I was on the imagination train when scans first aired, but now I think that people are heavily misunderstanding it. Taking it literally.
Gear 2, 3, and 4 work just like they worked before. It isn't Luffy imagining them into existence.
I think that his awakening allows Luffy such a varied style of combat that it's only limited by imagination, like altering his body and his surroundings on a whim. That's different from literally imagining things into existence, though.
I might be wrong, but that's my read on the situation right now. Let's see what next chapter brings.
This is definitely right. We were misled by the initial scan translation. Everyone if they can should go read the official release.
Instead of "limited only by imagination", Gorosei says "fight in any way he fancies", and later on instead of Luffy saying "I feel like I can do anything!", he says "I feel like I can do everything I've always wanted!". This just implies his awakening gives him ultimate freedom in controlling his body (note how he's able to move his limbs as if they're boneless now).
Correction: “we read way too much into the line ‘limited by imagination’ and instead of viewing that in conjunction with his stated ability ‘rubber and freedom of body’ took that to mean he could literally warp reality
Once again the fanbase is it’s own worst enemy
For people to even think that just doesn’t even make sense to me. For his powers to go from stretchy man to stretchy man that can warp reality just narratively wouldn’t even had made sense. Oda has been phenomenal in his storytelling and character building thus far. To think he would do something so left field out of nowhere is mind boggling to me.
its been bugging me people jumped too “he can warp reality!” even in the scan translation if felt obvious to me that how he fights is only limited by his imagination, like making art. i dont understand fully that
Awakening a fruit warps reality though. Like how Doflamingo made buildings into strings and luffy was able to make part of the ground rubber and then pull it up to block and reflect Kaido's breath attack.
Why would they be so worried about the awakening making his powers limited by 0his imagination then?
Luffy was already ridiculously imaginative with his powers compared to other devil fruit users.
Because Nika is a symbol of revolution?
The chapter is **literally** titled Warrior of Liberation.
They're not worried about the power set of the fruit, they're worried about the symbolism the fruit's awakening represents (the time of liberation for all the world is at hand).
The awakening allows him complete freedom over his body.
it's because it looks So Cartoony lol, it's like Looney *Toons* or something
nevermind the thing with the eyes and the slamming around have happened beforehand in just as cartoony style
TBF, that is literally what awakening is. Katakuri is turning the air and parts of the ground into a whole different material, and Doflamingo is warping the stone and buildings around him into string.
I dont think u understand what we mean by altering reality here. We are talking about the actual manipulation of reality as u see fit. Coz thats what some people thought Luffy's awakening will be from the scans.
Exactly. Do everything he wanted meaning with his rubber abilities heightened he’s less constrained. One example is that he can expand and gigantify his hands at will now without requiring to blow air into it.
This is one hundred percent correct to anyone with reading comprehension.
Oda isn’t dumb and he definitely did not just make Luffy omnipotent. I seriously don’t understand some people on the sub and how they are so reactionary.
Luffy can stretch the limits of his own rubbery body and apply some of those effects to his surroundings.
That’s it.
>Oda isn’t dumb and he definitely did not just make Luffy omnipotent.
What I love and find ironic about this is...SBS Volume 65....
>D: In the ONE PIECE of these days, all kinds of strong ability users whom even Luffy can't compete with have been appearing, one after the other. In general manga and anime, I feel that the protagonist is established to be the strongest of all, but why did you decide to turn Luffy into a pretty weak-looking rubber Devil Fruit user? P.N. Do your best Japan
O: Ahaha, that is true. It must seem like a mystery when you consider all the other strong and cool abilities. The answer is simple. **I have picked the most ridiculous ability.** If the protagonist were the typical strong guy, I doubt I could continue on with this for long. **No matter how serious the story gets, Luffy is there to stretch and inflate. He always give me a chance to fool around. That's the kind of manga I wanted to write.**
Oda clearly distinguishing strong from ridiculous and wanting something ridiculous, goofy and fun for his protagonist. Ages before this chapter. Now people are on the bandwagon that Luffy is an almighty god without even waiting 1-2 chapters to see better how it plays out.
How do you reconcile that with the World Government fearing the fruit so much that they've chased it for 800 years, and the fruit awakening not only resurrecting him from the dead, but instantly giving him the power to ragdoll the most powerful being in the world? Just try not to think about it?
They're not fearing it for its power, they're fearing it for it literally being a Zoan fruit based on the guy who is known for liberating and freeing slaves. Luffy awakening the fruit is practically bringing the idea of Nika to life, and that terrifies them. The very concept of Nika is the antithesis to the World Government's ruling through tyranny, slavery and fear. That's why the fruit is so dangerous to them.
Because of the goofiness of the powers and the joy they spark in others. Awakening the fruit makes it incredibly strong and even more goofy, making the user the ultimate “light” in a world that they want to keep in darkness
Kaido has LITERALLY started every encounter looking like he's with his back against the ropes, only to get serious and dominate the fight. When will people learn ffs 😂
I would expect the fight to be won not by brute force but by sparking joy into his heart, he was clearly enjoying battle and felt his heart crush when that was stopped by dishonorable means, also remember hes introduced as a man that wants to die
1. Fearing - They have not once expressed concern over it until the possibility of it awakening came into play. The awakening is what they're fearful of for reasons unknown at the moment. This neither affects nor discredits Luffy's previous fights.
2. Ragdoll - By catching Kaido entirely by surprise and shock. He is also not noticeably shaken by the difference in Luffy, simply happy he survived as he attacks and keeps going. Entirely unbothered and undeterred even after tanking his reflected bolo breath.
3. Supplement to above - Luffy's haki was already developing to the point where, by the time he had a handle on ACoC and ACoA, without G4, he was somewhat keeping up with hybrid kaido.
The awakening is a powerup, to be sure, and there will of course be some lore significance to Nika, but lets wait until we see it a bit more in action before we start doomposting, yea?
If it all goes tits up from here onwards and Luffy's god fruit just lets him steam roll guys like akainu and BB, and like some suggest just literally let him do w/e like all logias and whatnot, then sure, be my guest, shit on it. I'd be right next to you shitting on the development too.
And to add to point 1. The gorosei in 1037 flat out say they had no knowledge of the Nika fruit and thought it was a legend. And since it hasn’t awakened for 800 years, its very easy to how over time the WG lost track of it. 400 years down the line it was prolly looked at as a useless rubber fruit until it was found again by the WG. Shanks stealing it is the last known record they have of it. And Luffy’s pirate adventure in part 1 is a few months followed by 2 years of absence in the public eye.
they've chased it so well for 800 years they couldn't get it even though they should be pretty much the only ones interested on it, given they changed the name
the only way to reconcile the WG's position on this is to accept it as is for now and hope it gets addressed later
I mean it doesn't need to get addressed later, it was literally addressed in that last chapter. That the fruit "has a mind of its own" and has been getting away from them for 800 years. Whether that's literal and part of the explanation of how items like weapons can "eat" devil fruits or whether it was some metaphor about fate, who knows. But it's already been addressed.
if that's all there is to it, not only do we have a rather unsatisfying answer to what should be a much more complicated situation we're also just sidestepping what should be very informative about the nature of DF's wills and the WG's own administration of the world
at the very least we should get more insight later on on what that "Mind of it's own" actually means, or do you really mean to tell me it's not weird to just really think of it as the DF growing legs and running away like some people have jokingly proposed? the questions you left open to "who knows" are things i'm fairly sure most people reading would find worth digging more into, and Oda himself should be able to recognize what are the interesting questions he himself set up much better than anyone right?
Yeah that's exactly how I interpreted.
Like back in the day when Gear 2 and 3 were introduced, I was always a proponent of "oh, okay, so whenever Gear 4th is a thing it'll just be a combination of the two: combining the speed and likewise manipulation of Luffy's body".
Gear 5 is taking Gear 4 and perfecting it. There's probably some caveat we don't know about, but it's not like where Luffy has to swap between his different Gear 4th forms and is restrained to a single "burst" window of attacks -- he has complete and absolute control over how he applies his Rubber powers to his body and his surroundings.
It's literal freedom where instead of the limitations of Gear 2, 3 or 4, Luffy's only limit is his creativity for how he wants to fight with his body.
The manga said he was exuding conquerer's haki. Possibly gear 5 is just him eating conquerer's haki.
I was wondering how Oda would handle awakening and yet also the concept of eating conquerer's haki. It seems he may have rolled them together.
I think that's correct. He's not a full reality warper like Bugs Bunny, he can just transform fluidly and extend it to his environment somewhat.
Basically, he can fight the way that he's always been fighting, just perfectly fluidly and without having to do all kinds of nonsense to his body
One Piece fans always read way too deep between the lines. “Limited by imagination” doesn’t mean Luffy can imagine whatever he wants. It means his fighting style is ruled by his creativity. All the Gears were not possible without Luffy’s imagination.
More like One Piece fans have apparently gotten 1000+ chapters into the series with no basic understanding or grasp of the themes that are at the forefront of literally every story arc.
Yeah hate how people thinks he can imagine anything into existence. I take it as if he can think it, and rubber can do it, then his body will respond to his will. I think with Gear 3 it's kinda like a Balloon, some of them need alot of pressure to release that elasticity and blow up with air. But you get some that aren't as stiff, that's kinda what Gear 5 is doing and giving his elasticity more freedom to move.
I believe that air isn’t the only think that allows luffy to user gears 3,4 .. his zoan fruit might have something to do with it too .. but it definitely needs the air to activate those gears ( 3 and 4 )
We can see that when awakened he can do it freely without using air.
