One Piece Is Saying Goodbye To Luffy’s Weakness In The Final Battle Of Elbaph

With the arrival of One Piece’s final antagonist Saint Nerona Imu in the land of the Giants, Monkey D. Luffy and all the members of the Straw Hat Pirates are expected to grow much stronger. Right now, Luffy and the Straw Hats are a Yonko crew and certainly stand among the strongest in the world, but this is not enough. They need to grow even further, and Elbaph is where they have already begun the process of evolving further in terms of strength. For the captain of the crew, Monkey D. Luffy, this arc is officially erasing his biggest weakness of the stamina drain that comes with his strongest transformation, that is the Nika form, also known as Gear 5.

Related

One Piece Is Finally Making Luffy Stronger Than All Admirals in Elbaph

One Piece’s Elbaph arc has made Luffy so strong that the World Government’s strongest military assets, the Three Admirals, are needed to fight him.

Breaking Down Luffy’s Biggest Gear 5 Flaw

Image via Toei Animation.

Luffy’s Gear 5 stems from the power of the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, and is one of the most dangerous transformations in the world of One Piece. It is officially labelled as the most ridiculous power to ever exist, and even Kaido stated that he had never seen such freewheeling combat in his life. It utilises an extremely powerful transformation that can essentially make anything into a reality, limited only by the imagination of Luffy himself. It sees the usage of high-level Color of Armament and Supreme King at the highest level possible, and makes Luffy so strong that he can topple even the likes of the Emperors. It

Gear 5 is one of the most overpowered abilities in One Piece, but it does come with its own downsides. The biggest of them all is the stamina drain. Gear 5 takes a toll on Luffy’s body, and every time he utilizes this ability for a couple of minutes, he turns into an old man who is on the verge of dying. Clearly, using Gear 5 is not good for Luffy’s body and is taking its toll on his overall life force, but this drawback needs to be addressed in the Elbaph Arc for good.

How Nerona Imu’s Arrival Affects Luffy’s Powers

Nerona Imu’s arrival in the land of Elbaph finally addresses Luffy’s biggest Gear 5 drawback for good. This is because this battle is serious enough for Luffy to remain in his strongest state for an extended period of time. Traditionally, when push comes to shove, Luffy breaks through all his limits and brings out as much power as is required of him to defeat his enemy. For instance, Luffy had already died in the battle against Kaido yet was able to utilize Gear 5 for an extended period of time. Even when he lost Gear 5 once, he simply tapped into it again, knowing that he might actually die. Yet, he fought, putting his life on the line and sustaining the usage of this ability.

Something similar is going to happen in One Piece Chapter 1180, and moving forward, Luffy is most certainly going to push beyond all his limits, and in turn, this is going to help him get accustomed to the power of the Nika transformation even more. It will boost his time limit in this form even further, making him an elite pirate.

Related

One Piece Is Fixing Logia Devil Fruits With Monkey D. Dragon

Logia Devil Fruits have fallen in importance in One Piece, but they could be fixed with Monkey D. Dragon.

Why Eiichiro Oda Is Phasing Out Luffy’s Time Limit For The Endgame

Image via Toei Animation

One Piece is far from its end right now, and even though the Elbaph arc has brought forth Nerona Imu, the final villain of the entire series, it is nowhere close to ending. The real war of Elbaph has not begun yet, which means Luffy and the Straw Hats still have time to get stronger, but following the events of Elbaph, Luffy cannot afford to have just a 5-minute time limit on Gear 5, because that is not going to be enough for him to defeat top-tier enemies like other Yonko, let alone the likes of Nerona Imu.

For Luffy to fight against the monsters like Elders and Imu, especially those who regenerate, he will need to get rid of the time limit. Oda is going to phase it out slowly, just as he did with Gear Second’s immobilization, Gear Third’s shrinkage, Gear Fourth’s time limit, and immobilization. All these drawbacks have slowly been removed from Luffy, and it is time that the Gear 5 rapid aging drawback is removed as well.

Luffy’s Overall Power Level After The Warland Adventure

Luffy stands tall as one of the Four Emperors of the Sea, but it can be argued that he is the weakest among the Emperors, not counting Buggy. Luffy is certainly not on Shanks’ level, and Oda has clearly implied that across Elbaph on multiple occasions. Blackbeard possesses two of the strongest Devil Fruits, an immensely powerful Haki, and is certainly above Luffy’s level.

Luffy might not even be able to defeat Kaido in a proper one-on-one, given that his time limit with Gear 5 is very short. Once Oda phases out the Gear 5 time limit, Luffy is going to reach the true level of Emperors and stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Shanks and Blackbeard. Only then will he be the frontrunner in the race for the One Piece and make a name for himself as the mightiest pirate in the current era.

One Piece is available to read on Manga Plus on April 19, 2026, at 11 a.m. EST.

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)