'One Piece' Preview Teases A Major Luffy Setback

One Piece fans know there are some unshakable truths to the series. If there is meat, you can bet the Straw Hats will be after it. Should Sanji see a pretty woman, he will become a full-fledged greaser. And, if Monkey D. Luffy is battling a tough foe, he's going to run into at least one setback.

Now, the anime is ready to bring up one of those hurdles for Luffy, and the show could not have timed it better.

Recently, One Piece put out its new episode, and it kept up with Luffy as he continued fighting Charlotte Katakuri. The Sweet Commander has vowed to end the captain and nearly did thanks to his Mochi Mochi powers. However, a quick run into Gear Fouth saved Luffy from losing... but that power does not last forever.

The anime has released a preview for its next episode, and it makes no excuses for Luffy's fickle power up.

"Luffy receives Katakuri's fierce attacks again and as his Gear Four runs out of time, he gets cornered," the preview confirms via a rather dramatic voiceover. The reel also shows Luffy taking some good hits from Katakuri in his balloon-ish form, giving fans even more reason to worry about the hero.

As audiences saw in episode 857, Luffy's most powerful Gear form is enough to make Katakuri lose his cool. When the Straw Hat delved into the transformation, he landed a slew of hits on the Big Mom pirate, but that all changed when the commander got a grip on his Observation Haki. The precognitive ability grants Katakuri nigh godly defenses, so it will take more than Gear Fourth to bring Katakuri tumbling down.

So, how do you think Luffy is going to overcome Katakuri's unprecedented defenses? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold.