I honestly never thought a shonen power up would do more for me than Super Saiyan. All the other transformations after (Ascended Saiyan, Super Saiyan 3, etc) didn't do much for me (I thought 3 was stupid as hell due to the hair). 4 in GT was okay, but GT was... ugh, and sadly, I've never got into Super because at this point I'm just waiting for the series to end to catch up to it. So, no Ultra Instinct or God stuff here, just the original DRAGON BALL Z, HUNT THE DRAGON, HUNT THE DRAGON, DRAGONBAAAAAALL ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (guitar riffs intensify)
Goku had been serious at times in fights, but Super Saiyan was the first time we saw his full warrior spirit come out, the raging great ape inside. While this was lost later on, what made the original Super Saiyan transformation startling was Goku was PISSED. Even at his worst, Goku had always had some level of happines and joy in his fights.
Freiza was the first time he actually got PISSED, to the point he was willing to snap and bark at Gohan, surprising the hell out of Gohan, who had NEVER seen his father act like that. Super Saiyan was the Saiyan bloodlust and battle instinct in Goku perfectly mixing with his human kindness and desire to protect his friends and family.
Afterwards, the series has never really known what to do with his character; Goku already peaked years ago, IMO. Gohan SHOULD HAVE become the new protagonist after the Cell Saga, but instead, Super Saiyan became a joke for a while, which is my biggest issue with it. Its original portayal was AMAZING, but, a lot of the Super Saiyan stuff has been just... bad since. Uninspired. Rather than be an ultimate form where Goku acts like a badass, it just became another convenient stepping stone transformation.
This is what separates Super Saiyan from Gear 5. Gear 5 IS LUFFY'S PEAK. Gear 5 isn't some transformation sequence that's going to be discarded for a new one in a few volumes. Gear 5 is Luffy's ultimate form, all of his training, kindness, and dreams coming together.
If you never read Skypiea, you might be stupid enough to act like Gear 5 was a retcon. Nope; Oda has been planning this crap for a LOOOOOONG time, with panels in Skypiea directly being referenced in the first few Gear 5 panels; you even have Conis in Skypiea praying to the real god to save them from Enel. Who saves them? The Sun God, Nika. Luffy being a true hero/deity who defeats false deities was shown as far back as Skypiea, and then again in Sabaody with the Charlos punch, then again in Dressrosa with Doffy being the Heavenly Demon.
Luffy being an immortal figure (within the context of reaching the end of the story, he could die at the end) who defeats false gods is a canon plot point.
Furthermore, Luffy's Fruit NEVER made any sense to begin with, because the closer he grew to Awakening, the less his Fruit made sense. Gear 2 involved him using his rubber body to artificially increase his blood flow and oxygen intake to artifically dope his body through pumping the blood faster. How the fuck does that make any sense, even in One Piece? Gear 3 is literally the dude turning his body parts into giant balloons. WTF, he didn't eat the balloon fruit, this is not how rubber limbs would work. Same thing with Gear 4 to an extreme extent, as he's inflating his muscles; Kaido even comments on Snake Man's redirect attacks, saying they make NO SENSE in the context of Luffy having a Rubber Fruit.
Even amonst other Devil Fruit users, people have always reacted to Luffy's Fruit with a level of disbelief and at times terror. He's always been our giggling rubber psychopath.
Through Wano Act 3, we hear Hyrogoro refer to Luffy as a Wisdom God while in Gear 4, and also see the discussions with Who's Who and Mr. Go hyping up the potential of Joy Boy and Luffy's Fruit.
This is how you do a stealth reveal: connect a bunch of powerful characters (Shanks and Joy Boy) to the narrative; tease it right during a huge fight; have the protagonist lose in a tragic way; reveal their power just when things are looking grim, and have another character hype the hell out of them (bonus points if you foreshadowed this years ago like Oda did with Skypiea). Super Saiyan checks a lot of these boxes, too.
