero who freed slaves and brought smiles to everyone’s faces, this fruit perfectly matched Oda’s wishes for a more cartoonish art style. With their rubber bodies, Nika and now Luffy can transform into any shape imaginable, allowing both the Straw Hat captain and Oda’s imagination to run wild.
Readers have continued to witness the power of Gear 5 in the manga’s latest arc, where Luffy shows off his power in a rematch with his old nemesis Rob Lucci. Sharp-eyed fans also got a glimpse of Luffy’s new form in the franchise’s latest film, One Piece Film: Red, during the climactic battle against Tot Musica. Fan reaction to Gear 5 hasn’t been nearly as divisive as Oda seems to have hoped, with both Film: Red and “Egghead Island” recently achieving box office success and critical acclaim respectively. With that in mind, and with the joy Oda seems to have found in drawing Nika Luffy, it’s likely that readers will see more Tom and Jerry-inspired fight scenes in the upcoming chapters. Or, who knows, maybe even a Gear 6.
The One Piece manga, including the recently released “Chapter 1083: The Truth of that Day” is available in English from VIZ Media.
Source: Twitter