One Piece Director Teases Luffy's Big Gear Fifth Episode

One Piece is finally gearing up to full introduce Gear 5 Luffy into the anime with the next episode of the series, and the director behind the anime is teasing Gear 5 Luffy and the work that went into making the highly anticipated form come to life! With the final moments of the Wano Country arc drawing closer in the latest episode, Toei Animation officially announced during One Piece Day 2023 that the One Piece anime would be fully debuted the fan favorite Gear 5 form for Luffy in the first week of August as the anime enters a new era. 

One Piece Episode 1071 will officially be ushering in Luffy's Gear Fifth form to the anime, and fans have been wondering how this form would play out in the anime considering just how much it changes the series overall. Speaking about Gear 5 Luffy's anime debut in a special video message released during One Piece Day 2023 weekend, One Piece director Tatsuya Nagamine revealed that the team behind it all set out to do it just like how it is in Eiichiro Oda's original manga before their ideas were broadened to a whole new level. 

One Piece Director Hypes Gear 5 Luffy's Debut

Nagamine began hyping Gear 5 Luffy in the anime with, "We tried to do it just like in the manga...But, our dream started to broaden. The animators were all very enthusiastic about it. I'm really thankful about it." Continuing further, Nagamine was delighted in how many people from around the world actually worked on the episode, "Anyway, many people gathered from around the world to work on Gear 5. Four different languages were used in one meeting. Everyone loves One Piece so much." 

As for how Gear 5 Luffy will sound, Nagamine hyped voice star Mayumi Tanaka's performance too, "There is this part about 'Liberation,' and it's kind of like breaking free from the laws and physics of the world. So, our goal is to push boundaries with groundbreaking voice acting." Even noting that Tanaka exceeded their expectations despite the director questioning the difficulty of such a transformation, "I thought it would be difficult to do the laughing parts, so I tried to cut down on the laughter a little. But Ms. Mayumi Tanaka went above and beyond and gave us an amazing Gear 5 laugh. And the final result exceeded out expectations."

Are you excited to see Gear 5 Luffy making its debut in the anime soon? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!