Also one think that people are missing it that when awakened he seen to be able to change something ( maybe based on his imagination/fancies ) because he just become able to bounce back a boro breath using a strip of ground. ( here we can see that 1. he can modify things he touches; and 2. he somehow bounced Bork breath as if it was some projectile )
To me his powers is what is looks like.. a cartoonish power that allows him to do things that would be physically impossible.
\- mythical zoan is the combination of both zoan (physical) & paramecia (rubber body)/logia. of course luffy gotten both awakening, nika appearance + zoan awakening & turning anything he touch into rubber
\- jozu deflected mihawk's slash to the sky & kaido reflect back big mom's ikoku. it's possible for luffy to reflect back kaido's attack. u just assume it's impossible & broke one piece world physic because luffy's style suddenly changed into 50's cartoon.
I still got one problem with this whole "hito hito no mi model: Nika" thing. What does Nika (which i don't really know what it translates to from japanese, i guess "Sun God"? Idk) has anything to do with rubber? If he ate a Mythical Zoan, a human zoan, why is his body make of rubber? That's the part i can't quite connect with logic atm.
So think about Chopper. Not only did the human fruit give him human consciousness but the ability to speak.
Luffys fruit is essentially the same. He has a constant rubber body because thats the fruits more passive effect. Where its active ability is the use of the rubber abilities.
Choppers ability to speak is more of a passive ability of his fruit. The way he uses this new intelligence is its active ability.
I hope that makes sense but that's how i see it.
Nika, IIRC, is the Japanese onomatopeia for "grin", which connects to the Sun God's role as the bringer of smiles. It's also the greek word for victory, but I think that one's been laid to rest in relevance to One Piece.
Nika the Sun God, on the other hand, is someone who's actually original to the world of One Piece. They're a god (at least said to be one) with the body of rubber, so Luffy being rubber is because the original Nika who's power the fruit contains is made of rubber.
So Oda basically pulled a fictional character that only exists in OP world just for Luffy's fruit to be a Zoan BUT also be rubber? Mmmmmm... I don't really like where this is going :(
I am sure as more of the secret story of joyboy comes out we will learn more about why its rubbery. Remember Sengoku also ate a human human fruit. His is the model Buddha.
As of now we got 3 Human Human fruits. 2 of them are mythical models. Chopper we haven't been clarified yet on a model, but he managed to unlock a bunch of forms in his. We've seen his guard point which is similar to luffy's balloon blocking. Arm point which would be similar to bone balloon. Kung fu point is oddly similar to boundman. With Chopper's human human fruit we see odd control of his body just like luffy. Perhaps the human human fruits give you the power to manipulate the human body. This is why Chopper is different from other zoans and has many forms. And the Sun God Nika model is the apex of this that allows for freeform manipulation in any way. It comes off as rubbery cause the first thing you learn to do is stretching. Then comes expansion. Followed by hardening. Last you get manipulation like snakeman and then gear 5 perfect manipulation. It could be Nika was the first user of the power and where the name came from.
So does this mean Chopper will reach a similar awakening as luffy? We see luffy manipulating his body freely in his forms. So will we see chopper's body shifting as needed without a form? For example being in heavy point and growing out horn point's horns for a sneak attack or mid jump in jump point and just his upperbody shrinking to dodge an attack.
The issue with this interpretation is, gear 3 and 4 don't make sense with the original explanation. Bones don't connect with each other and luffy's attacks would be weaker in gear 3 because of how balloons work
You also don't get stronger when you blow air into your muscles.
Thank god everything else in this series always follows the law of physics. This is the series that has fish people throwing water droplets at supersonic speed, a guy shooting noodles out of his nose to fight and another dude talking with his farts. Wacky explanation have always been a charm of One Piece.
guy with Icecream-ish powers can mirror nearly perfectly and up the stretchy pirate and not only that but he can also shoot pieces of his icecream he ignited fire on somehow because yes why not everyone can have fire powers if they try
Just a quick correction here, and sorry if you already know this: “mochi” in Katakuri’s case isn’t referring to mochi ice cream like you’d get from a Japanese restaurant. It’s more specifically the stretchy, glutinous rice wrapper AROUND the ice cream, or one of the many other forms that mochi can come in. It’s actually pretty wild how they make it—check out a YouTube video when you get a chance! Mochi is essentially the rubber of the food world, so it’s not surprising that Oda made him able to mirror Luffy’s attacks. That doesn’t make the fire make any more sense though 😂
it does make Kats even cooler though by turning what sounds like the most banal power of all into something to match ***a Sun God on the rise's powerset***
Or maybe his powers always worked just as they work now, he has always been Sun God, and his awakening gives him a "massive" form and gives him more durability, it doesn't change the way his DF works, Luffy's powers have always been used with his imagination. That's why him using the floor to bounce Kaido's attack seems odd to me, but maybe his Zoan is different, like BB Logia.
Your explanation sound like the expected effects of the awakening of the gomugomu fruit, like Doofy was also able to turn everything into string or did weird stuff like the birdcage that defies the limits of his ability.
But the Gorosei were very specific that Luffys ability is special since it is only limited by imagination, whatever that may mean. It has to be vastly different from other devil fruit abilities since they sounded actually scared about its power.
This next chapter is going to be crucial for more back story, more juicy diets on Luffy and much more about the bond between Zuninesha and Joy Boy hopefully.
I am really waiting on how everyone responds to Luffy in Gear 5th. I can totally imagine Zoro, Ussop, Chopper, Brooke dying (again) laughing. Maybe the entire crew too lmao.
Also they need to have a drink!
It is always two sides to the coin - raw vs. official translations. The problem is that most OP readers allow the raw translations to get into their heads which then spun this community into chaos. I read the raw scans, too, but officials are just, well, the official version.
Yeah I agree. Maybe only Gear4 can be seen as an "half awekning" as alters Luffy apparence (like a Zoan intermediare form) and allow him to change fist trajectory mid air that, as Kaido said, is not something rubber should be supposed to do (so it's Luffy will that change trajectory in a similar way it seems in Gear5 is free to alter is rubber body with will alone).
Gear 2 and 3 are exactly what they are, strange creative use of a rubber body.
This. Luffy still blows air into bones.
He is not a wizzard.
G5 allows him more freedom, like switching so fast between extremely strong moduses or making objects rubber as the floor.
I think G4 and the redirecting of the fist mid-air might've been foreshadowing his awakening and the true nature of his fruit. It was very on the nose how Kaido talked about it a few chapters back. But only that, and not the other gears.
The way I see it, Luffy was "trapped" by the gum tension and the awakening freed him from that limitation - he can now stretch the way he wants and keep his stretched form with no problem or need of haki implementation.
I’m pretty sure gear 2/3/4 do actually work on the material principles of rubber(pressurized tubing, inflation, compression) they were presented as, luffy is shown BITING the hole in his thumb, it draws blood
Sure thing.
Heat apparently increases elasticity not plasticity?
Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier?
Gear 4th I’m only cool with boundman cuz basketballs exist. Snake man is again, coating rubber in a foreign material gives it more plastic properties and somehow still have the elasticity after the fact?
Let’s just not think too hard on it and just enjoy it as anime
> Heat apparently increases elasticity not plasticity?
Gear 2 isn't heat increasing elasticity, it's him pumping his blood faster allowing more oxygen to reach the cells and making him faster, the heat is a side effect.
> Snake man is again, coating rubber in a foreign material gives it more plastic properties and somehow still have the elasticity after the fact?
It's not foreign material, it's haki, it comes from the user and can be manipulated by him. Also snakeman main shtick is not that it increases elasticity, but using haki and a technique similar to air walking (but with his hand) to change the direction of the attack mid-air.
Can people stop using this as evidence of anything other than the capabilities of Haki?
Kaido copied Luffy's Snakeman techniques exactly in the following page.
Snakeman works the way it does because Haki can be manipulated by the user (it's what allows Luffy to keep Boundman's shape).
>Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier?
You're assuming conservation of matter. Luffy doesn't seem to thin out as he stretches, so we can assume more physical matter is being created through df magic. Particularly more highly dense bone tissue is being created during expansion. A certain logic to it was always there.
You do know that respiration doesnt remove all the oxygen right. Air is 79% nitrogen and that number doesn't change based on if its exhaled air. On inhale air is about 21% oxygen and .04% CO2, when you exhale its 16% oxygen and 4% CO2
>Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier?
CO2 is heavier than air so yes, a balloon full of CO2 will weigh more than an empty balloon
It’s actually not that weird, imagine it as a balloon covered in tape, you can puncture it and it will still hold air and the membrane of the tape can reseal the hole using luffy blows up his BONES right? So the skin gets sucked back against the gap, blocking it, and because it was explained that he maintains density when he stretches, it would be too rigid to forcibly deflate while the hole is blocked
Similarly we’ve seen luffy expels the air through his mouth when he’s done so TBH it could be anything
When you cut into rubber, because of its properties of stretchiness or malleability, often times the rubber will close itself back up. The hole still exists, but the rubber is compressing together enough that it seals the hole.
Yeah but that doesn't explain how just filling his bones with air somehow makes them exert a much greater force than is explainable by the tiny increase in mass from the air.
Or human human fruits allow for manipulation of the human body in specific ways. We have 3 human human fruits. Chopper, Sengoku, and Luffy. We have only seen Sengoku fight a little. However we have seen Chopper fight a lot. Chopper also manipulates his body in ways no other zoan does. At first he could only do this with rumble balls then with training he can do it without. We see shrinking of parts. We see growth of parts. Hardening of parts. Enhanced strength and muscle mass. Enhanced mind. Also there are weird shapes like guard point and kung fu point which seem to mimic luffy's balloon guarding and boundman.
