I have to confess, I really disliked the events after Luffy's awakening mainly because toonforce made a serious battle look ridiculous. After reading the next chapters though Luffy's "changed" behavior started making sense (not the googly eyes though, I am still trying to figure that out). That was for two reasons;
I started rereading one piece and realized that Luffy was always being goofy during his fights and that changed not only for Luffy but for the rest of the strawhats after the timeskip which I believe it was due to the shock of their defeat in Sabaody. There were some moments that Luffy was being goofy afterwards (like his UFO attack) and was immediately lectured by Zoro. After years of watching the strawhats with this new behavior, I believe we forgot that one piece always had the goofy element which made as laugh. That should be especially true now that Luffy was given the title of Joyboy. I mean what kind of boy of Joy would he be If he was mercilessly crippling his opponent with his new power. This goofy behavior had the same effect to me and all the one piece reviewers (and I suspect to all of you too), even though it was silly and we raised our eyebrows a few times, we laughed, which I believe was what Oda was aiming for. Joyboy put a smile on his grumpy opponent and even made the readers laugh.
Secondly I had the unrealistic expectations that Luffy's gear 5 would be something even crazier than Gear 4, like being a giant or some other crazy form. I was also into the resin theory but I really didn't expect the Hito Hito fruit reveal so I became prejudiced because of the shock of this completely unexpected reveal which changed everything I thought I knew about Luffy's fruit.
In reality what happened is the exact same thing as with Chopper. Monster point is Chopper's awakening which he achieved prematurely thanks to science, but since zoan fruits have a will of their own and chopper's mind and body was unprepared (according to Kaido's explanation both body and mind need to be prepared for awakening) he went berserk and he almost died. After the timeskip Chopper trained his mind to control the will of the fruit but his body still couldn't handle it so he still needed a rumble ball to transform and there was a time limit and afterwards he couldn't even move. After pushing himself even further during the war, he turned into an old man, which is the same thing that happened to Luffy after pushing himself. Franky going Berserk while he was in choppers body was another indication about how strong the fruit's will is and the mental preparation needed to control it.
Luffy on the other hand slowly progresses to the awakening by training and coming up with the gear system so in the end his body was ready (but since he was already at his limit before the awakening the transformation had a bigger impact on him) but since this was his first transformation, his mind was not 100% ready. This is why we see God Nika taking over during Luffy's first transformation and simply being silly, like he forgot the consequences of losing this fight (remember how he rushed his last G4 attack because time was running out). The second time he transformed, he did it consciously so he had greater control over his fruit's will and you see more of Luffy during the fight who is really starting to focus more on damaging Kaido instead of messing around with him.
In hindsight, Gear 5 being luffy's awakening makes 100% sense, I mean there is nothing else left to inflate. Luffy is transforming his environment and his opponent to gum, he has much greater control over his abilities, like using observation haki to take the shape of Kaido's weapon and avoid deadly damage. It's actually exactly how I imagined him fighting after his awakening.
There were always indications about Luffy's connection to sun god Nika and in hindsight it should have been obvious after gear 4 if you know what to look for. Gear 4 is Luffy's first pre-awakening transformation and the key here is the omega shaped smoke around Luffy's neck.
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it looks like more advanced forms of gear 4 have a more distinct and clear smoke shape which could mean that snakeman is the closest form to gear 5. And this smoke "collar" is the key to connect Luffy to sun god Nika. The fishmen royals use the exact same shape for decorating their cloths and there is a very strong connection between Fishmen and Joyboy/Sun god Nika.
If we stretch this even further back, you could say that "God" Enel tried to copy the Sun God's appearance during an arc that looks like it's the most important one after all regarding the history of one piece and god Nika...
Regarding the last panel, I don't think Luffy is grabbed an actual thunderbolt from the stormy sky. From what I ve seen since Luffy's awakening, he was unleashing Conqueror's Haki like a madman. You can see the signature black lighting of Conqueror's haki coming from the sky during the past chapters. If you remember during Luffy's and Kaido's clash, they split the sky and cleared all clouds and after Luffy's awakening there are clouds full of Haki lighting everywhere so I believe Luffy is creating them maybe from the steam he is releasing combined with his insane Haki. If this is true, in the last panel Luffy is actually holding a Conqueror's haki thunderbolt spear which only makes me think that there is a lot more to learn about Haki in the future and the black lighting is not just an over the top effect just so the reader can tell when someone is using Conqueror's Haki. Hell, after today's chapter I am even starting to think Luffy is the ancient weapon Uranus.
