One Piece: How Gear 5 Gives Oda Unlimited Creative Freedom

Monkey D. Luffy’s Gear 5 is a form that has rewritten many of the rules for transformations in shonen anime and manga, taking a route that tends towards the absurd. In many ways, this is a natural move for One Piece’s creator, Eiichiro Oda, whose ability to subvert expectations is second to none when it comes to the development of Luffy’s combat abilities. Flashes of Oda’s incredibly inventive approach to shonen power ups have been seen in Gear 2, 3, and 4, with Gear 5 serving as an organic successor to all of them.