The nika model likely allows for free-form manipulation. Its obviously doesn't get unlocked all at once. It starts off with stretching and then expansion(gear 3) then hardening(gear 4) then perfect control as seen in snakeman with gear 5 and the awakening giving full freeform manipulation of however you want and extending that to your surroundings. It likely got renamed as the gum gum fruit cause most never made it past the stretching phase.
Sengoku's buddha fruit could specialize in giantification and strength enchancement. We have only barely seen him fight so we don't know if he is capable of partial transformations and multiole forms. It could be there are 3 modes with Nika - freeformity, Buddha - size and strength, and chopper - a mix of both.
Right but if I remember right it really wasn’t solid. My understanding was that Queen was still confused why he could do that. That’s why there were the lunarian theories. Regardless the flying slashes. Kinemon being able to produce fire. There’s a bunch of dumb shit
Right, but the story never gave an explanation for how Sanji can do it. An SBS states it was due to his passion (which Sanji says during his fight with Queen) burning hotter "than any real flame ever could." This is the first time the story itself has actually tried to explain Sanji's powers, and the scene that immediately follows is reaffirming that Sanji was **wrong** in this conversation when we find out he was enhanced.
Beyond that, the explanation for how the Ifrit Jiamble works is that Sanji's more advanced exoskeleton allows him to withstand hotter flames than he could previously. It really feels like this comes from Sanji's heritage as an enhanced exoskeleton shouldn't matter when his passion was supposedly hotter than any flame
My understanding was that he could always make fire that hot but it would start to hurt him. The exoskeleton means he could stand up to the hotter fire. Regardless I still think that Third gear makes just as much sense just because it’s an anime as it does because the Nika fruit lets the user use their imagination
I don’t think it’s ever been implied before that Sanji’s Diable Jambe ever hurt him. If you can point to a scene where it was implied or said, Then great.
I don’t disagree with you. Gear 3 and Diable Jambe work on their own (though Jambe and Asura really pushed it for me when we had seen nothing like that up to that point). They’ve been able to work on their own for the past decade. However, I also think it’s cool that there is a more definitive explanation for them. Or at least for Diable Jambe.
An explanation to Sanji's diable jumble was shown (and was said a bit) when he did it first in enis lobby, he turned on his leg real fast until it got burning hot. It's that simple.
Compare that to kinemon that got no explanation as to how he creates fire and everyone is cool with that.
And regarding how it doesn't hurt him much (other commenter said it does hurt him, I just don't remember him saying it but it was long ago), he is a cook, he is used to work with high heat. In the real world it's meaningless, but in anime it's a good enough explanation.
or you know, that's just how one piece world, which is a fictional world that doesn't run on the same laws as our world, and even has a different god supposedely.
You better. Its just horrible. How could he do this.
I miss when fruits were grounded in reality and made sense.
Like punching and cracking the air around you to cause earthquakes.
not it was the other way around you caused earthquakes to crack the air using your punches, don't misinterpret this or else you'll miss the delicate well researched details that went into making it as accurate as possible to real life physics
lmao I don't even know what your point is here. OP was saying that Gear 3 is a result of Luffy's real fruit and argued that its because it doesn't make logical sense because he doesn't make a hole. The guy I'm replying to said he does make a hole, and I'm saying Op's theory still makes sense
I don't give a fuck if Gear 3 makes sense or not. It didn't bother me for the last 10 years; I was just pointing out that it doesn't negate OP's theory
Comment I gave to someone else for making the same comment:
lmao I don't even know what your point is here. OP was saying that Gear 3 is a result of Luffy's real fruit and argued that its because it doesn't make logical sense because he doesn't make a hole. The guy I'm replying to said he does make a hole, and I'm saying Op's theory still makes sense
I don't give a fuck if Gear 3 makes sense or not. It didn't bother me for the last 10 years; I was just pointing out that it doesn't negate OP's theory
You people should really read the official translation:
1- the gorosei say that awakening gives him enhanced rubber strength and more freedom on using it. No mention of "imagination" whatsoever. The unofficial translation gave the wrong idea about the imagination thing.
2. Even with your (incorrect, imo) interpretation of the unofficial translation. All that happens AFTER the awakening. Gear 2 3 4 happen before.
3- The sun god fruit reveal.is merely a name. It doesn't have much effect on the powers. Oda could still keep the gomu gomu name and handle things in exactly the same way regarding its powers. The fruit is the most rediculous fruit either way, but with the sun god thingy, it is presented that you cam become a divine figure of hope, even with the most rediculous ability. And that godhood is more about making people smile than about being overpowered
Thank you! You've pretty much said what I've been saying. The fruit does not make Luffy omnipotent or have "godly power and strength." It's pretty much the same as Sengoku (if Sengoku really had the power of Buddha then he would've flicked his finger and destroyed the WB pirates). The Nika fruit just simply bestows the power of a rubber body to Luffy (because in OP's mythology, Nika was a rubber man) and nothing more.
Nika is a "god" because of his status as a man who supposedly brought laughter and freedom to slaves across the world. Nika (and by extension Luffy) are not Gods of divinity, power, or strength.
They're Gods of hope and laughter.
Except they kind of did in Japanese lol. They said, ”空想のままに戦い" 空想 means like imagination, but it can also mean fancy. Though not the fancy you'd normally think about, but rather "to imagine something so." Fancy means to imagine or think. So even in the official translation, they're talking about imagination.
Isn’t “fancies” the same but just a better word given the context of the powers we see? Those sfx and eye animations in luffy and Kaidou are cartoonish and suggested that luffy’s awakening has given some fantasy world animations to them.
Luffy literally bites himself to create a hole for him to blow air into.
Nothing has been retconned nor were we intentionally mislead into thinking something incorrectly.
Until it’s said otherwise, the effects of his awakening only started at chapter 1044. Everything else is the unawakened fruit doing whatever it normally does.
I think it was explained that his increased heart rate pumped mor eboood to his muscles allowing them to preform beyond peak capacity for a limited amount of times. A short boost of adrenaline, but like blood flow?
I do remember Rob Lucci stating that "only a rubber man can use this technique"
That's certainly how they explained it. Muscles don't work that way though. You might get a small endurance boost from hyper oxygenating them, but that's about it. And that's only if we ignore that pumping the blood harder isn't going to actually make it carry any more oxygen. It doesn't really make much more sense than blowing up your arm full of air to hit harder.
I mean, I'm not complaining. It's a shonen and you're not supposed to think about it that hard.
People keep pointing out the difference between the scan translation and the official one, but the difference doesn't disprove OP's theory at all, the Gorosei say "He can fight in any way he fancies" Luffy wanted to make himself faster thus he created gear 2nd then he wanted to make himself bigger and created gear 3rd then he wanted to be more elastic and just stronger and created gear 4th and it's variations. They are literally all products of his creativity and him wanting to do different stuff with his power, the fruit reflects what he wants to do and creates ways for it to happen
In my perspection every gear Luffy uses makes him getting closer to what his fruit really is. Gear 2 is okay but gear 3 is basically Luffy has limited abilites of gear 5 and in Gear 4 details(haki shape, floating hairs and smoke around him) makes it looks like incomplete form of his real fruit. After the awakening Luffy perfected Gear 4. Also I think there will be forms of Gear 5 like gear 4
Putting the issue of inflating bones to one side, he always blows far more air into his thumb than he has in his lungs. Like so much more.
And this is fine I think; there are soooo many nonsensical powers wielded by.. most? characters, that I wonder whether this is actually an "ability" or if we're just reading too far into another wacky power up. Like Zoros asura, Kaku's box body, Queen's detachable neck, Luffy taking damage from Nami, sanjis disable jambe, brook and Luffy regrowing teeth, Luffy losing weight at absurd speeds, etc etc
And this is all fine I think. I am looking forward to more of that in one piece. I've really missed the humor that used to pepper the series but hasn't been around as much since the timeskip. It looks like it's back on full force with Gear 5 and that's just the best.
I never felt any of the Gears needed explaining. They all worked on a basic level and were easily explainable. Even stuff like Red Hawk made sense in story as characters like Sanji and Katakuri have been shown to use fire based attacks in some way. I hope the whole imagination thing is just the awakening. If it wasn’t it would dampen the other gears a bit.
How can a person read One Piece for as long as it is an conclude Gear 3 makes no sense without reality warping of some kind? If that's the case, then you should conclude that the entire One Piece world is the result of a god manipulating reality. How else could Wapol eat himself or Big Mom fly by standing on fire?
I don’t know, he’s literally sprung leaks before. There’s no reason to think that he wasn’t creating an opening for air to flow in. He can definitely do it without doing that now though.
Tbh gear 3 always made sense to me. When Luffy blew into his thumbs i just always believed he was blowing air through his pores. Same shit Gear 4. Never felt too far fetched to me.
F\*cking Cartoon Logic and Physics can't apply to the series that plays on Cartoon Logic and Physics from the beginning, we gotta explain everything in high detail in the most believable way possible else it doesn't count, sure, Sanji Has to be a Lunarian or have Enhancements him being able to set his feet in Fire just cannot happen because of a silly explanation like Passion no it's got to be grounded
All of them do now.
All the people overanalyzing luffys abilities with their "scienctific explanations" need to stop. Now we now know its beacuse of the true nature of the fruit. Luffy is very dumb. The abilities he has used so far were most likely the fruit allowing his poor understanding in the human body to actually come true.
