Oda Just Revealed His Latest Gear 5 Luffy Artwork

While One Piece fans have been seeing Luffy’s Gear 5 form quite a lot in the recent manga chapters and anime episodes, it’s not very often that Eiichiro Oda, the author of the series, will draw an illustration of this iconic transformation outside the main story. With that being that said though, considering the sheer number of times Oda would have drawn Gear 5 by this point, it means he has the rare opportunity to get a little experimental and wacky when he’s creating a brand-new illustration that isn’t technically considered a part of the One Piece story.

It’s clear that Oda went all-out when trying to create the fun and quirky design scheme for Luffy’s final form, so it’s always a treat to see him showing off Gear 5 whenever the opportunity arises. Recently, as a way to celebrate the enormous success of a popular One Piece mobile game, the author just revealed a brand-new piece of stunning artwork to the world for One Piece fans to admire, and it’s fair to say it’s a real feast for the eyes.

Luffy’s Looking Curious In New Gear 5 Artwork

A Jawdropping Illustration Packed With So Many Small Details

• Oda releases a stunning new Gear 5 illustration
• There are a few subtle details and references to the main story

Considering how unpredictable Luffy is when entering Gear 5, Oda could have chosen any number of poses or styles to go with when creating his latest art piece. In the end, he opted to give Luffy a very curious look, making him appear like some kind of scientist or engineer who is peeking into a fascinating piece of tech. Luffy can be seen sporting his signature red goggles, which he has thrown on a few times when activating Gear 5 in the story. Interestingly, there is also a small golden flash of light that can be seen on each lens, which might be a subtle reference to Kizaru, who encounters Gear 5 first-hand in the Egghead Island arc.

Oda also makes clever use of the white clouds that surround Luffy when he enters this form, as by having them slowly rise off of the page, he makes them appear like puffy clouds that are slowly drifting through the sky. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Luffy illustration without a giant grin splashed across his face, though while this is usually seen as friendly and inviting, any time Luffy has a giant smile while in Gear 5, it can honestly be a little terrifying, especially for his opponents.

Outside of the wide smile, the only recognizable aspect of Luffy in this form is the scar that can be seen stretching across his chest, which he picked up from Akainu back in the Marineford War. Considering the amount of detail that has been packed into this illustration, along with the small references that eagle-eyed fans will be able to pick up on, it’s clear Oda spent a good amount of time and effort creating a piece of artwork that was worthy of celebrating such a momentous occasion.

One Piece Bounty Rush Reaches 200 Million Downloads

Oda Couldn’t Miss The Opportunity To Celebrate Such An Impressive Milestone

• One Piece Bounty Rush has surpassed 200 million players worldwide
• It had already reached 1 million during the pre-launch phase
• Oda’s illustration is part of the celebrations

The reason Oda created this stunning illustration of Luffy was to acknowledge the incredible milestone that has just been reached by the immensely popular One Piece Bounty Rush mobile game. During the game’s pre-launch, there were already 1 million players who expressed their interest in joining in on the adventure, but the game has now surpassed 200 million, making it one of the most popular mobile games out there right now.

While the One Piece name obviously plays a huge part in the game’s popularity, it’s also amassed a large audience because of how addictive and fun the core gameplay is. As players collect iconic characters from The One Piece series, they will be able to form their own team of four pirates or Marines to duke it out against other players. Since this is still One Piece at the end of the day, they will also be collecting plenty of precious loot and treasure along the way too.

The game is packed full of content, and with developers Sega adding in new characters and goodies on a constant basis, it seems as though the game won’t be slowing down anytime soon. If Oda drew this amazing image of Gear 5 for 200 million players, it’s fun to imagine what on earth he will be conjuring up once the game reaches yet another impressive milestone, which will probably happen sooner rather than later.

What’s Up With Gear 5’s Cartoonish Design?

There’s A Reason Why Luffy Appears So Majestic Yet Goofy At The Same Time

Though all One Piece fans will be more than familiar with what Gear 5 looks like at this point, when looking at Oda’s illustrations of the form, he will almost always add in a few extra pieces of clothing and decorations to make Luffy’s appearance more interesting. While this may initially seem like simply a creative choice by the author, it actually links into Luffy’s fighting style, as the Straw Hat captain is able to summon pretty much anything he can imagine into the real world during a fight.

A popular example of this is when Luffy fought against the Gorosei on Egghead Island. Despite these being some of the most powerful individuals in all of One Piece, Luffy was still more than happy to goof around a little, to the point where he even pulled out a baseball bat and cap, completely out of nowhere, to deflect their attacks. The goggles, which can be seen on Oda’s latest illustration, are another item which Luffy will whip out without any warning, and while they presumably improve his vision and protect his eyes, he also just seems to like having them on for a bit of fun.

While this can definitely seem very bizarre, Oda has commented that Luffy is actually reaching into Nika’s fantasy any time he creates these random objects. As a result, it means the talented author is able to get pretty much as creative as he wants when drawing a depiction of Gear 5, so while this newest image is already pretty quirky, there really is no limit to how far Oda can go when depicting Luffy in this way.

Source: X

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

Writers

Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda

• 

  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

• 

  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)