But, Luffy had to seriously bust his ass off to reach Gear 5. He did explicit training for it, that actually led to his Haki and body reaching levels that could keep up with his Awakening. Goku did gravity and martial arts training, but none of it really connected to him going Super Saiyan (maybe Kaioken a little?).
The lore behind Super Saiyans was always murky at best, and the actual build up to Goku transforming, while cool, didn't have as much emotional build up to it. There aren't fucking Dargon Balls in One Piece, if Nami dies, chick is dead.
Krillin died, yeah, but... we all knew that fucker was coming back again. Death in One Piece is death, it just rarely happens and Oda has a fakeout death fetish.
Really wish Kaido had offed another Scabbard or something at least when he came down from the roof after Luffy's "death".
As cool as Super Saiyan was, it was another "Shonen Protagonist gets really angry and shows their true power that's been teased for a while" moment. That's happened before PLENTY it's just Super Saiyan did it best at its time. Gear 5 is much more unique and unexpected.
Super Saiyan ruined Dragon Ball on some level. During the rest of Z post Namek, any non-Android or Saiyan character was beyond useless, which as far as I know, is still the case in Super. Dragon Ball Z was already on the path the abandoning any non-Saiyan's as serious fighters as early as the Yamcha death pose, but, Super Saiyan and its subsequent forms guaranteed non-Saiyans would also be hot doggy doo doo.
In the One Piece universe, some drunk homeless looking dude with one arm that lets people pick on him in bar fights could fuck Luffy up with no Devil Fruit whatsoever. Gear 5 did nothing to break One Piece's narrative, powerscaling, or characters (so far). It's the peak of them.
Luffy has always been a goofy fighter who uses weird ass techniques in battle, it's one of the reasons his enemies don't know what to do with him at times. Luffy has always gone around liberating people and making allies wherever he went. Luffy has always saved people when they were at their lowest with his smile and courage. Gear 5 is the natural evolution of his character and traits.
Gear 5 is the peak of One Piece, a laughing, goofy goober beating up the strongest people in the world in the most ridiculous ways possible, just because he loves his friends and wants to have a big party with them.
All of our power-scaling and shitfuck agenda are a product of our addiction to spoilers, delusions, and at times (I bet on ZKK after Wano ended) outright mental illness. Oda doesn't give a fuck about that shit, to him, Gear 5 is peak Luffy.
Super Saiyan, like most power up, involved the main character screaming and growing incredibly strong all at once. While the presentation was FANTASTIC the basic elements had all been done before.
Gear 5 subverts shonen tropes completely, by having a quiet, then booming drum beat sound. Rather than scream or rage, as his heartbeat dances with liberation and joy, the corner of Luffy's lips creep up his cheeks until he's grinning like a madman.
Rather than rage, he gets up, starts dancing and bouncing, then, with a maniac smile, smashes down into Onigashima, pulls Kaido back up, and gives him the Toon Force.
This is Luffy's ULTIMATE REJECTION OF KAIDO. Kaido, who thinks a party is getting drunk, then dropping his giant house on a bunch of other people's smaller houses to kill them, starts getting his ass handed to him by some giggling monster who just wants to dance to his own heartbeat.
Luffy just spits on all of Kaido's drunken rage, remorse, sorrow, hatred, whining, by laughing in his face and smirking... through the fight, Kaido is nothing like Frieza. He isn't a powerful, unstoppable force. He has trauma. He's broken. He's suicidal. He lets people get easy attacks in because he wants to die, gets pissed when they can't kill him, then is a hypocrite, dodges strong strikes, and gets pissed at Luffy when Luffys calls him out for it.
Freiza vs Goku was a 1v1 where a known unstoppable force is playing with its food, like a cat with a mouse, but Goku keeps growing, until Frieza finally breaks him emotionally, and pushes him past his known limits.
Kaido vs Luffy is a suicidal drunk old man hoping some young guy full of hops and dreams will become Joy Boy and will finally kill him.