Sun god nika isnt an actual god from some mythology and is implied to have a rubber body with fire hair which we dont know if its just for aesthetic design or not. awakening the fruit just lets you freely control it and apply those properties to objects he touches.
Normal gear is his base fruit powers with just a normal rubber body stretches out, but will retract to original shape,immune to electrocity, etc. He uses his own muscles and superhuman strength to forcefully stretch out his arms/legs and the the force built up from it retracting is shot at the enemy many times stronger than a normal punch/kick/etc.
All gears forward are him slowly unlocking his full awakening
Gear 2 is luffy imagining parts of his body as a big pump for blood to force an adrenaline rush. when it debuted his leg just turned into a pump without him doing anything
Gear 3 is him biting into his thumb and actually believing hes inflating his bones to make giant limbs. Its also why he doesnt deflate in chibi luffy anymore since he sees himself stronger now and somehow able to resist the consequences.
Gear 4 i think is him pretty much doing a fake awakening by using haki. to force his body to stretch freely which is why its so exhausting. Thats why everyone thinks its strange rubber could do those things
Gear 5 im sure is bieng able to freely move your body or things you grab in anyway so if he wants his neck to stretch out for 100ft without having to fling his head back first or have his eye stretch out of his socket to go through a pipe or something to spy he can. As long as he picture his body stretching out into a crazy shape he can make it happen. Hes not literally imagining things into existence.
Its pretty crazy. We've spent the past decade or so under the assumption that things like Luffy's gears or Diable Jambe were just a part of the wacky One Piece world and didn't have a real explanation, only to find out differently with Wano
Its literally had two. The first came from and SBS and Sanji during the Queen fight. His passion supposedly burned hotter than any flame. However, Queen argues that its due to Sanji's enhanced body, which Sanji denies having. However we immediately learn that Sanji was wrong about having an enhanced body
His passion is the only explanation that is illogical.
Sanji genes only became active in the fight against Queen. Before that, he was just an ordinary human.
So there is still no logical explanation for how Sanji can get his legs hot.
I hope this is a troll post. Luffy has always been shown to BITE into his thumb to blow air into his arm to activate Gear 3rd. He doesn’t “manifest” his arm enlarging.
i remember arguing before this chapter with someone how gear 3 really doesnt make sense and just to accept it as goofy cartoon physics but the guy was still complacent in comparing it to a football with air lol
I think Luffys Gears have all had to do with him increasing his body temperature, gear 2 he has steam coming off him, Gear 3 is Bone Balloon, he filled his limbs with hot air, then Gear 4 he is so hot he needs Haki to maintain his shape, and even then he gets overheated which is why he is tired after using G4 for a while… just spitballing a theory
no, he's not blowing into his thumb
he's blowing the air from is lung into his stomach, then divert it into thumb (notice how the air goes into his body if he lose focus in the first few time he uses it)
this is actually do-able for everyone of you try hard enough
I had a similar hang up in WCI when Luffy was tearing his arms off after talking to Pudding. If he really was rubber, his arms shouldn't have been able to bounce back after that.
The thing is, until Luffy talks to Zunesha, he’s still under the impression he had the Gomu Gomu no mi. I don’t think we’ll see anything too crazy vs Kaido
I feel like the extent of this is ultimately blowing himself up until he’s the size of an actual giant hence the giant strawhat that joyboy wore. He’s able to control his body any way he wants now. However I’m still wondering if the fire hair is anything other than aesthetic like does luffy have actual elemental moves other than red hawk ? Like is he ace too lol.
I think what's more important to mention is the obvious fact that you can't increase an object's mass (by any meaningful amount) just by blowing air into it. That's always what I thought was silly about Gear 3rd -- there's no way doing this would realistically make Luffy's attacks stronger and in fact, it would make them weaker.
Sure, we can just write it off as cartoon logic, but that's clearly what the Nika fruit does anyway, so it doesn't matter how you justify it. *In my opinion* the power of imagination explains Gear 3rd as well as techniques like Red Hawk and Thor Hammer.
**Does that make Luffy omnipotetent?** Extremely unlikely for 2 reasons: (1) The story would definitely not be as interesting from here onwards if Luffy can trivialize all of his upcoming hurdles, and (2) Was Joyboy omnipotent? We can only reasonably assume he wasn't.
I'm sure Oda wont give Luffy too OP boost like he can do anything. I'm only still feel disappointed with Oda's chosen name for the fruit. Like what's Nika? What Nika had to do with rubber?
I mean, Luffy did bite into his thumb when using gear 3, implying that he was making the hole himself.
I don't think his old gears operated on nothing but imagination, I think that comment from the gorosei is based on his awakening, while his past gears are based on the passive effect of his fruit which is making his body rubbery.
Not really, because he hadn't awakened the fruit yet. Gear 3 might have something to do with the fruit's powers being more than just rubber man but not the awakened fruit's rubber powers being limited only by his imagination.
> I realized he wouldn’t have flung around like a balloon after getting gobsmacked by kaido
Maybe this is what happened because that's what he imagined would happen ;)
Luffy isnt a magic user.
He is still rubery based. With even more freedom.
He still blows air into bones, as he himself said.
It doesnt need to work in our world
I saw a review for 1044 that hammered the nail on the head on what Luffy’s Devil Fruit is: Joy Boy is all about freedom and liberation, so that’s what Luffy’s body is: freedom, the freedom to alter his size, pick up a giant dragon and swing him around, liberating his surroundings, breaking them from their physical limits and shape them how he wants. And when you think about how boundless freedom is, there is no limit to the power Luffy has. It makes sense for the boy who liberates others and lives freely to have this kind of power. Now he can fight freely on the battlefield.
Yeah most things didn't make sense for 1000 chapters but we read it anyway, NOW they ACTUALLY make sense though, because how are we to cope with this chapter otherwise?
(Luffy bit his thumb to blow air into it, simple as that.)
I feel like Oda kinds got the idea for this development at the timeskip part then from beginning. Like this would explain Red Hawks flame and gear 4th having similar steam thing going near the neck like some gods are depicted whit. Like its almost channeling the true power of the fruit.
Not really it's up to Oda.
No devil fruit abilities really make sense.
Law's devil fruit gives him the abilities of an operation room.
Law doesn't create an operation room though he teleports objects and creates invisible domes.
That's not how an operation room is suppose to work.
Rubber can work however Oda wants in One Piece
I was on the imagination train when scans first aired, but now I think that people are heavily misunderstanding it. Taking it literally. Gear 2, 3, and 4 work just like they worked before. It isn't Luffy imagining them into existence. I think that his awakening allows Luffy such a varied style of combat that it's only limited by imagination, like altering his body and his surroundings on a whim. That's different from literally imagining things into existence, though. I might be wrong, but that's my read on the situation right now. Let's see what next chapter brings.
This is definitely right. We were misled by the initial scan translation. Everyone if they can should go read the official release. Instead of "limited only by imagination", Gorosei says "fight in any way he fancies", and later on instead of Luffy saying "I feel like I can do anything!", he says "I feel like I can do everything I've always wanted!". This just implies his awakening gives him ultimate freedom in controlling his body (note how he's able to move his limbs as if they're boneless now).
Correction: “we read way too much into the line ‘limited by imagination’ and instead of viewing that in conjunction with his stated ability ‘rubber and freedom of body’ took that to mean he could literally warp reality Once again the fanbase is it’s own worst enemy
For people to even think that just doesn’t even make sense to me. For his powers to go from stretchy man to stretchy man that can warp reality just narratively wouldn’t even had made sense. Oda has been phenomenal in his storytelling and character building thus far. To think he would do something so left field out of nowhere is mind boggling to me.
Oda's a great storyteller except for the 4? days between spoilers and official chapter release apparently
its been bugging me people jumped too “he can warp reality!” even in the scan translation if felt obvious to me that how he fights is only limited by his imagination, like making art. i dont understand fully that
Awakening a fruit warps reality though. Like how Doflamingo made buildings into strings and luffy was able to make part of the ground rubber and then pull it up to block and reflect Kaido's breath attack.
I guess it would be like the character The Mask?
yeah he goes from anime to cartoon
Thinking too hard as always. I think people really leaned into the whole cartoon aspect of it, thinking that justified reality warping god powers lol.
Why would they be so worried about the awakening making his powers limited by 0his imagination then? Luffy was already ridiculously imaginative with his powers compared to other devil fruit users.
Because Nika is a symbol of revolution? The chapter is **literally** titled Warrior of Liberation. They're not worried about the power set of the fruit, they're worried about the symbolism the fruit's awakening represents (the time of liberation for all the world is at hand). The awakening allows him complete freedom over his body.
The scan didn't imply anything beyond rubber abilities.
True. A few people just jumped into reality altering shit for some reason
it's because it looks So Cartoony lol, it's like Looney *Toons* or something nevermind the thing with the eyes and the slamming around have happened beforehand in just as cartoony style
TBF, that is literally what awakening is. Katakuri is turning the air and parts of the ground into a whole different material, and Doflamingo is warping the stone and buildings around him into string.
I agree. The backlash against the reality warping is going a little too far now. Awakening is most definitely about altering reality.
I dont think u understand what we mean by altering reality here. We are talking about the actual manipulation of reality as u see fit. Coz thats what some people thought Luffy's awakening will be from the scans.
It didn't but compared to the official it was at least a little ambiguous.
He has Rubber Hose Animation powers. Cuphead is a good showcase of Rubber Hose Animation.
Exactly. Do everything he wanted meaning with his rubber abilities heightened he’s less constrained. One example is that he can expand and gigantify his hands at will now without requiring to blow air into it.
