As the title says, i decided to focus this topic around Luffy's evolution on his way to defeat Kaido.
To start talking about it, i'd first make a resume of Luffy's technique evolutions from his base, gear2, gear3 and gear4 that we most probably already know, but still be interesting to point out
Base Luffy
As we all know, Luffy started his pirate career by one shoting a seaking with his jet pistol
It was a move he always tried to pull off from the get go, wanting his punch to be as powerful as a pistol
And from that moment, he developed variations like
> Bazooka
> Gatling gun
> Or Rifle
Gear 2 Luffy
After his defeat to Aokiji however, he started thinking about ways to go stronger, which led to him developing gear 2, which he first displayed in his fight against Blueno, showing evolution of his base techniques
> Pistol became Jet Pistol
> Bazooka became Jet Bazooka
And similar to the rest of his moves
Gear 3 Luffy
Gear 3 was the secondarily power-up he gained alongside his gear 2 version in his off-panel training to become stronger, but unlike gear 2, gear 3 was straight up power focused, with it's first on-panel appearance happening during the fight against Lucci(he used it off-panel on a steel door, but it wasn't visibly seen)
And thus his pistol move became giant pistol
With the giant being added as an upgrade to the rest of his moves. This was pretimeskip
-------------
With the timeskip and the training to gain / master 3 types of haki, Luffy's move names also changed with the application of hardening. As examples
> His Gear 2 jet rifle became hawk rifle
> Developed a Gear 2 red hawk
> Gear 3 Luffy's giant pistol became elephant gun
> Gear 3 Luffy's giant bazooka became grizzly magnum
> Red Hawk's equivalent in Gear 3 turned out to be Red Roc(first see in the battle against Kaido)
And so on
Gear 4
And the new evolution Luffy displayed after the timeskip was his Gear4, which was first shown in the battle against Doflamingo.
> The pistol equivalent in this form was named Kong Gun
> The bazooka equivalent turned out to Leo Bazooka
> The gatling equivalent turning out to be Kong Gatling
Next evolution
The explanations above only served as an introduction. All these details aside, the particular interesting part is the next move evolution that Oda already hinted at since Dressrosa
Indeed, in dressrosa, while drawing Luffy's finisher against Doflamingo, he used a King Kong move, named King Kong Gun
The addition of the word King before the regular G4 Kong Gun move suggested at that moment, that it was on a level higher than the regular Kong Gun move
And thus based on Luffy's move evolutions since the beginning of the manga, i think it's safe to assume that it was perfectly timed in prepations to use variations of King Kong moves and thus leading us to see the evolutions of Leo Bazooka, Rhino Schneider, Kong Gatling, and others
The first time we saw King kong gun, he specifically pumped his gear 4 arm
And we know that during the specific training that led him to learn level 3 hardening, he could casually throw King Kong Gun(with lvl2 hardening) now
So based on this, i think it might already be the right time for Luffy to show the next level of his King Kong level moves, which should be even more destructive with the application of level 3 hardening on top of it, which could also explain why Gear 4 seemingly became casual to him
He is already ready for the next step. Furthermore, since there is a Gear 3 version of red hawk, there should probably be a Gear 4 version of the move as well. Infact judging by the parallel Oda created between Luffy, Ace, Tama and Kaido, i won't be surprised if Oda used a variation of this technique as his finisher to defeat Kaido
Would also be fitting for Kaido to be defeated by King Kong moves seeing how
> He is called King of the beasts
> Luffy has a monkey theme, with his king kong moves potentially be a reference to King Kong
Now i know that some people are thinking there will be a gear 5, but with the King Kong moves, i don't think it'd be case
Thanks for reading
To start talking about it, i'd first make a resume of Luffy's technique evolutions from his base, gear2, gear3 and gear4 that we most probably already know, but still be interesting to point out
Base Luffy
As we all know, Luffy started his pirate career by one shoting a seaking with his jet pistol
It was a move he always tried to pull off from the get go, wanting his punch to be as powerful as a pistol
And from that moment, he developed variations like
> Bazooka
Gear 2 Luffy
After his defeat to Aokiji however, he started thinking about ways to go stronger, which led to him developing gear 2, which he first displayed in his fight against Blueno, showing evolution of his base techniques
> Pistol became Jet Pistol
> Bazooka became Jet Bazooka
And similar to the rest of his moves
Gear 3 Luffy
Gear 3 was the secondarily power-up he gained alongside his gear 2 version in his off-panel training to become stronger, but unlike gear 2, gear 3 was straight up power focused, with it's first on-panel appearance happening during the fight against Lucci(he used it off-panel on a steel door, but it wasn't visibly seen)
And thus his pistol move became giant pistol
With the giant being added as an upgrade to the rest of his moves. This was pretimeskip
-------------
With the timeskip and the training to gain / master 3 types of haki, Luffy's move names also changed with the application of hardening. As examples
> His Gear 2 jet rifle became hawk rifle
> Developed a Gear 2 red hawk
> Gear 3 Luffy's giant pistol became elephant gun
> Gear 3 Luffy's giant bazooka became grizzly magnum
> Red Hawk's equivalent in Gear 3 turned out to be Red Roc(first see in the battle against Kaido)
And so on
Gear 4
And the new evolution Luffy displayed after the timeskip was his Gear4, which was first shown in the battle against Doflamingo.
> The pistol equivalent in this form was named Kong Gun
> The bazooka equivalent turned out to Leo Bazooka
> The gatling equivalent turning out to be Kong Gatling
Next evolution
The explanations above only served as an introduction. All these details aside, the particular interesting part is the next move evolution that Oda already hinted at since Dressrosa
Indeed, in dressrosa, while drawing Luffy's finisher against Doflamingo, he used a King Kong move, named King Kong Gun
The addition of the word King before the regular G4 Kong Gun move suggested at that moment, that it was on a level higher than the regular Kong Gun move
And thus based on Luffy's move evolutions since the beginning of the manga, i think it's safe to assume that it was perfectly timed in prepations to use variations of King Kong moves and thus leading us to see the evolutions of Leo Bazooka, Rhino Schneider, Kong Gatling, and others
The first time we saw King kong gun, he specifically pumped his gear 4 arm
And we know that during the specific training that led him to learn level 3 hardening, he could casually throw King Kong Gun(with lvl2 hardening) now
So based on this, i think it might already be the right time for Luffy to show the next level of his King Kong level moves, which should be even more destructive with the application of level 3 hardening on top of it, which could also explain why Gear 4 seemingly became casual to him
He is already ready for the next step. Furthermore, since there is a Gear 3 version of red hawk, there should probably be a Gear 4 version of the move as well. Infact judging by the parallel Oda created between Luffy, Ace, Tama and Kaido, i won't be surprised if Oda used a variation of this technique as his finisher to defeat Kaido
Would also be fitting for Kaido to be defeated by King Kong moves seeing how
> He is called King of the beasts
> Luffy has a monkey theme, with his king kong moves potentially be a reference to King Kong
Now i know that some people are thinking there will be a gear 5, but with the King Kong moves, i don't think it'd be case
Thanks for reading
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