These are my thoughts about the last few crazy One piece chapters! I don't know if what I said was discussed previously but if it didn't I would love to hear your thoughts as well.
I started rereading one piece and realized that Luffy was always being goofy during his fights and that changed not only for Luffy but for the rest of the strawhats after the timeskip which I believe it was due to the shock of their defeat in Sabaody. There were some moments that Luffy was being goofy afterwards (like his UFO attack) and was immediately lectured by Zoro. After years of watching the strawhats with this new behavior, I believe we forgot that one piece always had the goofy element which made as laugh. That should be especially true now that Luffy was given the title of Joyboy. I mean what kind of boy of Joy would he be If he was mercilessly crippling his opponent with his new power. This goofy behavior had the same effect to me and all the one piece reviewers (and I suspect to all of you too), even though it was silly and we raised our eyebrows a few times, we laughed, which I believe was what Oda was aiming for. Joyboy put a smile on his grumpy opponent and even made the readers laugh.
Secondly I had the unrealistic expectations that Luffy's gear 5 would be something even crazier than Gear 4, like being a giant or some other crazy form. I was also into the resin theory but I really didn't expect the Hito Hito fruit reveal so I became prejudiced because of the shock of this completely unexpected reveal which changed everything I thought I knew about Luffy's fruit.
In reality what happened is the exact same thing as with Chopper. Monster point is Chopper's awakening which he achieved prematurely thanks to science, but since zoan fruits have a will of their own and chopper's mind and body was unprepared (according to Kaido's explanation both body and mind need to be prepared for awakening) he went berserk and he almost died. After the timeskip Chopper trained his mind to control the will of the fruit but his body still couldn't handle it so he still needed a rumble ball to transform and there was a time limit and afterwards he couldn't even move. After pushing himself even further during the war, he turned into an old man, which is the same thing that happened to Luffy after pushing himself. Franky going Berserk while he was in choppers body was another indication about how strong the fruit's will is and the mental preparation needed to control it.
Luffy on the other hand slowly progresses to the awakening by training and coming up with the gear system so in the end his body was ready (but since he was already at his limit before the awakening the transformation had a bigger impact on him) but since this was his first transformation, his mind was not 100% ready. This is why we see God Nika taking over during Luffy's first transformation and simply being silly, like he forgot the consequences of losing this fight (remember how he rushed his last G4 attack because time was running out). The second time he transformed, he did it consciously so he had greater control over his fruit's will and you see more of Luffy during the fight who is really starting to focus more on damaging Kaido instead of messing around with him.
In hindsight, Gear 5 being luffy's awakening makes 100% sense, I mean there is nothing else left to inflate. Luffy is transforming his environment and his opponent to gum, he has much greater control over his abilities, like using observation haki to take the shape of Kaido's weapon and avoid deadly damage. It's actually exactly how I imagined him fighting after his awakening.
There were always indications about Luffy's connection to sun god Nika and in hindsight it should have been obvious after gear 4 if you know what to look for. Gear 4 is Luffy's first pre-awakening transformation and the key here is the omega shaped smoke around Luffy's neck.
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it looks like more advanced forms of gear 4 have a more distinct and clear smoke shape which could mean that snakeman is the closest form to gear 5. And this smoke "collar" is the key to connect Luffy to sun god Nika. The fishmen royals use the exact same shape for decorating their cloths and there is a very strong connection between Fishmen and Joyboy/Sun god Nika.
If we stretch this even further back, you could say that "God" Enel tried to copy the Sun God's appearance during an arc that looks like it's the most important one after all regarding the history of one piece and god Nika...
Regarding the last panel, I don't think Luffy is grabbed an actual thunderbolt from the stormy sky. From what I ve seen since Luffy's awakening, he was unleashing Conqueror's Haki like a madman. You can see the signature black lighting of Conqueror's haki coming from the sky during the past chapters. If you remember during Luffy's and Kaido's clash, they split the sky and cleared all clouds and after Luffy's awakening there are clouds full of Haki lighting everywhere so I believe Luffy is creating them maybe from the steam he is releasing combined with his insane Haki. If this is true, in the last panel Luffy is actually holding a Conqueror's haki thunderbolt spear which only makes me think that there is a lot more to learn about Haki in the future and the black lighting is not just an over the top effect just so the reader can tell when someone is using Conqueror's Haki. Hell, after today's chapter I am even starting to think Luffy is the ancient weapon Uranus.
These are my thoughts about the last few crazy One piece chapters! I don't know if what I said was discussed previously but if it didn't I would love to hear your thoughts as well.
Momo's mustache