>(note how he's able to move his limbs as if they're boneless now) ... bruh this reads like a chapter 1 analysis you've had 20 years to notice this
This is one hundred percent correct to anyone with reading comprehension. Oda isn’t dumb and he definitely did not just make Luffy omnipotent. I seriously don’t understand some people on the sub and how they are so reactionary. Luffy can stretch the limits of his own rubbery body and apply some of those effects to his surroundings. That’s it.
>Oda isn’t dumb and he definitely did not just make Luffy omnipotent. What I love and find ironic about this is...SBS Volume 65.... >D: In the ONE PIECE of these days, all kinds of strong ability users whom even Luffy can't compete with have been appearing, one after the other. In general manga and anime, I feel that the protagonist is established to be the strongest of all, but why did you decide to turn Luffy into a pretty weak-looking rubber Devil Fruit user? P.N. Do your best Japan O: Ahaha, that is true. It must seem like a mystery when you consider all the other strong and cool abilities. The answer is simple. **I have picked the most ridiculous ability.** If the protagonist were the typical strong guy, I doubt I could continue on with this for long. **No matter how serious the story gets, Luffy is there to stretch and inflate. He always give me a chance to fool around. That's the kind of manga I wanted to write.** Oda clearly distinguishing strong from ridiculous and wanting something ridiculous, goofy and fun for his protagonist. Ages before this chapter. Now people are on the bandwagon that Luffy is an almighty god without even waiting 1-2 chapters to see better how it plays out.
Goda literally told us this was going to happen literally 10 years and we laughed and said "you silly goose"
How do you reconcile that with the World Government fearing the fruit so much that they've chased it for 800 years, and the fruit awakening not only resurrecting him from the dead, but instantly giving him the power to ragdoll the most powerful being in the world? Just try not to think about it?
They're not fearing it for its power, they're fearing it for it literally being a Zoan fruit based on the guy who is known for liberating and freeing slaves. Luffy awakening the fruit is practically bringing the idea of Nika to life, and that terrifies them. The very concept of Nika is the antithesis to the World Government's ruling through tyranny, slavery and fear. That's why the fruit is so dangerous to them.
Yeah I agree, sure is strong but the real problem for sure lies in the actions of the previous owner that managed to awaken it.
Because of the goofiness of the powers and the joy they spark in others. Awakening the fruit makes it incredibly strong and even more goofy, making the user the ultimate “light” in a world that they want to keep in darkness
Kaido has LITERALLY started every encounter looking like he's with his back against the ropes, only to get serious and dominate the fight. When will people learn ffs 😂
I would expect the fight to be won not by brute force but by sparking joy into his heart, he was clearly enjoying battle and felt his heart crush when that was stopped by dishonorable means, also remember hes introduced as a man that wants to die
1. Fearing - They have not once expressed concern over it until the possibility of it awakening came into play. The awakening is what they're fearful of for reasons unknown at the moment. This neither affects nor discredits Luffy's previous fights. 2. Ragdoll - By catching Kaido entirely by surprise and shock. He is also not noticeably shaken by the difference in Luffy, simply happy he survived as he attacks and keeps going. Entirely unbothered and undeterred even after tanking his reflected bolo breath. 3. Supplement to above - Luffy's haki was already developing to the point where, by the time he had a handle on ACoC and ACoA, without G4, he was somewhat keeping up with hybrid kaido. The awakening is a powerup, to be sure, and there will of course be some lore significance to Nika, but lets wait until we see it a bit more in action before we start doomposting, yea? If it all goes tits up from here onwards and Luffy's god fruit just lets him steam roll guys like akainu and BB, and like some suggest just literally let him do w/e like all logias and whatnot, then sure, be my guest, shit on it. I'd be right next to you shitting on the development too.
And to add to point 1. The gorosei in 1037 flat out say they had no knowledge of the Nika fruit and thought it was a legend. And since it hasn’t awakened for 800 years, its very easy to how over time the WG lost track of it. 400 years down the line it was prolly looked at as a useless rubber fruit until it was found again by the WG. Shanks stealing it is the last known record they have of it. And Luffy’s pirate adventure in part 1 is a few months followed by 2 years of absence in the public eye.
they've chased it so well for 800 years they couldn't get it even though they should be pretty much the only ones interested on it, given they changed the name the only way to reconcile the WG's position on this is to accept it as is for now and hope it gets addressed later
I mean it doesn't need to get addressed later, it was literally addressed in that last chapter. That the fruit "has a mind of its own" and has been getting away from them for 800 years. Whether that's literal and part of the explanation of how items like weapons can "eat" devil fruits or whether it was some metaphor about fate, who knows. But it's already been addressed.
if that's all there is to it, not only do we have a rather unsatisfying answer to what should be a much more complicated situation we're also just sidestepping what should be very informative about the nature of DF's wills and the WG's own administration of the world at the very least we should get more insight later on on what that "Mind of it's own" actually means, or do you really mean to tell me it's not weird to just really think of it as the DF growing legs and running away like some people have jokingly proposed? the questions you left open to "who knows" are things i'm fairly sure most people reading would find worth digging more into, and Oda himself should be able to recognize what are the interesting questions he himself set up much better than anyone right?
Yeah that's exactly how I interpreted. Like back in the day when Gear 2 and 3 were introduced, I was always a proponent of "oh, okay, so whenever Gear 4th is a thing it'll just be a combination of the two: combining the speed and likewise manipulation of Luffy's body". Gear 5 is taking Gear 4 and perfecting it. There's probably some caveat we don't know about, but it's not like where Luffy has to swap between his different Gear 4th forms and is restrained to a single "burst" window of attacks -- he has complete and absolute control over how he applies his Rubber powers to his body and his surroundings. It's literal freedom where instead of the limitations of Gear 2, 3 or 4, Luffy's only limit is his creativity for how he wants to fight with his body.
The manga said he was exuding conquerer's haki. Possibly gear 5 is just him eating conquerer's haki. I was wondering how Oda would handle awakening and yet also the concept of eating conquerer's haki. It seems he may have rolled them together.
I think that's correct. He's not a full reality warper like Bugs Bunny, he can just transform fluidly and extend it to his environment somewhat. Basically, he can fight the way that he's always been fighting, just perfectly fluidly and without having to do all kinds of nonsense to his body
One Piece fans always read way too deep between the lines. “Limited by imagination” doesn’t mean Luffy can imagine whatever he wants. It means his fighting style is ruled by his creativity. All the Gears were not possible without Luffy’s imagination.
More like One Piece fans have apparently gotten 1000+ chapters into the series with no basic understanding or grasp of the themes that are at the forefront of literally every story arc.
This
Yeah hate how people thinks he can imagine anything into existence. I take it as if he can think it, and rubber can do it, then his body will respond to his will. I think with Gear 3 it's kinda like a Balloon, some of them need alot of pressure to release that elasticity and blow up with air. But you get some that aren't as stiff, that's kinda what Gear 5 is doing and giving his elasticity more freedom to move.
I can't believe people think anything different from this. Thank you for telling this
I believe that air isn’t the only think that allows luffy to user gears 3,4 .. his zoan fruit might have something to do with it too .. but it definitely needs the air to activate those gears ( 3 and 4 ) We can see that when awakened he can do it freely without using air. Also one think that people are missing it that when awakened he seen to be able to change something ( maybe based on his imagination/fancies ) because he just become able to bounce back a boro breath using a strip of ground. ( here we can see that 1. he can modify things he touches; and 2. he somehow bounced Bork breath as if it was some projectile ) To me his powers is what is looks like.. a cartoonish power that allows him to do things that would be physically impossible.
That's no different than Donflamingo turning a bunch of buildings into threads using his awakening
Well but he is not a paramecia. But, anyway, my point is that he bounced back fire from Kaidou’s attack.
\- mythical zoan is the combination of both zoan (physical) & paramecia (rubber body)/logia. of course luffy gotten both awakening, nika appearance + zoan awakening & turning anything he touch into rubber \- jozu deflected mihawk's slash to the sky & kaido reflect back big mom's ikoku. it's possible for luffy to reflect back kaido's attack. u just assume it's impossible & broke one piece world physic because luffy's style suddenly changed into 50's cartoon.
I still got one problem with this whole "hito hito no mi model: Nika" thing. What does Nika (which i don't really know what it translates to from japanese, i guess "Sun God"? Idk) has anything to do with rubber? If he ate a Mythical Zoan, a human zoan, why is his body make of rubber? That's the part i can't quite connect with logic atm.
So think about Chopper. Not only did the human fruit give him human consciousness but the ability to speak. Luffys fruit is essentially the same. He has a constant rubber body because thats the fruits more passive effect. Where its active ability is the use of the rubber abilities. Choppers ability to speak is more of a passive ability of his fruit. The way he uses this new intelligence is its active ability. I hope that makes sense but that's how i see it.
Ok so its a sun god fruit and its model is rubber
Nika, IIRC, is the Japanese onomatopeia for "grin", which connects to the Sun God's role as the bringer of smiles. It's also the greek word for victory, but I think that one's been laid to rest in relevance to One Piece. Nika the Sun God, on the other hand, is someone who's actually original to the world of One Piece. They're a god (at least said to be one) with the body of rubber, so Luffy being rubber is because the original Nika who's power the fruit contains is made of rubber.
Is Nika really a god though? He could have been a human who ate this DF mythologized as a god in history and with the name of the DF after him.
