Gear 1

*Further information: Gomu Gomu no Mi/Gear 1 Techniques*

### Strength

His grandfather Garp used harsh and unorthodox training methods to make him grow stronger, such as leaving him alone in the wilderness as a young child, tying him to balloons so he would float away, or throwing him into a bottomless pit, as well as several years of further rigorous training in the extremely harsh environments of Mt. Colubo and Rusukaina. By the time he began his quest to become Pirate King, Luffy had attained incredible physical strength, which he demonstrated by knocking out the Lord of the Coast with a single punch. In Skypiea, he was capable of moving around during his fight against Enel despite having a massive golden ball molded around his hand, and even climbed up a massive beanstalk with it. When caught between two large brick buildings in Water 7, he was eventually able to push them apart to free himself. Even in a severely weakened state after his calamitous battles at Impel Down and Marineford, Luffy was still able to cause massive destruction on Amazon Lily and hurl a boulder several times larger than himself with enough force to destroy a nearby rock formation. Despite these feats, however, his strength still paled in comparison to certain other powerful characters at the time, such as several participants in the Summit War of Marineford.

After training with Rayleigh in Rusukaina for two years, Luffy's strength seemed to have increased dramatically. Initially, he was at the mercy of every animal on the island, but then he became their official boss after several months of training. Other examples are when he effortlessly defeated a Pacifista in a single punch, whereas it took him and his whole crew to defeat two years prior. On Dressrosa, he easily flipped over the massive gladiator Spartan, and used his foot to block a stomp by Donquixote Doflamingo, a man nearly twice his height with immense physical power of his own, without any leverage.

Luffy has utilized his Gears, transformation techniques made possible by his Devil Fruit powers, to tremendously increase his physical strength and subdue powerful opponents like Blueno, Rob Lucci, and Donquixote Doflamingo. He took out a member of the Marines' Giant Squad with a single Gear 3 punch, and two years later, he defeated the powerful giant Hajrudin with a single Gear 2 punch to the face. On Fish-Man Island, the Sea Kings believed he would have completely destroyed the gigantic ship Noah before it would have landed had they not stopped him. With a single, enhanced Gear 4 punch, Luffy was capable of obliterating an entire town.

When he was imprisoned in Wano Country, he wore Seastone handcuffs that significantly weakened him and prevented him from using his Devil Fruit powers, and he exploited his prison labor as a new training method to get stronger in his weakened state, being able to lift and carry hundreds of blocks several times his size. After much training, he was able to break through the helmet of the vice warden Daifugo and injure him with a simple kick, and later on was capable of physically hurting Kaidou.

Luffy is also capable of becoming physically stronger through psychology. When Jango accidentally hypnotized him to become stronger, Luffy went on a tear through the Black Cat Pirates and ripped the stem and figurehead off their ship. During the Davy Back Fight battle against Foxy, Luffy attempted to increase his fighting prowess by donning an afro.

### Speed and Agility

Luffy possesses tremendous speed, agility, and reflexes. While knocked on his back, he was quickly able to escape from a point-blank explosion during his fight with Foxy, jumping onto a nearby mast before he was caught up in the blast. When he fought Blueno and Rob Lucci on Enies Lobby, Luffy was able to keep up with their incredibly fast Soru movements even without using the massive speed boost of his Gear 2 form. When battling Dracule Mihawk during the Summit War of Marineford, he was able to dodge the strikes of the world's greatest swordsman, including ducking under one that completely cleaved through a faraway glacier.

After his two-year training, he has been able to dodge attacks even while using Gear 3. He was able to avoid being attacked by Cavendish in the Corrida Colosseum by dodging the pirate's sword strikes and clasping the sword with his hands. Against Charlotte Katakuri, he showed the ability to dodge a considerable amount of the Sweet Commander's strikes, as well as all of Katakuri's attacks with his trident Mogura (barring one in which Luffy was impaired by Flampe's dart), despite Katakuri being able to foresee his movements. Luffy being able to see into the future with his Kenbunshoku Haki aids his dodging ability considerably, and during his fight with Kaidou on Onigashima, Luffy managed to partially dodge Kaidou's **Raimei Hakke** attack despite the Emperor being capable of moving at near-blinding speed; earlier, Luffy had been powerless to avoid that strike.

### Durability

Luffy has shown the ability to take massive amounts of physical punishment but still remain conscious and able to fight. As a child, Luffy was brutally beaten by Porchemy's spiked gloves to get information out of him, but Luffy took the beating without revealing anything. He was poisoned in Arabasta Kingdom by Crocodile's poison hook but remained conscious long enough to defeat the Warlord. He took multiple blows from Foxy's spiked gloves but did not fall. On Upper Yard, Luffy was directly hit by Wyper's Burn Bazooka, which disintegrated a massive hole in a giant tree, but he only started bleeding as a result. Most notably, during his fight with Charlotte Katakuri in the Mirro-World, Luffy fought for over 9 hours and received significantly more blows than he gave, including being gruesomely pierced in the side by Katakuri's trident Mogura, but he was able to keep standing up until Katakuri went down. During his first encounter with Kaidou, the Emperor's might was so immense that he could knock out Luffy with a single strike of his mace; however, after training in the Prisoner Mine and confronting Kaidou again, Luffy managed to emerge conscious and without serious injury after being partially struck by the same attack. Eventually, he becomes able to take multiple hits from Kaidou without being knocked out.