That is why Kaido was SO PISSED when Mr. Go fucked over Luffy. Kaido WANTED TO BE LIBERATED more than anyone. If you look at his faces before Luffy's death, Kaido is having the time of his life. He's truly smiling, no longer out of rage or hatred, but pure enjoyment FOR LUFFY (Kaido looking kinda hot here, too, not going to lie).
THAT IS WHAT MAKES GEAR 5 SO POWERFUL. As a straight fight, Goku vs Frieza is superior to Luffy vs Kaido, to me. BUT the emotional stakes in Luffy vs Kaido hits so much harder.
Gear 5 being a powerup the protagonist gets to liberate his suicidial arch-enemy is just... such amazing, witty writing.
Kaido was the one MOST LIBERATED by Joy Boy. Luffy actually made that old, genocidal bastard smile again.
Frieza is just an evil bastard who is REALLY good and REALLY entertaining at being an evil bastard. As much as I love Dragon Ball Z, it's nowhere near as deep as One Piece when it comes to plot, characters, and motivations.
I can definitely agree Goku vs Frieza is a more satisfying fight overall, BUT, Gear 5 is a greater power-up than Super Saiyan to me, because it is much more important to the plot and connected to Luffy as an overall character.
Super Saiyan may be the more iconic moment (definitely as of now) but Gear 5 is a superior power-up, and truly shows what One Piece is; a story about how dreams, will, friendship, and laughter can change the world.
After over a 1,000 chapters, 1,000 episodes, seeing Luffy reach his peak, and still be himself... seeing his peak being him laughing his ass off while using a giant dragon as a jump rope... that's peak creativity to me. Gear 5 was something no one expected, and having the cartoon protagonist literally become a cartoon protagonist is such a zany idea few people have the balls or ovaries to try.
I fucking hope Oda doesn't make Gear 6 or some dumb shit, having a final form of Gear 5 or different forms like Gear 4 is fine, but NO FUCKING RANDOM GIANT HAIR GROWTH, ODA, DO NOT GIVE LUFFY HAIR LONGER THAN THE LENGTH OF HIS BODY, FUCK SUPER SAIYAN 3.
Gear 5 is PERFECT for this series, and is my favorite power up of all time based on how it connects to the character, story, and world.
WE'RE TOON PIECE NOW, BABY
Goku had been serious at times in fights, but Super Saiyan was the first time we saw his full warrior spirit come out, the raging great ape inside. While this was lost later on, what made the original Super Saiyan transformation startling was Goku was PISSED. Even at his worst, Goku had always had some level of happines and joy in his fights.
Freiza was the first time he actually got PISSED, to the point he was willing to snap and bark at Gohan, surprising the hell out of Gohan, who had NEVER seen his father act like that. Super Saiyan was the Saiyan bloodlust and battle instinct in Goku perfectly mixing with his human kindness and desire to protect his friends and family.
Afterwards, the series has never really known what to do with his character; Goku already peaked years ago, IMO. Gohan SHOULD HAVE become the new protagonist after the Cell Saga, but instead, Super Saiyan became a joke for a while, which is my biggest issue with it. Its original portayal was AMAZING, but, a lot of the Super Saiyan stuff has been just... bad since. Uninspired. Rather than be an ultimate form where Goku acts like a badass, it just became another convenient stepping stone transformation.
This is what separates Super Saiyan from Gear 5. Gear 5 IS LUFFY'S PEAK. Gear 5 isn't some transformation sequence that's going to be discarded for a new one in a few volumes. Gear 5 is Luffy's ultimate form, all of his training, kindness, and dreams coming together.
Gear 5 has years of development and foreshadowing
If you never read Skypiea, you might be stupid enough to act like Gear 5 was a retcon. Nope; Oda has been planning this crap for a LOOOOOONG time, with panels in Skypiea directly being referenced in the first few Gear 5 panels; you even have Conis in Skypiea praying to the real god to save them from Enel. Who saves them? The Sun God, Nika. Luffy being a true hero/deity who defeats false deities was shown as far back as Skypiea, and then again in Sabaody with the Charlos punch, then again in Dressrosa with Doffy being the Heavenly Demon.