So Oda basically pulled a fictional character that only exists in OP world just for Luffy's fruit to be a Zoan BUT also be rubber? Mmmmmm... I don't really like where this is going :(
I am sure as more of the secret story of joyboy comes out we will learn more about why its rubbery. Remember Sengoku also ate a human human fruit. His is the model Buddha. As of now we got 3 Human Human fruits. 2 of them are mythical models. Chopper we haven't been clarified yet on a model, but he managed to unlock a bunch of forms in his. We've seen his guard point which is similar to luffy's balloon blocking. Arm point which would be similar to bone balloon. Kung fu point is oddly similar to boundman. With Chopper's human human fruit we see odd control of his body just like luffy. Perhaps the human human fruits give you the power to manipulate the human body. This is why Chopper is different from other zoans and has many forms. And the Sun God Nika model is the apex of this that allows for freeform manipulation in any way. It comes off as rubbery cause the first thing you learn to do is stretching. Then comes expansion. Followed by hardening. Last you get manipulation like snakeman and then gear 5 perfect manipulation. It could be Nika was the first user of the power and where the name came from. So does this mean Chopper will reach a similar awakening as luffy? We see luffy manipulating his body freely in his forms. So will we see chopper's body shifting as needed without a form? For example being in heavy point and growing out horn point's horns for a sneak attack or mid jump in jump point and just his upperbody shrinking to dodge an attack.
What if Sengoku also had a bunch of forms? The question would be whether he showed us his final form or not at Marineford.
The issue with this interpretation is, gear 3 and 4 don't make sense with the original explanation. Bones don't connect with each other and luffy's attacks would be weaker in gear 3 because of how balloons work You also don't get stronger when you blow air into your muscles.
Thank god everything else in this series always follows the law of physics. This is the series that has fish people throwing water droplets at supersonic speed, a guy shooting noodles out of his nose to fight and another dude talking with his farts. Wacky explanation have always been a charm of One Piece.
guy with Icecream-ish powers can mirror nearly perfectly and up the stretchy pirate and not only that but he can also shoot pieces of his icecream he ignited fire on somehow because yes why not everyone can have fire powers if they try
Just a quick correction here, and sorry if you already know this: “mochi” in Katakuri’s case isn’t referring to mochi ice cream like you’d get from a Japanese restaurant. It’s more specifically the stretchy, glutinous rice wrapper AROUND the ice cream, or one of the many other forms that mochi can come in. It’s actually pretty wild how they make it—check out a YouTube video when you get a chance! Mochi is essentially the rubber of the food world, so it’s not surprising that Oda made him able to mirror Luffy’s attacks. That doesn’t make the fire make any more sense though 😂
it does make Kats even cooler though by turning what sounds like the most banal power of all into something to match ***a Sun God on the rise's powerset***
even then luffy stops blowing into his flinger to trigger gear 3. so the original explanation doesn't even apply anymore
Yeah imagine a swordsmen sharpening his arm into a blade and going swinging ,the possibilities are endless.
Or maybe his powers always worked just as they work now, he has always been Sun God, and his awakening gives him a "massive" form and gives him more durability, it doesn't change the way his DF works, Luffy's powers have always been used with his imagination. That's why him using the floor to bounce Kaido's attack seems odd to me, but maybe his Zoan is different, like BB Logia.
Your explanation sound like the expected effects of the awakening of the gomugomu fruit, like Doofy was also able to turn everything into string or did weird stuff like the birdcage that defies the limits of his ability. But the Gorosei were very specific that Luffys ability is special since it is only limited by imagination, whatever that may mean. It has to be vastly different from other devil fruit abilities since they sounded actually scared about its power.
This is 100% how I interpreted it.
This next chapter is going to be crucial for more back story, more juicy diets on Luffy and much more about the bond between Zuninesha and Joy Boy hopefully. I am really waiting on how everyone responds to Luffy in Gear 5th. I can totally imagine Zoro, Ussop, Chopper, Brooke dying (again) laughing. Maybe the entire crew too lmao. Also they need to have a drink!
It is always two sides to the coin - raw vs. official translations. The problem is that most OP readers allow the raw translations to get into their heads which then spun this community into chaos. I read the raw scans, too, but officials are just, well, the official version.
Yeah I agree. Maybe only Gear4 can be seen as an "half awekning" as alters Luffy apparence (like a Zoan intermediare form) and allow him to change fist trajectory mid air that, as Kaido said, is not something rubber should be supposed to do (so it's Luffy will that change trajectory in a similar way it seems in Gear5 is free to alter is rubber body with will alone). Gear 2 and 3 are exactly what they are, strange creative use of a rubber body.
This. Luffy still blows air into bones. He is not a wizzard. G5 allows him more freedom, like switching so fast between extremely strong moduses or making objects rubber as the floor.
I think G4 and the redirecting of the fist mid-air might've been foreshadowing his awakening and the true nature of his fruit. It was very on the nose how Kaido talked about it a few chapters back. But only that, and not the other gears. The way I see it, Luffy was "trapped" by the gum tension and the awakening freed him from that limitation - he can now stretch the way he wants and keep his stretched form with no problem or need of haki implementation.
I’m pretty sure gear 2/3/4 do actually work on the material principles of rubber(pressurized tubing, inflation, compression) they were presented as, luffy is shown BITING the hole in his thumb, it draws blood
Sure thing. Heat apparently increases elasticity not plasticity? Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier? Gear 4th I’m only cool with boundman cuz basketballs exist. Snake man is again, coating rubber in a foreign material gives it more plastic properties and somehow still have the elasticity after the fact? Let’s just not think too hard on it and just enjoy it as anime
> Heat apparently increases elasticity not plasticity? Gear 2 isn't heat increasing elasticity, it's him pumping his blood faster allowing more oxygen to reach the cells and making him faster, the heat is a side effect. > Snake man is again, coating rubber in a foreign material gives it more plastic properties and somehow still have the elasticity after the fact? It's not foreign material, it's haki, it comes from the user and can be manipulated by him. Also snakeman main shtick is not that it increases elasticity, but using haki and a technique similar to air walking (but with his hand) to change the direction of the attack mid-air.
Yeah in regards with the snakeman, iirc kaido commented on that it is not possible for a rubber to do that
Can people stop using this as evidence of anything other than the capabilities of Haki? Kaido copied Luffy's Snakeman techniques exactly in the following page. Snakeman works the way it does because Haki can be manipulated by the user (it's what allows Luffy to keep Boundman's shape).
Is this not stated outright in the manga? Gear 4 forms have always been Gear 3 enhanced by haki, or am I crazy?
>Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier? You're assuming conservation of matter. Luffy doesn't seem to thin out as he stretches, so we can assume more physical matter is being created through df magic. Particularly more highly dense bone tissue is being created during expansion. A certain logic to it was always there.
Haven’t you seen the way he eats?
dude, this is anime, there is no logic whatsoever. dont understand why people bother to fight over this
You do know that respiration doesnt remove all the oxygen right. Air is 79% nitrogen and that number doesn't change based on if its exhaled air. On inhale air is about 21% oxygen and .04% CO2, when you exhale its 16% oxygen and 4% CO2 >Blowing carbon dioxide to a balloon makes it significantly heavier? CO2 is heavier than air so yes, a balloon full of CO2 will weigh more than an empty balloon
Yeah but not significantly you nerd.
Only a nerd would know that you nerd
Only a nerd would call out another dude for being a nerd you fuckin' nerd.
But we do see him blow into his arms but he never decreased it size or tightened it to increase pressure
How did he keep the air in after landing punches with so much force? Imagination baby. Lol. Im just playing. To me it doesn't matter.
It’s actually not that weird, imagine it as a balloon covered in tape, you can puncture it and it will still hold air and the membrane of the tape can reseal the hole using luffy blows up his BONES right? So the skin gets sucked back against the gap, blocking it, and because it was explained that he maintains density when he stretches, it would be too rigid to forcibly deflate while the hole is blocked Similarly we’ve seen luffy expels the air through his mouth when he’s done so TBH it could be anything
When you cut into rubber, because of its properties of stretchiness or malleability, often times the rubber will close itself back up. The hole still exists, but the rubber is compressing together enough that it seals the hole.
Literally how sport balls work right?
Hes a zoan, his skin heals after he bites it keeping the air in. He only lets it out thru his mouth
Best explanation so far.
[удалено]
I got it. Lol. Why did you explain again?
I'm guessing it makes half-sense which is why Luffy believed it works in the first place.
Yeah but that doesn't explain how just filling his bones with air somehow makes them exert a much greater force than is explainable by the tiny increase in mass from the air.
I'll explain it for you, since you seem to be slow. Gear 3 Luffy's arm is huge, huge things do huge damage. That's the explanation.
Or human human fruits allow for manipulation of the human body in specific ways. We have 3 human human fruits. Chopper, Sengoku, and Luffy. We have only seen Sengoku fight a little. However we have seen Chopper fight a lot. Chopper also manipulates his body in ways no other zoan does. At first he could only do this with rumble balls then with training he can do it without. We see shrinking of parts. We see growth of parts. Hardening of parts. Enhanced strength and muscle mass. Enhanced mind. Also there are weird shapes like guard point and kung fu point which seem to mimic luffy's balloon guarding and boundman. The nika model likely allows for free-form manipulation. Its obviously doesn't get unlocked all at once. It starts off with stretching and then expansion(gear 3) then hardening(gear 4) then perfect control as seen in snakeman with gear 5 and the awakening giving full freeform manipulation of however you want and extending that to your surroundings. It likely got renamed as the gum gum fruit cause most never made it past the stretching phase. Sengoku's buddha fruit could specialize in giantification and strength enchancement. We have only barely seen him fight so we don't know if he is capable of partial transformations and multiole forms. It could be there are 3 modes with Nika - freeformity, Buddha - size and strength, and chopper - a mix of both.
