Monkey D. Luffy is the protagonist of the manga and anime One Piece. He is an incredibly powerful character who wishes to become the new Pirate King by finding Gol D. Roger's One Piece treasure. The source of his powers is the Gomu Gomu no Mi, which is the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit, recently revealed to be a much more powerful God Devil Fruit known as the Hito Hito no Mi. These new powers allowed Luffy to use his Gear Fifth powers, and to help put things into perspective, here are episodes in which Luffy obtained each of his Gear forms.

The episodes in which Luffy activates his Gear techniques are: episode 272 for Gear Second, episode 288 for Gear Third, and episode 726 for Gear Fourth. Luffy also accessed his Gear Fifth powers in episode 1071, titled "Luffy's Peak – Reached! Gear 5"

The rest of this article will actually be a brief overview of Luffy's power evolution. We'll give you an episode-by-episode guide to Luffy's Gears and tell you in which episode the Gears debuted. We'll only talk about the first time Luffy accessed each Gear since each Gear has many different techniques that Luffy has accessed over time.

In which episode does Luffy use Gear Second?

Luffy's first access to his Gear 2 powers occurred in episode 272 of the anime series, titled "Luffy's in Sight! Gather at the Courthouse Square." This was the third episode of One Piece Season 9, and premiered on July 23, 2006.

The technique involves Luffy accelerating blood flow to all or specific parts of his body to provide it with more oxygen and nutrients. This makes him much faster and more powerful. The technique uses even more oxygen and energy, consuming a lot of food and causing Luffy to pant heavily.

The increase in his metabolism makes him feel hungrier than usual or even experience a paralysis-like effect after prolonged use, such as during the second fight with Rob Lucci where Luffy could only lie on the ground. Lucci, one of Luffy's first enemies to witness this, compared the process to doping. Doping involves adding more red blood cells to the body part(s), which allows for more oxygen and nutrients to be delivered to the body part(s).

In Luffy's case, his organs and blood vessels are made of rubber, allowing them to expand and contract to great extents without tearing. Essentially, Luffy increases blood flow by forcing more blood into his blood vessels, thus increasing his fighting ability.

The enhancements to Luffy's physiology brought by this mode allow him to use a set of new and more powerful techniques, which are generally his old techniques but are so fast that even a skilled assassin would have difficulty seeing them. Luffy developed this ability after meeting CP9 and witnessing them use soru.

In which episode does Luffy use Gear Third?

Luffy's first access to his Gear Third (Gear 3) powers occurred in episode 288 of the anime series, titled "Fukurou's Miscalculation! My Cola Is the Water of Life!" It was the seventh episode of One Piece Season 9 and premiered on December 3, 2006.

Luffy covers his mouth with his thumb, bites his knuckle, creating a small opening, and blows hard into it, inflating his arm. Once this is done, he is able to transfer air throughout his body, forcing his torso to act as an interface between the various limbs. Luffy blows so much air into his body that, when packed into a single limb, his size becomes equivalent (or larger) to that of a giant, being similar to the size of oars.

Using his already strong physiology, this seemingly gives his arm more mass and a larger attack area while utilizing much greater force. However, he sacrifices his mobility for this strength, as his limbs are so large that Luffy has difficulty moving them. Gear Third is generally used when brute physical strength is required, with the bones being the main difference between this form and his former move Gomu Gomu no Fusen.

There, its balloon form was soft and spongy like a regular balloon, and while the bones inflated, they were very hard, similar to an inflated tire. Unlike normal Gomu Gomu no Fusen, the balls bounce off Gear Third. The bones are also much harder, meaning there is a lot of air compression when using Gear Third, making it not only a "show" move as Lucci initially thought, but it acts like a hammer of staggering mass when used to attack.

Thanks to Luffy's brute strength, he can easily move his gigantic arm. Between attacks, Luffy draws air into his chest and then transfers it to another part of his body. The downside is the time it takes for Luffy to transfer and channel the amount of air trapped in his bones, which becomes a disadvantage.

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In which episode does Luffy use Gear Fourth?

Luffy's first access to his Gear Fourth (Gear 4) powers occurred in episode 726 of the anime series, titled "Gear 4! The Phenomenal Boundman!". It was the twenty-fifth episode of One Piece Season 17, and premiered on January 17, 2016.

To perform this technique, Luffy bites his left arm above the wrist and removes his flip-flops. He then begins injecting air into his arm while imbuing it with Busoshoku Haki.

The injected air causes his arm to grow in a similar way to Gear Third, and as with that technique, Luffy distributes the air throughout his body, particularly in his upper body. Luffy has developed several Gear Fourth forms that specialize in certain aspects of the technique at the expense of others, forms he can switch between at will, depending on the situation.

Gear Fourth, despite all its strengths, has several significant weaknesses. First, it appears to have a time limit, after which Luffy will return to his normal state. The second and most important is that after using this technique, Luffy is completely exhausted and unable to move. According to Luffy himself, he cannot use Busoshoku Haki for at least ten minutes.

Even afterward, Gear Fourth is very demanding on Luffy's body and stamina; he could barely fight back as he regained his Haki after using Gear Fourth, and briefly using it a second time shortly afterward knocked him out.

In which episode does Luffy use Gear Fifth?

Gear Fifth is Luffy's most recent Gear, and he accessed it in chapter 1044 of the manga. Gear 5 is the culmination of a year of Luffy's evolution and is the current zenith of his powers and abilities. With this, Luffy becomes ridiculously strong and invincible, as he is unable to take damage in this form, as seen during his battle with Kaidou.

After a year and a half, Luffy finally activated Gear 5 in the anime as well, on August 6, 2023, in episode 1071, titled "Luffy's Peak – Reached! Gear 5". Gear 5 was teased in the previous episode and, officially, we saw it briefly in the One Piece: Red movie, but it was in episode 1071 that it actually appeared in the anime for the first time, which is why it will remain one of the most important episodes of the entire series.

Now, Gear 5 gave Luffy incredible power-ups, and he finally defeated Kaidou after several defeats (in fact, he had lost a few moments before activating Gear 5). At the same time, Luffy was able to activate the true nature of his Devil Fruit, which turned out to be the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, a legendary Devil Fruit, and not the Gomu Gomu no Mi, as everyone thought. With this, Luffy became basically invincible, and his powers and abilities were such that we could easily describe them as examples of cartoon physics (toon strength) in anime, which is quite rare in Japanese animation, as the concept has been standardized in Western animation, especially American.

So what happened? Well, Luffy seemed defeated, then suddenly he received a surge of new power and became so strong that Kaidou couldn't do anything about it. Each of Kaidou's attacks did little to no damage because Luffy's body was essentially a piece of rubber. Luffy was able to alter his shape so that he could adapt to Kaidou's weapons and attacks, rendering them completely useless.

He was able to change size so much that Kaidou resembled a dwarf, and he could also use Kaidou's dragon form as a jump rope in one of the most ridiculous displays of his power in this battle. Ultimately, using his newfound power, Luffy finally defeated Kaidou, leaving the fate of the fearsome emperor unknown, as he, along with Big Mom, was thrown into the depths of Wano Country.

Of course, Gear 5 also drained a lot of energy from Luffy, and it will take a while before he can truly master it, but the little we saw so far actually indicated what we can actually expect from Gear 5 in the future and how it will be one of Luffy's best weapons.