Not really, if anything it gave some life to Luffy's fighting style. It had gone from being based on creative goofy fighting into serious punching and stomping in G4. G5 just brings comedy value to it. As far as powerlevel goes y'all just overrated him imo, he hasn't proven he can beat a top tier in a pure 1o1.
Now I'm on the record saying I don't want him facing somebody like Akainu, but that's due to asthetic reasons that I don't want to see Akainu looking goofy and would be hard to capture a menacing vibe with it. But the Gorosei still being menacing while against him is turning me around on that.
So I think it's perfectly, the laughing is fine. Laughing has been often considered a power to last through tough times, so symbolically it works as well even in situations where somebody is dying. Just as some cultures have parties instead of sad funerals at somebody's death.
I'm also enjoying the Lore related to Nika with Elbaf now being connected. My only issue will be Oda making this into Naruto 2.0 where Luffy will 100s of levels above his contemporaries. However, so far that's not the case. So all good.
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It doesn't "ruin" One Piece for me, but I don't like it. I find it very super saiyanish. Instead of powering himself up in rage, he powers himself up in joy or something. It's silly, but so is Oda most of the time.
Yea I feel similar. The concept of gears in general always felt SSJ1->2->3 inspired. Seeing as he's inspired from Toriyama, understandable.
I had originally wanted Oda to develop him into where he doesn't need the gears to access that power. But seeing as he's a mythical zoan the transformation is inevitable now sadly.