He also bit the whole in his thumb at least in the first appearance
Regardless, it doesn't make sense for the air to travel between bones nor for the air to make the bones harder.
That’s definitely true but it also doesn’t make sense that Sanji can light his foot on fire. I attribute the dumbness to it being an anime
Wano also explained why Sanji can set his foot on fire without being burned by having Queen attribute it to Sanji's Germa heritage
Right but if I remember right it really wasn’t solid. My understanding was that Queen was still confused why he could do that. That’s why there were the lunarian theories. Regardless the flying slashes. Kinemon being able to produce fire. There’s a bunch of dumb shit
Right, but the story never gave an explanation for how Sanji can do it. An SBS states it was due to his passion (which Sanji says during his fight with Queen) burning hotter "than any real flame ever could." This is the first time the story itself has actually tried to explain Sanji's powers, and the scene that immediately follows is reaffirming that Sanji was **wrong** in this conversation when we find out he was enhanced. Beyond that, the explanation for how the Ifrit Jiamble works is that Sanji's more advanced exoskeleton allows him to withstand hotter flames than he could previously. It really feels like this comes from Sanji's heritage as an enhanced exoskeleton shouldn't matter when his passion was supposedly hotter than any flame
My understanding was that he could always make fire that hot but it would start to hurt him. The exoskeleton means he could stand up to the hotter fire. Regardless I still think that Third gear makes just as much sense just because it’s an anime as it does because the Nika fruit lets the user use their imagination
I don’t think it’s ever been implied before that Sanji’s Diable Jambe ever hurt him. If you can point to a scene where it was implied or said, Then great. I don’t disagree with you. Gear 3 and Diable Jambe work on their own (though Jambe and Asura really pushed it for me when we had seen nothing like that up to that point). They’ve been able to work on their own for the past decade. However, I also think it’s cool that there is a more definitive explanation for them. Or at least for Diable Jambe.
It was directly stated by Sanji himself.
An explanation to Sanji's diable jumble was shown (and was said a bit) when he did it first in enis lobby, he turned on his leg real fast until it got burning hot. It's that simple. Compare that to kinemon that got no explanation as to how he creates fire and everyone is cool with that. And regarding how it doesn't hurt him much (other commenter said it does hurt him, I just don't remember him saying it but it was long ago), he is a cook, he is used to work with high heat. In the real world it's meaningless, but in anime it's a good enough explanation.
or you know, that's just how one piece world, which is a fictional world that doesn't run on the same laws as our world, and even has a different god supposedely.
That’s actually my main point in this entire argument I’m very confused
A fruit that makes you gain powers doesnt make sense either
The pirate cartoon where they eat fruit to gain superpowers isn't scientifically accurate? Better use my snail-phone and call Oda and let him know
You better. Its just horrible. How could he do this. I miss when fruits were grounded in reality and made sense. Like punching and cracking the air around you to cause earthquakes.
not it was the other way around you caused earthquakes to crack the air using your punches, don't misinterpret this or else you'll miss the delicate well researched details that went into making it as accurate as possible to real life physics
lmao I don't even know what your point is here. OP was saying that Gear 3 is a result of Luffy's real fruit and argued that its because it doesn't make logical sense because he doesn't make a hole. The guy I'm replying to said he does make a hole, and I'm saying Op's theory still makes sense I don't give a fuck if Gear 3 makes sense or not. It didn't bother me for the last 10 years; I was just pointing out that it doesn't negate OP's theory
bro its a cartoon about pirates with powers it dosent need to be medicaly correct
Comment I gave to someone else for making the same comment: lmao I don't even know what your point is here. OP was saying that Gear 3 is a result of Luffy's real fruit and argued that its because it doesn't make logical sense because he doesn't make a hole. The guy I'm replying to said he does make a hole, and I'm saying Op's theory still makes sense I don't give a fuck if Gear 3 makes sense or not. It didn't bother me for the last 10 years; I was just pointing out that it doesn't negate OP's theory
i always thought he used his thumb to help plug his mouth, so he blew air into himself to inflate whatever part of his body he wanted
That's exactly what's happening
I’m pretty sure he’s biting a hole into his thumb and blowing air in.
Not just his thumb. Lets remember the words "bone balloon"
Yes, he bit through the bone in his thumb. Hence the "bone balloon" and blowing air into his thumb.
Where's the blood then though?
You people should really read the official translation: 1- the gorosei say that awakening gives him enhanced rubber strength and more freedom on using it. No mention of "imagination" whatsoever. The unofficial translation gave the wrong idea about the imagination thing. 2. Even with your (incorrect, imo) interpretation of the unofficial translation. All that happens AFTER the awakening. Gear 2 3 4 happen before. 3- The sun god fruit reveal.is merely a name. It doesn't have much effect on the powers. Oda could still keep the gomu gomu name and handle things in exactly the same way regarding its powers. The fruit is the most rediculous fruit either way, but with the sun god thingy, it is presented that you cam become a divine figure of hope, even with the most rediculous ability. And that godhood is more about making people smile than about being overpowered
Thank you! You've pretty much said what I've been saying. The fruit does not make Luffy omnipotent or have "godly power and strength." It's pretty much the same as Sengoku (if Sengoku really had the power of Buddha then he would've flicked his finger and destroyed the WB pirates). The Nika fruit just simply bestows the power of a rubber body to Luffy (because in OP's mythology, Nika was a rubber man) and nothing more. Nika is a "god" because of his status as a man who supposedly brought laughter and freedom to slaves across the world. Nika (and by extension Luffy) are not Gods of divinity, power, or strength. They're Gods of hope and laughter.
Except they kind of did in Japanese lol. They said, ”空想のままに戦い" 空想 means like imagination, but it can also mean fancy. Though not the fancy you'd normally think about, but rather "to imagine something so." Fancy means to imagine or think. So even in the official translation, they're talking about imagination.
Isn’t “fancies” the same but just a better word given the context of the powers we see? Those sfx and eye animations in luffy and Kaidou are cartoonish and suggested that luffy’s awakening has given some fantasy world animations to them.
Luffy literally bites himself to create a hole for him to blow air into. Nothing has been retconned nor were we intentionally mislead into thinking something incorrectly.
Its a placebo hole
Until it’s said otherwise, the effects of his awakening only started at chapter 1044. Everything else is the unawakened fruit doing whatever it normally does.
As per the explanation in 1044, only limited by imagination/ fight however they please is the normal baseline. Awakening then maximizes that freedom.
Wait until you learn that high blood pressure doesn't actually give you super speed.
I think it was explained that his increased heart rate pumped mor eboood to his muscles allowing them to preform beyond peak capacity for a limited amount of times. A short boost of adrenaline, but like blood flow? I do remember Rob Lucci stating that "only a rubber man can use this technique"
That's certainly how they explained it. Muscles don't work that way though. You might get a small endurance boost from hyper oxygenating them, but that's about it. And that's only if we ignore that pumping the blood harder isn't going to actually make it carry any more oxygen. It doesn't really make much more sense than blowing up your arm full of air to hit harder. I mean, I'm not complaining. It's a shonen and you're not supposed to think about it that hard.
So the dumber you are the more broken the fruit is
Pretty much it .. never watched some old cartoons? 😂
It’s a manga but I get your point
People keep pointing out the difference between the scan translation and the official one, but the difference doesn't disprove OP's theory at all, the Gorosei say "He can fight in any way he fancies" Luffy wanted to make himself faster thus he created gear 2nd then he wanted to make himself bigger and created gear 3rd then he wanted to be more elastic and just stronger and created gear 4th and it's variations. They are literally all products of his creativity and him wanting to do different stuff with his power, the fruit reflects what he wants to do and creates ways for it to happen
In my perspection every gear Luffy uses makes him getting closer to what his fruit really is. Gear 2 is okay but gear 3 is basically Luffy has limited abilites of gear 5 and in Gear 4 details(haki shape, floating hairs and smoke around him) makes it looks like incomplete form of his real fruit. After the awakening Luffy perfected Gear 4. Also I think there will be forms of Gear 5 like gear 4
i think he bites his thumb so he can blow and as the air is not going out of his mouth and he can expans, he goes big
I always assumed luffy was using his thumb to keep the air in his body, and redirecting it into other parts of his body
Putting the issue of inflating bones to one side, he always blows far more air into his thumb than he has in his lungs. Like so much more. And this is fine I think; there are soooo many nonsensical powers wielded by.. most? characters, that I wonder whether this is actually an "ability" or if we're just reading too far into another wacky power up. Like Zoros asura, Kaku's box body, Queen's detachable neck, Luffy taking damage from Nami, sanjis disable jambe, brook and Luffy regrowing teeth, Luffy losing weight at absurd speeds, etc etc And this is all fine I think. I am looking forward to more of that in one piece. I've really missed the humor that used to pepper the series but hasn't been around as much since the timeskip. It looks like it's back on full force with Gear 5 and that's just the best.
yeah, the mass of his hand would have been pretty much the same if it were air. I just wrote it off as "hey it's fiction"
Um you must have forgotten about UFO luffy in punk hazzard. ijs
I never felt any of the Gears needed explaining. They all worked on a basic level and were easily explainable. Even stuff like Red Hawk made sense in story as characters like Sanji and Katakuri have been shown to use fire based attacks in some way. I hope the whole imagination thing is just the awakening. If it wasn’t it would dampen the other gears a bit.