Luffy being an immortal figure (within the context of reaching the end of the story, he could die at the end) who defeats false gods is a canon plot point.
Furthermore, Luffy's Fruit NEVER made any sense to begin with, because the closer he grew to Awakening, the less his Fruit made sense. Gear 2 involved him using his rubber body to artificially increase his blood flow and oxygen intake to artifically dope his body through pumping the blood faster. How the fuck does that make any sense, even in One Piece? Gear 3 is literally the dude turning his body parts into giant balloons. WTF, he didn't eat the balloon fruit, this is not how rubber limbs would work. Same thing with Gear 4 to an extreme extent, as he's inflating his muscles; Kaido even comments on Snake Man's redirect attacks, saying they make NO SENSE in the context of Luffy having a Rubber Fruit.
Even amonst other Devil Fruit users, people have always reacted to Luffy's Fruit with a level of disbelief and at times terror. He's always been our giggling rubber psychopath.
Through Wano Act 3, we hear Hyrogoro refer to Luffy as a Wisdom God while in Gear 4, and also see the discussions with Who's Who and Mr. Go hyping up the potential of Joy Boy and Luffy's Fruit.
This is how you do a stealth reveal: connect a bunch of powerful characters (Shanks and Joy Boy) to the narrative; tease it right during a huge fight; have the protagonist lose in a tragic way; reveal their power just when things are looking grim, and have another character hype the hell out of them (bonus points if you foreshadowed this years ago like Oda did with Skypiea). Super Saiyan checks a lot of these boxes, too.
But, Luffy had to seriously bust his ass off to reach Gear 5. He did explicit training for it, that actually led to his Haki and body reaching levels that could keep up with his Awakening. Goku did gravity and martial arts training, but none of it really connected to him going Super Saiyan (maybe Kaioken a little?).
The lore behind Super Saiyans was always murky at best, and the actual build up to Goku transforming, while cool, didn't have as much emotional build up to it. There aren't fucking Dargon Balls in One Piece, if Nami dies, chick is dead.
Krillin died, yeah, but... we all knew that fucker was coming back again. Death in One Piece is death, it just rarely happens and Oda has a fakeout death fetish.
Really wish Kaido had offed another Scabbard or something at least when he came down from the roof after Luffy's "death".
As cool as Super Saiyan was, it was another "Shonen Protagonist gets really angry and shows their true power that's been teased for a while" moment. That's happened before PLENTY it's just Super Saiyan did it best at its time. Gear 5 is much more unique and unexpected.
Gear 5 Perfectly Fits Luffy as a Character and the Series' Narrative
Super Saiyan ruined Dragon Ball on some level. During the rest of Z post Namek, any non-Android or Saiyan character was beyond useless, which as far as I know, is still the case in Super. Dragon Ball Z was already on the path the abandoning any non-Saiyan's as serious fighters as early as the Yamcha death pose, but, Super Saiyan and its subsequent forms guaranteed non-Saiyans would also be hot doggy doo doo.
In the One Piece universe, some drunk homeless looking dude with one arm that lets people pick on him in bar fights could fuck Luffy up with no Devil Fruit whatsoever. Gear 5 did nothing to break One Piece's narrative, powerscaling, or characters (so far). It's the peak of them.
Luffy has always been a goofy fighter who uses weird ass techniques in battle, it's one of the reasons his enemies don't know what to do with him at times. Luffy has always gone around liberating people and making allies wherever he went. Luffy has always saved people when they were at their lowest with his smile and courage. Gear 5 is the natural evolution of his character and traits.
Gear 5 is the peak of One Piece, a laughing, goofy goober beating up the strongest people in the world in the most ridiculous ways possible, just because he loves his friends and wants to have a big party with them.
All of our power-scaling and shitfuck agenda are a product of our addiction to spoilers, delusions, and at times (I bet on ZKK after Wano ended) outright mental illness. Oda doesn't give a fuck about that shit, to him, Gear 5 is peak Luffy.