After surviving being poisoned by Magellan, Luffy developed an immunity to most poisons, causing him to be unaffected when Caesar Clown attacked him with poisonous gases. However, he did later fall victim to poison after consuming the skin of the Armored Stonefish; though the skin normally causes instant death, Luffy's poison resistance merely put him in a coma. Despite that incident, he seems to be quite proud of his immunity. When he witnessed Queen's Excite Bullets, he claimed they would not work on him. However, Chopper needed to treat him later on.

### Endurance

Luffy possesses immense endurance stemming from his great durability and willpower. As a child, he developed endurance when his grandfather put him through various training methods. When following Ace on a long and dangerous trek from Mt. Colubo to Gray Terminal, as he accompanied Ace and Sabo on their adventures through the wilderness. By far his most noteworthy feat was surviving exposure to an incurable amount of poison after fighting Magellan in Impel Down. When brought before Emporio Ivankov, Luffy was given hormones to give him the chance to fight for his life for two and a half days at the cost of his lifespan. He not only successfully fought to stay alive but returned to consciousness in just 20 hours. By doing this, he proved his connection to his father who has a similar will. With the help of Ivankov's Tension Hormones and his willpower, Luffy was able to keep fighting through Impel Down immediately after his near-death experience and continued fighting at Marineford with little rest in between until his body eventually gave out after he failed to save Ace from death.

In Enies Lobby, Luffy pulled off another feat of endurance, as although he quickly pushed his limits by repeatedly using Gear 2 and Gear 3, and was heavily injured by Lucci's Rokuogan attacks, he was able to keep fighting until he had defeated Lucci. Luffy also demonstrated his endurance at Whole Cake Island, as he battled Charlotte Cracker for 11 hours without resting, using Gear 4 at least twice. He then proceeded to get heavily beaten by his crewmate Sanji, but when a Big Mom Pirates army arrived soon after to take him down, Luffy fought hard for a considerable period of time, before ultimately being knocked out. After being temporarily frozen in time in a book prison, Luffy singlehandedly made his way out of the Whole Cake Chateau and beat up every enemy he encountered, despite still being extremely weak from fatigue and hunger, the latter of which he refused to address until Sanji returned to him. Another testament to his endurance was that he was stabbed by Charlotte Katakuri's trident in their fight but still got back on his feet to continue the battle. At Udon, Luffy was able to continue fighting while he was infected with Queen's Mummy virus. Even after being knocked out by Kaidou's (who had assumed his Human-Beast Form) **Kosanze Ragnaraku**, he got back up after a few moments. Later, when struck by the more powerful **Warai Jogo Ragnaraku**, Luffy although injured, retained consciousness.

Luffy's immense willpower was also seen in Thriller Bark when his body was able to take in 100 shadows without issue, while a normal person could only take in two or three.

## Instinct

Normally, Luffy can be prone to making bad decisions. However, while fighting, he possesses an uncanny instinct that has often resulted in him performing atypical actions that end up helping him. When confronted by multiple duplicates of Mr. 3 on Little Garden, Luffy was instantly able to find and attack the real one thanks entirely to instinct. When his arm got bitten while fighting Arlong, Luffy slammed the fish-man's head into the ground to dislodge his jaw instead of trying to pull his arm out, which allowed his arm to remain intact. To overcome Enel foreseeing his attacks with Mantra, Luffy used moves such as shutting down his mind and throwing his punches off walls to ricochet them randomly, which ended up being successful. Against Cracker, Luffy taxed the Sweet Commander's power by eating his never-ending biscuit creations.

Luffy has excellent situational awareness during battle. While fighting Mihawk on Marineford, he noticed Buggy nearby and used him as a human shield, allowing him to run away from Mihawk. When he fought Katakuri on the Thousand Sunny in Totto Land, he noticed Charlotte Brûlée watching from the Mirro-World and managed to grab onto her by surprise, allowing him to pull himself and Katakuri into the Mirro-World and prevent Katakuri from threatening his crew.

Luffy also possesses tremendous creativity, and frequently comes up with unusual methods to get ahead in a fight. In his first fight with Crocodile, Luffy noticed that he could make his opponent's body tangible with liquid, and before their second fight he consumed large quantities of water to use against the Warlord. He took it a step further in their third and final fight by using his blood as the liquid. When possible, Luffy likes to power himself up with outside objects and often uses things from the enemy against them. He knocked out sets of Arlong's teeth and tried to use them, although was not particularly successful. When Mr. 3 bound his arms and legs with candle-shaped wax bindings, Luffy immediately began using these bindings as powerful blunt weapons to demolish Mr. 3's other wax creations. When he became allies with Mr. 3 in Impel Down, Luffy requested that he be powered up with the wax once again to fight Magellan, and he was successfully able to hit the warden without being poisoned.