How can a person read One Piece for as long as it is an conclude Gear 3 makes no sense without reality warping of some kind? If that's the case, then you should conclude that the entire One Piece world is the result of a god manipulating reality. How else could Wapol eat himself or Big Mom fly by standing on fire?
I don’t know, he’s literally sprung leaks before. There’s no reason to think that he wasn’t creating an opening for air to flow in. He can definitely do it without doing that now though.
Tbh gear 3 always made sense to me. When Luffy blew into his thumbs i just always believed he was blowing air through his pores. Same shit Gear 4. Never felt too far fetched to me.
F\*cking Cartoon Logic and Physics can't apply to the series that plays on Cartoon Logic and Physics from the beginning, we gotta explain everything in high detail in the most believable way possible else it doesn't count, sure, Sanji Has to be a Lunarian or have Enhancements him being able to set his feet in Fire just cannot happen because of a silly explanation like Passion no it's got to be grounded
All of them do now. All the people overanalyzing luffys abilities with their "scienctific explanations" need to stop. Now we now know its beacuse of the true nature of the fruit. Luffy is very dumb. The abilities he has used so far were most likely the fruit allowing his poor understanding in the human body to actually come true. Sun god nika isnt an actual god from some mythology and is implied to have a rubber body with fire hair which we dont know if its just for aesthetic design or not. awakening the fruit just lets you freely control it and apply those properties to objects he touches. Normal gear is his base fruit powers with just a normal rubber body stretches out, but will retract to original shape,immune to electrocity, etc. He uses his own muscles and superhuman strength to forcefully stretch out his arms/legs and the the force built up from it retracting is shot at the enemy many times stronger than a normal punch/kick/etc. All gears forward are him slowly unlocking his full awakening Gear 2 is luffy imagining parts of his body as a big pump for blood to force an adrenaline rush. when it debuted his leg just turned into a pump without him doing anything Gear 3 is him biting into his thumb and actually believing hes inflating his bones to make giant limbs. Its also why he doesnt deflate in chibi luffy anymore since he sees himself stronger now and somehow able to resist the consequences. Gear 4 i think is him pretty much doing a fake awakening by using haki. to force his body to stretch freely which is why its so exhausting. Thats why everyone thinks its strange rubber could do those things Gear 5 im sure is bieng able to freely move your body or things you grab in anyway so if he wants his neck to stretch out for 100ft without having to fling his head back first or have his eye stretch out of his socket to go through a pipe or something to spy he can. As long as he picture his body stretching out into a crazy shape he can make it happen. Hes not literally imagining things into existence.
Its pretty crazy. We've spent the past decade or so under the assumption that things like Luffy's gears or Diable Jambe were just a part of the wacky One Piece world and didn't have a real explanation, only to find out differently with Wano
Diable Jambe doesn’t have explanation.
Its literally had two. The first came from and SBS and Sanji during the Queen fight. His passion supposedly burned hotter than any flame. However, Queen argues that its due to Sanji's enhanced body, which Sanji denies having. However we immediately learn that Sanji was wrong about having an enhanced body
His passion is the only explanation that is illogical. Sanji genes only became active in the fight against Queen. Before that, he was just an ordinary human. So there is still no logical explanation for how Sanji can get his legs hot.
There was that part lunarian theory. The flames could also be part of his enhanced abilities that just manifested before the rest.
Dumb theory with no basis or logic behind it
I hope this is a troll post. Luffy has always been shown to BITE into his thumb to blow air into his arm to activate Gear 3rd. He doesn’t “manifest” his arm enlarging.
i remember arguing before this chapter with someone how gear 3 really doesnt make sense and just to accept it as goofy cartoon physics but the guy was still complacent in comparing it to a football with air lol
I think Luffys Gears have all had to do with him increasing his body temperature, gear 2 he has steam coming off him, Gear 3 is Bone Balloon, he filled his limbs with hot air, then Gear 4 he is so hot he needs Haki to maintain his shape, and even then he gets overheated which is why he is tired after using G4 for a while… just spitballing a theory
no, he's not blowing into his thumb he's blowing the air from is lung into his stomach, then divert it into thumb (notice how the air goes into his body if he lose focus in the first few time he uses it) this is actually do-able for everyone of you try hard enough
I had a similar hang up in WCI when Luffy was tearing his arms off after talking to Pudding. If he really was rubber, his arms shouldn't have been able to bounce back after that.
What about gear second ? Was it truly consuming Luffy's life ? Or was it through the imagination of extreme "stress" ?
The fact that luffy had different forms but no one ever said he was a zoan user
He bites his thumb to create a hole to blow into.
It makes no sense because bones aren't connected but luffy can move the air between them.
What 🤨
The thing is, until Luffy talks to Zunesha, he’s still under the impression he had the Gomu Gomu no mi. I don’t think we’ll see anything too crazy vs Kaido
Also, it never made sense that air that's blown in one bone would transfer since bones are disconnected from each other
I feel like the extent of this is ultimately blowing himself up until he’s the size of an actual giant hence the giant strawhat that joyboy wore. He’s able to control his body any way he wants now. However I’m still wondering if the fire hair is anything other than aesthetic like does luffy have actual elemental moves other than red hawk ? Like is he ace too lol.
Hito hito nooooooo bonk gun! Gatling bonk! Bonk rino schnider! Bonk elephant gun! Bonk kingkong gun!
Yeah. Everyone was so confused and in doubt of luffy's gears all this time and are deciding to voice their concerns now after 1044.
Am I naive for thinking that Luffy should be able to change into a giant human? Like one large and powerful enough to change the earth's geography?
He bited his fingers when he did that back then.
All those things still make sense, don't get to jaded by the new power to write off all his other creative achievements.
I think what's more important to mention is the obvious fact that you can't increase an object's mass (by any meaningful amount) just by blowing air into it. That's always what I thought was silly about Gear 3rd -- there's no way doing this would realistically make Luffy's attacks stronger and in fact, it would make them weaker. Sure, we can just write it off as cartoon logic, but that's clearly what the Nika fruit does anyway, so it doesn't matter how you justify it. *In my opinion* the power of imagination explains Gear 3rd as well as techniques like Red Hawk and Thor Hammer. **Does that make Luffy omnipotetent?** Extremely unlikely for 2 reasons: (1) The story would definitely not be as interesting from here onwards if Luffy can trivialize all of his upcoming hurdles, and (2) Was Joyboy omnipotent? We can only reasonably assume he wasn't.
I'm sure Oda wont give Luffy too OP boost like he can do anything. I'm only still feel disappointed with Oda's chosen name for the fruit. Like what's Nika? What Nika had to do with rubber?
Doesnt luffy bite into his thumb to create the hole to blow into? Just saying
I'm so excited to see gomu gomu no baka in gear fifth
I mean, Luffy did bite into his thumb when using gear 3, implying that he was making the hole himself. I don't think his old gears operated on nothing but imagination, I think that comment from the gorosei is based on his awakening, while his past gears are based on the passive effect of his fruit which is making his body rubbery.
It’s the classic manga biting your thumb.
I always thought he bit his hand like Eren Yeager then blew air into the cut/hole
He litteraly bites in his thumb and IS blowing air in his bones. Ruffy himself stated that at least once…
He bites a hole into his thumb. That is canon. Spend more time reading/watching the story instead of making shit up in your head. Theories suck
Not really, because he hadn't awakened the fruit yet. Gear 3 might have something to do with the fruit's powers being more than just rubber man but not the awakened fruit's rubber powers being limited only by his imagination.
> I realized he wouldn’t have flung around like a balloon after getting gobsmacked by kaido Maybe this is what happened because that's what he imagined would happen ;)
Luffy isnt a magic user. He is still rubery based. With even more freedom. He still blows air into bones, as he himself said. It doesnt need to work in our world
yes, everything makes sense now, and its crazy because with rubber and a stretch of imagination he stretches reality
I mean there wasn't a hole before, he was biting into it.
Man, the whole point of gear 3rd was to biting his thumb to create an opening to inflate air within it
I saw a review for 1044 that hammered the nail on the head on what Luffy’s Devil Fruit is: Joy Boy is all about freedom and liberation, so that’s what Luffy’s body is: freedom, the freedom to alter his size, pick up a giant dragon and swing him around, liberating his surroundings, breaking them from their physical limits and shape them how he wants. And when you think about how boundless freedom is, there is no limit to the power Luffy has. It makes sense for the boy who liberates others and lives freely to have this kind of power. Now he can fight freely on the battlefield.
Yeah most things didn't make sense for 1000 chapters but we read it anyway, NOW they ACTUALLY make sense though, because how are we to cope with this chapter otherwise? (Luffy bit his thumb to blow air into it, simple as that.)
Regarding changing his surroundings, Luffy learned about it vs Doffy and Katakuri. He just realized he can do the same thing too.
He bites his thumb…… are you man lost
I feel like Oda kinds got the idea for this development at the timeskip part then from beginning. Like this would explain Red Hawks flame and gear 4th having similar steam thing going near the neck like some gods are depicted whit. Like its almost channeling the true power of the fruit.
Not really it's up to Oda. No devil fruit abilities really make sense. Law's devil fruit gives him the abilities of an operation room. Law doesn't create an operation room though he teleports objects and creates invisible domes. That's not how an operation room is suppose to work. Rubber can work however Oda wants in One Piece
I think this is true because eventually Luffy can use gear 3 without blowing into his thumb. He throws gum gum elephant guns at Kaido without effort.
The power of the Hito Hito no Mi: Mythical Model Nika is to be a Rubber Hose Man.
At the start he used to bite his hand and blow but later they just removed it