One Piece has been showing off with a new fight between Gear 5 Luffy and Admiral Kizaru, and a new theory is suggesting that Gear 5 Luffy has been holding himself back all this time. Gear 5 has been a major transformation that’s shaken up everything we know about how Luffy fights. Not only is it dramatically different from all of the other transformations Luffy has contorted his body to in the past, but it also seems to operate under a much different kind of intent. In this form, Luffy only fights when he’s having fun and doing anything to be as free as he possibly can.
Videos by ComicBook.com
One Piece fans have seen the full extent of Gear 5 Luffy’s abilities in previous fights against Kaido and Rob Lucci, and thus there have been demonstrations of how powerful this new transformation could be. But that’s not the case in his fight against Kizaru as while Luffy kicked off the fight at full force as he tried to take out the admiral, it seems like Gear 5 Luffy isn’t fighting at full force against the Admiral at all. Only really dodging and dealing a few counters, Luffy has been purposefully holding back.
Is Gear 5 Luffy Really Holding Back?
Although Luffy immediately charged at Kizaru once the Admiral made landfall on Egghead, it seems that now he’s determined to have a much different kind of fight. The two have a very intense history as the Admiral is at the center of one of the Straw Hat crew’s biggest losses in the series to date, and the start of their rematch seemed fittingly intense as Luffy wanted to show how much everyone has grown since the two last came face to face. But as soon as he transformed into Gear 5, it seems Luffy’s goal has changed as the others are trying to find a way to escape from the island.
When looking at the fight itself, neither Luffy nor Kizaru seems to be taking it seriously. For every blow Luffy lands on the Admiral, he cheekily breaks out of it and forms a counterattack. In Luffy’s case, he’s easily been grabbing a hold of Kizaru himself and at many times seemed to catch Kizaru by surprise. But when it comes to actually dealing real damage, he’s only do so once or twice such as using the Star Gun when Franky and the others had asked for his help. So he can deal damage, he’s just not choosing to at the moment.
RELATED: Netflix’s One Piece Season 3 Gets Major Update From Joe Manganiello
Why Is Luffy Holding Back?
This is also something famed One Piece animator Vincent Chansard has echoed about the fight as well as he detailed Luffy’s methodology during it, “At this point in the story, Luffy isn’t really trying to beat Kizaru he’s just stalling him. He’s dodging, teasing, keeping things light, only pulling out a named attack once Kiki actually manages to land a hit. He literally at several points in the fight held kizaru in his palm.” So Luffy really has been holding himself back.
While Gear 5 has been devastating in the past, the fight against Kizaru is one where neither of them are fighting at full strength. This seems to tease that they will have a full and all-out brawl in the future of either this arc or the series as a whole, so that’s something anime fans will want to keep an eye on as the Egghead Arc continues to develop. It might be taking a break for another week ahead of a new flashback, but things are going to get even more chaotic soon.