## Charisma

Luffy possesses a notable ability to recruit allies to his side everywhere he goes, which Dracule Mihawk describes as the most dangerous ability in the world. Luffy is capable of making friends rather quickly, and people typically have to do little for Luffy to consider them as a friend, such as Rebecca, who earned Luffy's friendship by buying him food. Although Luffy does not fancy himself a hero, he will do anything to help his friends, which can earn him the respect of people around him, as seen with the Whitebeard Pirates being impressed with his desire to save Ace on Marineford. Luffy is not afraid to take audacious actions to help himself and his friends, and this fearlessness is another key to gaining allies.

Before Jinbe met Luffy, he initially had no intention of building a relationship with him, only wanting to accompany him through Impel Down and Marineford to appease Ace's wishes. However, after getting to know Luffy, Jinbe quickly developed a deep respect for him, and risked his life to get Luffy out of Marineford safely. Two years later, he would join Luffy's crew. Boa Hancock, who hates all men, took a liking to and soon after fell in love with Luffy after finding out that he had attacked a World Noble. On Dressrosa, once the Corrida Colosseum gladiators were liberated from Doflamingo and Sugar's enslavement, they rallied behind Luffy's crusade against Doflamingo, and Luffy's determination to bring down the Warlord eventually earned him the support of everyone on Dressrosa as they wished to be freed from Doflamingo's tyranny. Luffy curried enough favor in this effort that the allies he made went far beyond Dressrosa; seven of the groups who fought with him pledged to serve him whenever he needs them, forming the massive Straw Hat Grand Fleet; even people like Cavendish and Chinjao who once wished to kill him declared their servitude. When the prisoners inside Udon's Prisoner Mine had doubts about defeating Kaidou even after Raizo and Kikunojo revealed themselves, Luffy managed to win them over.

After his exploits at Marineford, Luffy became incredibly popular to the pirates of both halves of the Grand Line. The trickster, Demaro Black, was able to take advantage of this popularity to gather many powerful pirates under his supposed leadership by posing as Luffy.

## Devil Fruit

*Further information: Gomu Gomu no Mi*
When he was 7 years old, Luffy unwittingly ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, after finding it in a chest owned by the Red Hair Pirates. It gives his body the properties of rubber, allowing him to stretch, bounce, bend, twist, and inflate any part of his body. Initially, Luffy was unable to control his stretching, but was able to master it after ten years of training on Dawn Island, and further master it during the two years he spent training with Silvers Rayleigh on Rusukaina.

During the Wano Country Arc, it was revealed that it is actually a Mythical Zoan-type Devil Fruit, the **Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika**, which allows the user to become an incarnation of Nika, an ever-playful Sun God known for liberating slaves and bringing smiles to people's faces. This grants Luffy's body a rubber physiology and allows him to fight however he pleases, just as long as he can imagine it. According to the Five Elder St. Shepherd Ju Peter, because of the smiles Nika can put on the faces of others, he is known as the "**Warrior of Liberation**", and that "there is no power more ridiculous in all the world".

He is able to stretch any part of his body; he can stretch his arms to extend the reach of his punches, stretch his legs to extend the reach of his kicks, and stretch his neck to extend the reach of his headbutt. His stretching also allows him to reach faraway places, as he can stretch and grab onto something at that location and pull himself there. He can further enhance his attack power by twisting his body parts around each other and spinning them.

Defensively, Luffy, being made of rubber, is completely immune to lightning. He also cannot be harmed by blunt attacks not imbued with Busoshoku Haki, including punches, blunt weapons, and even being stepped on by gigantic opponents. If struck by blunt projectiles, such as bullets or cannonballs, he can bounce them back toward the place it came from, potentially threatening the one who launched it. He can also easily survive falling from great heights.

He can suck in a large amount of air to inflate his torso like a balloon. His inflated belly greatly enhances his rubbery defense and his ability to bounce things back. It also keeps him from sinking if he falls into the water.

Over the course of his voyage in the Grand Line, he developed techniques he calls **Gears** to utilize his Devil Fruit to combat stronger opponents, such as speeding up his own blood flow to increase his speed or enlarging his bones and muscles for more powerful strikes. During his training on Rusukaina, he learned how to combine his Haki with his rubber abilities, making his already destructive attacks inconceivably faster and stronger.

In Wano Country, his fruit awakened after his apparent "death" and third loss against Kaidou, granting him immeasurably awesome powers that the World Government itself greatly fears. Among these astonishing abilities are strengthening his rubbery body and granting him even more freedom. In addition to this, Luffy is afforded the enhancements common among Zoan Devil Fruits, including greater strength, speed, and a faster recovery rate. He also displayed the ability to bestow the properties of rubber into the environment around him.

In Road To Laugh Tale, it is revealed that Luffy's true power is not his rubbery physiology, and instead something much different. In truth his power allows him to bring forth whatever he can imagine into reality, however, this is only possible if the Devil Fruit awakens and is limited to Luffy's own imagination.