Will Luffy get a power up in Elbaf?
The first Gear 4th attack Luffy did on Elbaf was against a giant cat, and despite Luffy saying that it was a Gear 4th technique, it actually looked just like a normal Gear 3rd Elephant Gun. It however became clear that this wasn’t a mistake and that something more is going on here when Luffy later busts out of the giant house with a Gear 4th Kong Gun without needing to go into Boundman.
One Piece elbaf luffy big Power Up
Who will Luffy fight in Elbaf?
This is not something Luffy has ever done before. Since he first showcased Gear 4th on Dressrosa, Luffy has always needed Boundman to be able perform a Kong Gun. The fact that he’s now casually able to whip it out in Elbaf, without any transformation, Luffy’s Devil Fruit abilities going through this kind of a change is a constant trend in the series.
Why is Elbaf so important in One Piece?
Throughout the story, Luffy is constantly developing new fighting skills as well as improving his existing abilities. In fact, a lot of Luffy’s past level ups like this laid the foundation for his current Awakened Devil Fruit techniques. This is seen all the way back with something like Gear 3rd, which Luffy developed all the way back in Enies Lobby.
One Piece elbaf luffy big Power Up
In the pre-timeskip, Luffy still had to shrink every time after using Gear 3rd, which was a problem he had to deal with all the way from Enies Lobby up to Marineford. After training for the two-year-timeskip however, Luffy no longer has to deal with this problem, and he is essentially able to use Gear 3rd moves as basic attacks.
And by the time Luffy reached Wano, he actually no longer had to blow air into his arm when creating Gear 3rd techniques. This seemed very illogical at the time, as the entire point of Gear 3rd is that Luffy is able to make his arm gigantic, not because of magic, but because of the added air in his body.
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This is however all in retrospect explained by one thing, which is the fact that Luffy had never eaten a rubber fruit in the first place, but his fruit always was the Sun God fruit. Luffy’s Nika Devil Fruit actually allows him to bypass the natural laws of rubber, where he is word for word described as having a rubbery body but only being limited by his own imagination.
One very important thing to note is that Luffy’s Awakening is also not only limited to Gear 5th, but actually applies to all of his Devil Fruit usage. This was quite literally noted by Kaido when he fought against Luffy in Snakeman, where Luffy was able to bend the trajectory of his attacks, which is something rubber should not be able to do.
Looking back, the way Luffy used his Devil Fruit before Gear 5th actually has a lot of moments like this, where they never made sense for a rubber Devil Fruit. These include the aforementioned cases of Luffy doing Gear 3rd attacks without blowing air into his arm, Luffy transforming between Gear 4th forms in a literal instant or even something like Luffy growing his hair out in Snakeman.
As Luffy has now Awakened his Devil Fruit, the Gear 4th scenes we’ve seen in Elbaf are likely only a start to how Luffy will keep evolving his fighting style. Even outside Gear 5th, Luffy could be an absolute unit in just his base form, where he could genuinely be one of the strongest One Piece characters even without any transformations.
Because Luffy can actually go beyond the limits of rubber, it makes perfect sense that he no longer needs to transform into Boundman to be able to perform a Kong Gun. I think this could also possibly explain why Luffy decided to call the Elephant Gun he used on the cat a Gear 4th technique. It might actually be the case that we will no longer see Luffy calling any of his attacks as Gear 2nd or Gear 3rd.
This is just my speculation, but if Luffy’s Awakening has now blurred the lines of his techniques, where he no longer needs to do things like blow air into his arm or transform into separate forms, perhaps this means that Luffy now thinks all his Gear 2nd and Gear 3rd abilities fall under the umbrella of Gear 4th.
To put it more simply, all of Luffy’s rubbery abilities outside Gear 5th could now be labeled as Gear 4th techniques. It would certainly make a lot of sense, where, if Luffy now is able to do something like a Kong Gun One of the biggest problems with Luffy going Gear 4th earlier was its stamina cost, where heavy usage affected Luffy so much that he was no longer able to use Haki afterwards.