Super Saiyan, like most power up, involved the main character screaming and growing incredibly strong all at once. While the presentation was FANTASTIC the basic elements had all been done before.
Gear 5 subverts shonen tropes completely, by having a quiet, then booming drum beat sound. Rather than scream or rage, as his heartbeat dances with liberation and joy, the corner of Luffy's lips creep up his cheeks until he's grinning like a madman.
Rather than rage, he gets up, starts dancing and bouncing, then, with a maniac smile, smashes down into Onigashima, pulls Kaido back up, and gives him the Toon Force.
This is Luffy's ULTIMATE REJECTION OF KAIDO. Kaido, who thinks a party is getting drunk, then dropping his giant house on a bunch of other people's smaller houses to kill them, starts getting his ass handed to him by some giggling monster who just wants to dance to his own heartbeat.
Luffy just spits on all of Kaido's drunken rage, remorse, sorrow, hatred, whining, by laughing in his face and smirking... through the fight, Kaido is nothing like Frieza. He isn't a powerful, unstoppable force. He has trauma. He's broken. He's suicidal. He lets people get easy attacks in because he wants to die, gets pissed when they can't kill him, then is a hypocrite, dodges strong strikes, and gets pissed at Luffy when Luffys calls him out for it.
Freiza vs Goku was a 1v1 where a known unstoppable force is playing with its food, like a cat with a mouse, but Goku keeps growing, until Frieza finally breaks him emotionally, and pushes him past his known limits.
Kaido vs Luffy is a suicidal drunk old man hoping some young guy full of hops and dreams will become Joy Boy and will finally kill him.
That is why Kaido was SO PISSED when Mr. Go fucked over Luffy. Kaido WANTED TO BE LIBERATED more than anyone. If you look at his faces before Luffy's death, Kaido is having the time of his life. He's truly smiling, no longer out of rage or hatred, but pure enjoyment FOR LUFFY (Kaido looking kinda hot here, too, not going to lie).
THAT IS WHAT MAKES GEAR 5 SO POWERFUL. As a straight fight, Goku vs Frieza is superior to Luffy vs Kaido, to me. BUT the emotional stakes in Luffy vs Kaido hits so much harder.
Gear 5 being a powerup the protagonist gets to liberate his suicidial arch-enemy is just... such amazing, witty writing.
Kaido was the one MOST LIBERATED by Joy Boy. Luffy actually made that old, genocidal bastard smile again.
Frieza is just an evil bastard who is REALLY good and REALLY entertaining at being an evil bastard. As much as I love Dragon Ball Z, it's nowhere near as deep as One Piece when it comes to plot, characters, and motivations.
I can definitely agree Goku vs Frieza is a more satisfying fight overall, BUT, Gear 5 is a greater power-up than Super Saiyan to me, because it is much more important to the plot and connected to Luffy as an overall character.
Super Saiyan may be the more iconic moment (definitely as of now) but Gear 5 is a superior power-up, and truly shows what One Piece is; a story about how dreams, will, friendship, and laughter can change the world.
After over a 1,000 chapters, 1,000 episodes, seeing Luffy reach his peak, and still be himself... seeing his peak being him laughing his ass off while using a giant dragon as a jump rope... that's peak creativity to me. Gear 5 was something no one expected, and having the cartoon protagonist literally become a cartoon protagonist is such a zany idea few people have the balls or ovaries to try.
I fucking hope Oda doesn't make Gear 6 or some dumb shit, having a final form of Gear 5 or different forms like Gear 4 is fine, but NO FUCKING RANDOM GIANT HAIR GROWTH, ODA, DO NOT GIVE LUFFY HAIR LONGER THAN THE LENGTH OF HIS BODY, FUCK SUPER SAIYAN 3.
Gear 5 is PERFECT for this series, and is my favorite power up of all time based on how it connects to the character, story, and world.
WE'RE TOON PIECE NOW, BABY
