One Piece chapter 784 review-Gear Fourth

Notice me Escanor senpai · Apr 28, 2015

One Piece chapter 784 : Gear Fourth
Finally the chapter we’re all been waiting for. After a very cruel break, One Piece comes back with an explosive chapter, that is unsurprisingly titled Gear Fourth.
Credits to mangastream

Hmm zombies...could this be a hint about Gear 4 ?

For once I’ll be commenting on the color cover. First it is easily one of my favorites, it shows the SHs having a picnic in a cemetery surrounded by Zombies. The SHs are acting as usual, the weakest ones are scared out of their lives, because of the zombies, while the rest are enjoying themselves. Robin is even seen feeding one of the zombies , but what is most interesting is what going on over at Zoro’s side. He’s wearing a T-shirt with an incomplete inscription that goes like this: “………ie ultimo...ie major”. This is actually a saying in Spanish “Quien rie ultimo rie major” which translates to “He who laughs last laughs best ”. This message could have a relevance to the manga, or not, but I thought it would be nice to point it out. And below him is a gravestone with the number “944”, some people believe that this could refer to chapter 944, and it being possibly when they reach Raftel, but seeing how we’ve already reached the 780 chapters mark I doubt it. If anything this could be the number of a chapter that has some big reveal, like a new Gear, or a new nakama. This makes more sense to me.

Gear 4 finally revealed!

I can’t say I wasn’t expecting a Gear fourth technique, I think pretty much all the fans were expecting it. There was no reason not to introduce a new gear after the time skip, after all in the first half it is usually what made the difference. Gear 2 gave Luffy more speed in order to keep up with his enemies, namely CP9. Gear 3 on the other hand gave Luffy more power in order to deal devastating puches, by inflating his bones, but with him perhaps being slower. And with him not being able to deal enough damage to DD despite being fast it seemed that the solution was to have a middle ground between Gear 2 and Gear 3, allowing Luffy to retain his speed while dealing devastating punches. That was rather easy to predict , however the way he’ll be able to do it was harder to predict. And I feel only a few managed to come close to the final result.
Gear 4 can be summarized as Luffy inflating his muscles and coating himself in Haki, but not entirely.
He starts by creating a Muscle Balloon in his hand, and as the name suggests it’s achieved by inflating his mucles instead of his bones as seen previously in Gear 3. Using Gear 4 Luffy is able to become bigger, but not just his arm, he traps air in the whole of his body. The Haki armor is back, as we’ve previously seen with Vergo and Pica who used it on themselves, although in Luffy’s case it’s only a partial armor.So those who predicted that Haki will be part of Gear 4 were also right. The form he takes in his Gear 4 is called Boundman,as in “bouncing man”. Indeed in this form he is all round and bouncy as a ballon.The design is goofy as hell, and kinda reminiscent of Nightmare Luffy, but it’s also very original and consistent with Oda’s unique style of drawing. It is kinda underwhelming at first, even DD starts laughing at it (I did too lol) but once he starts attacking him, we finally realize that this is the real deal.
Overall I like the design especially with the Haki armor, I love the flame like pattern that the haki takes.

Gear 4 is so powerful it sends DD flying...yeah baby!

While in his boundman form, Luffy starts by retracting his fist inside, instead of stretching it as seen in previous Gears, and this was also predicted by the readers. This was one of my favorite theories since by retracting his fist Luffy would be able to deal more damage, and this is exactly what happens as he uses the Gomu Gomu no Kong Gun, that not only hurts DD but sends him flying to a distance. Even DD is unable to realize what is happening.It is worth noting that Luffy says that he had to come up with this new gear in order to fight the giant beasts of Rusukaina, so it is something he most likely came up with early on in his training and not at the end like some of us thought.
So it seems that Gear 4 has managed to come up with the solution to Luffy’s problem of not being able to hit DD hard enough. And it managed to comprise a few theories that were floating around. First the fact that he could try to combine Gear 2 and 3, although in this case Gear 3 seems to be taking the lion’s share , but instead of inflating his bones it’s the muscles. Haki is an important part, and Luffy attacks now by retracting his muscles instead of stretching them, which is something new.And the design ressembles that of Nightmare Luffy.

Zoro finally decided to do something about the birdcage.

We get to see a few shots of Dressrosa where the cage is seen shrinking, which threatens to kill all the citizens. No place is safe, not even the plateau, where it is predicted by Hack that it will become the center of the cage right where DD is standing. Usopp is panicking as usual, but what is interesting is that Zoro finally decided to do something about the cage.He and the two samurais are prolly trying to get closer to the cage in order to take it down. I think it’s time we know if Zoro can cut the cage, but seeing as he’s accompanied by Kin’emon and Kanjuro he prolly needs their help. In the end I think it could be a joint effort between the colosseum fighters who are not ready to die just yet, and Zoro and co. That could be an interesting development, although It would make Zoro look even more badass if he were to take it down all by himself.

