Luffy’s Gear Fifth Is The Perfect Callback To One Piece’s Roots

Warning: Contains spoilers for One Piece episode #1071.The One Piece anime has finally gotten to Gear Fifth’s debut, and even more so than the manga, the form is a perfect callback to the series’ roots. Gear 5 serves as the Awakened form of the Gum-Gum Fruit, and as such, using it allows Luffy to further enhance the rubber-based abilities he had access to in its previous forms. Not only is Luffy able to turn his surroundings into rubber and both bounce around on and stretch them accordingly, but his own body becomes able to move with even more fluidity and eccentricity, almost as if he were a rubber hose cartoon character.