If Luffy on Elbaf no longer needs the transformations however, this could also mean that the earlier stamina issue has also been solved, where Luffy is now able to keep doing Gear 4th techniques without gassing out. For a brief recap, when Luffy used Gear 4th for too long before, he was both extremely fatigued and unable to use Haki for 10 minutes afterwards.
This was the case when he used it for the first time against Doffy, and still applied when he fought against Kaido. On Elbaf however, Luffy is now willing to use something like the Kong Gun, a technique that he used as a last resort against Doflamingo, just to destroy a simple wall – and he once again did this without even transforming.
This could well mean that Luffy has now completely overcome Gear 4th’s stamina issue. If he is now casually able to do something like this, imagine if Luffy is also able perform moves like the King Kong Gun or the Over Kong Gun as essentially basic attacks. However, we can go even deeper than this.
A thing Luffy could do with his Awakening is further mix his Gear 2nd, Gear 3rd and Gear 4th techniques. This is already something Luffy did before in the story, where he for example made Snakeman’s Jet Culverin technique, which combined both Gear 2nd and Gear 4th abilities. If the idea of Luffy using the Kong Gun as a basic attack isn’t crazy enough, what if Luffy made a Jet version of that ability? To go even further, what if Luffy actually combined the strength of Boundman with the speed of Snakeman?
For example, Luffy could perform Snakeman’s Python ability, but instead of it being just Luffy’s regular hand that delivered the damage, it would actually be a Kong Gun fist. And Luffy would still manage to do this with the speed and frequency of Snakeman. And he’d be able to do all of this without needing to transform or without needing crazy stamina.
Luffy’s first few scenes in Elbaf open a whole world of possibilities on what he could potentially now do with his Devil Fruit Awakening without even having to go Gear 5th. If you actually have your own ideas on how Luffy could further combine Gear 2nd, Gear 3rd and Gear 4th, I’d actually like to hear it in the comments… but don’t even dare comment before hitting the like button for this video.
Arguably, as an Emperor of the Sea, this is the level of power we should expect from Luffy at this point in the story. Just looking at his fellow Emperors, Kaido was also able to perform pretty incredible feats such as defeating all of the Scabbards or even beating Luffy himself without the use of any Devil Fruit transformations.
Another example would be Big Mom, who was able to completely overpower Queen with just raw physical might, without the need of her Devil Fruit abilities or even Haki. Even though the Emperors are some of the strongest characters in One Piece, they’ve demonstrated that this doesn’t just apply to their strongest forms, but that they’re complete monsters even when using their most basic abilities.
The story even makes fun of this on occasion, where Big Mom makes half the Straw Hat crew flee from her when she’s just thrashing about in her sleep, or when Kaido complains that his head hurts when he falls to the ground from a drop of 10 kilometers. Luffy could now be a similar force of nature as the other Yonko, where if he wanted, he could do something like go by himself to a country like Wano or Totland, and actually beat everyone there without even having to transform.
This is not to say that Luffy still doesn’t have room to grow however. Even after Awakening his Devil Fruit on Wano, Luffy is still in the process of learning, where for example during Egghead, he clearly still needed to transform to perform Gear 4th techniques. So while Luffy right now can perform something like the Kong Gun without needing to transform into Boundman, he might still not be at a level where he can do the same with the King Kong Gun or the other more powerful Gear 4th techniques.
In the future however, do not be surprised if Luffy runs into someone like Doflamingo, and this time just takes him out with one Gear 4th move without even having to transform. Though I guess Doflamingo would have the last laugh in a situation like this, since Luffy no longer transforming into Boundman kinda proves him right, where Doffy when he first saw the form said that it looked stupid.
Actually you could argue that Doflamingo is the one responsible for the topic of this entire video, because he’s the one who originally explained to Luffy what Awakening was back on Dressrosa. Luffy might have never even gotten the idea to turn the environment into rubber if it wasn’t for Doffy.
I guess this means you can put Doffy up there with Luffy’s other great teachers like Rayleigh, Katakuri and Kaido. Anyway, if you’d like to hear more about me talking about the Straw Hats’ new potential power ups on Elbaf, you should check out this video, where I go over Elbaf actually being an incredibly important arc for Zoro’s character.