Law's arm is restored, Cavendish correctly analyzes the situation

Cavendish is still protecting Law, who had his arm stitched back by Leo and Mansherry as expected. His arm would be functional once the blood starts flowing into it again. Cavendish remarks how Luffy and Law are at the center of events that will have a huge impact. He really is an interesting character, and at this point I’m also routing for him to join. Since he’s looking to be famous, what better way to achieve it than joining the SHs, instead of trying to kill them? :teehee

. With this Cabbage has had as much exposure as Bartolomeo if not more. I also like how he analyzes the situation and sees that Law and Luffy are going to be at the center of a storm that will sweep at the NW, most likely because of DD and how he's involved in the underworld. I gotta say I'm pretty impressed by Cavendish's character, he's more mature than I originally thought and even if he doesn't join I'd like to see more of him, as an ally of the SHs maybe.

DD is still trying to figure what's going on....Luffy can fly

Back at Luffy vs DD. The latter still wonders how Luffy, who is a rubberman, is able to deal so much damage to someone like him with a superior fruit. It seems that DD like pretty much all the villains in OP is also underestimating Luffy because his fruit is not that unique or powerful with its base power, in comparison to DD’s Ito Ito no mi which is more deadly. It is consistent with DD’s comment in before about him having one of the rarest fruits. As DD is sent flying far from the plateau, Luffy joins him….by flying. Yes Luffy can fly now :zomg

. This new gear is pushing the boundaries of what Luffy’s fruit can do, he’s not just floating anymore, he’s able to propel himself to a distance. He hits DD with his two feet with what he calls a Rhino Schneider.Luffy still has to practice his landing lol.DD is once again sent flying, this time between Pica’s statue’s feet (GOAL!). Luffy is relentless and tries to attack DD with a Culverin (aka Python Cannon) , which has Luffy’s arm stretch this time, but DD evades the attack and tries to hit Luffy from the side with his Athlete thread, but is unable to hurt him due to Luffy’s elasticity. Normally with all that air stored in his body it makes sense that attacks wouldn’t hit, because it’s mostly air that gets hit, and despite using Haki Luffy is able to maintain that elasticity. This use of Haki could mean that Luffy has become so proficient in using it that he’s able to maintain the properties of his DF, when normally his body would become hard and lose its elasticity. DD wonders why Luffy’s size isn’t shrinking despite Luffy getting hit. The air should be released under the pressure of the kick in theory.Maybe the Haki traps the air so even if Luffy gets hit his size remains the same.Or it simply is that DD’s info about Luffy is outdated :teehee

DD seems powerless in front of Luffy who keeps landing hits.

Luffy is able to keep his inflated form without shrinking and he continues to pound at DD. He sents his fist to find DD in a snake like pattern, and he finally hits him with the intended Culverin from earlier in the face.

Wow what can I say? Gear 4 is without a doubt impressive, if Luffy continues to pound at DD like this he’ll be done in no time. However I feel that DD can still manage to turn the tables. As some suggested he could use a full body armor too, and his haki should be stronger than the likes of Vergo and Pica. That would at least protect him from the damage he’s currently receiving. He could also use his strings, maybe even the parasite strings, but it all depends of whether they will work on Luffy at this point. Haki could negate the strings so they wouldn’t be able to control Luffy. Also there is something that I find rather strange, why didn’t Luffy imbue all of his body in Haki? His stomach and chest area are bare; so I can see that as his weak point that DD could try to target. I doubt Gear 4 will have too many drawbacks like Gear 2 and 3 back in the day, but having a weak point that could be exploited, or Luffy not being able to maintain this form for long could even things out. Other than that I think Gear 4 managed to find an effective solution to Luffy’s problem, it managed to maintain Luffy’s speed while giving him more powerful punches, however I wonder if just like Gear 3 that was introduced shortly after Gear 2 , Gear 5 could get introduced if it turns out that DD found a way to counter the effects of Gear 4.Since Gear 4 could have been created way early in Luffy’s training, it wouldn’t be completely impossible that he thought about another gear, which he could have came up with later. But at this point it hardly seems necessary, since Luffy is able to deal quite some damage with this new gear.

Based on my enjoyment of this chapter, and because I feel that Gear 4 lived up to the expectation, I’m giving this chapter a 9 out 10, also I can’t wait to see Zoro try to cut the birdcage next :zomg

AriesNoShion · Apr 28, 2015