Goro Goro no Mi

The Goro Goro no Mi is a Logia-type Devil Fruit that grants the power to create, control, and transform into lightning at will, making its user a Lightning Human (雷人間); according to Nico Robin, it is one of the few powers touted as "invincible". The fruit was eaten by Enel.

Etymology

 * Gorogoro (ごろごろ・ゴロゴロ) is a Japanese onomatopoeia for the rumbling of thunder.
 * Gorogoro-sama (ごろごろ様・ゴロゴロ様) is also children's language to refer to thunder/lightning.
 * In the VIZ manga, the English version of the game Pirates Carnival (dubbed by 4Kids), and the anime's Funimation dub, it is called the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, likewise referencing the rolling sound of thunder.

Strengths
This Logia's power is to become lightning itself: to create, control, and transform into electricity. The user can discharge variable amounts of it from their body to manipulate as they please, including regulate the voltage: 200 million volts being the maximum output (roughly in the range of natural lightning). Even by Logia standards, this ability seems remarkably strong given the sheer energy and destructiveness that is inherent to lightning, with Nico Robin stating that among the many existing Devil Fruits, the Goro Goro no Mi's power is one of the few considered invincible.



Like any Logia type, the user can physically morph into their element. As pure lightning, they are intangible and can let most attacks (sans those involving Haki or Seastone) phase through them harmlessly. Enemies are dissuaded from directly striking the user — with their body or a conductive weapon — lest they be electrocuted, affording a melee-combat advantage. By fully turning into electricity, the user can move at lightning speed, allowing them to zip into and out of sight, cross large distances near-instantaneously, easily dodge most attacks, and overtake any fleeing target. On top of that, the user can merge their lightning self with conductive materials (e.g., gold) to stealthily travel through them, as well as traverse thunderclouds. Thanks to their electrical immunity, the Goro Goro no Mi's user can freely spawn electricity inside their body without repercussion; they can even restart their own heart with electricity should they suffer cardiac arrest.



While the Goro Goro no Mi user is a great menace up close seeing as they can electrically shock and burn people on contact, their electrocuting potential is not limited to close range, as they can conjure up vast amounts of electricity to launch as long-ranged blasts, striking farer-off targets. These attacks can be shapeless masses of lightning, focused or spread out, be sent directly at opposition along a forward path, or made to crash down from above like natural lightning; alternatively, the electricity can be given more distinct shapes, like animals. Beside lightning itself, the user may also produce thunderclaps, by superheating the air to make it expand at the speed of sound.

What is more, should the Goro Goro no Mi user gain access to naturally or unnaturally formed thunderclouds in their vicinity (as Enel had with the storm clouds artificially spewed forth by his flying ark), they can use said clouds to dramatically boost the range of their abilities, to the point of showering entire islands with countless lightning bolts or creating enormous, dense cloud balls laden with enough electricity to destroy islands on which they are dropped. Traveling through the storm clouds is likewise possible.

The Goro Goro no Mi user's lightning abilities extend even to heat and electromagnetism on some level, affording great versatility. They can, for instance, channel electricity into metal like gold to heat it up, melt, and then reshape it to their liking, as seen when Enel reforged his gold staff into a heat-exuding trident or when he temporarily liquified and took control of his flying ark's gold plating to entrap his foe therein. Otherwise, the user can pick up on and "read electromagnetic waves" (電波を読み取り) from the air, across great distances. By combining said facet of his powers with "Mantra" (Kenbunshoku Haki), Enel gained a constant, radar-like sense of everything happening around him on a massive scale, allowing him to know the exact locations, actions, and conversations of anyone present on Skypiea at any time while massively expanding his attack range.

Powering machinery that runs on electricity, whether a massive flying ark or robotic entities, is also possible for a user of this fruit's power.

Weaknesses


While extremely powerful, the Goro Goro no Mi's ability does have a unique weakness in the form of rubber, which is an insulator. This makes the user of the Gomu Gomu no Mi the natural enemy of and counter to the Goro Goro no Mi's user, as the former's body is completely rubber-made. All of Enel's lightning attacks were shown to have zero effect on Monkey D. Luffy, even those with voltages as high as 100 or 200 million. In addition, all of Luffy's physical blows that struck Enel completely bypassed the latter's intangibility. It is unknown if other insulators have the same, if any, effect on Enel's Logia form.

Automata are also unharmed by Enel's lightning. In fact, being robots, lightning recharges them.

Moreover, someone with their own ability to control lightning, like Nami using her Clima-Tact, can deflect some of the Goro Goro no Mi's attacks, although Enel noted that Nami would be unable to do so if he upped the voltage.

Otherwise, this fruit's user suffers the standard Devil Fruit weaknesses, like losing their powers if submerged in water or contacting Seastone, and Busoshoku Haki negating their intangibility.

Usage
During his tenure as "God" of Skypiea, Enel employed his lightning powers to mete out his so-called "divine punishment" to whoever went against his declared laws or merely spoke ill of him, disclosed his secrets, etc., leaving especially the Angel Island denizens in constant and abject fear of his anger. Enel managed to do this by using his high-level "Mantra" in conjunction with his ability to read electromagnetic waves from afar to make his sphere of perception span the whole country, thus granting him a radar-like awareness of all happenings in it while making his attack range overwhelmingly wide. He would surveil Skypieans and listen in on what they were saying so that, should he hear disparaging conversations, he could send down giant lightning blasts to smite the concerning parties from on high (his residence at God's Shrine); alternatively, Enel would take notice of when people uttered his name and personally confront them.



When entering face-to-face combat, Enel's powers are shown to make him extremely formidable. None of those he came to fight on Skypiea knew how to handle his Logia powers, with only Wyper (before Luffy) managing to hurt Enel once by catching him unawares with Seastone. Thanks to the natural speed of lightning, Enel in his transformed state has showcased tremendous mobility, able move about untraceably fast and into enemies' blind spots, catch up to fleeing targets, and evade most attacks with no discernible effort (especially by combining his speed with the premonitive aspect of Kenbunshoku Haki). He can even merge himself with and thus traverse electrically conductive materials, like gold, as well as move through thunderclouds in the sky. Perhaps most impressive, however, is Enel's demonstrated ability to recover from cardiac arrest: should someone manage to hit him with a strong enough blow to make his heart stop beating, he can simply shock it back to normal.



Most of Enel's offensive moves aim at dispatching adversaries by making overwhelming amounts of electricity pass through their bodies at once, usually knocking them out and inflicting severe burns. Most of Enel's seen attacks, both at short and long range, sufficed to instantly defeat whomever they struck, with Enel unaccustomed to enemies who can withstand more than one or two of his blasts. For some of his techniques, particularly those forming animals out of electricity, Enel uses the taiko drums on his shoulders as a medium, tapping them with his gold staff and making them glow before a given lightning creature appears from them, to assail Enel's foe. Against the rubber-bodied Luffy who proved utterly immune to electric shocking, Enel instead opted to use his gold staff in melee, infusing his weapon with electricity to reforge it into a sharp trident that exuded electrical heat to both slice and burn his foe, as well as using the gold integrated into the Ark Maxim to encase one of Luffy's arms in a massive gold sphere, permanently hampering the boy's movements.

When using the thunderclouds generated by the Ark Maxim as a medium, Enel was able to dramatically increase the range and scale of his lightning, creating exceedingly destructive attacks (namely his Mamaragan and Raigo) that could ravage and destroy entire islands. His ultimate move is shown to involve transforming his body into a giant version of itself made of pure lightning (his Amaru form) to maximally increase the strength and voltage behind his attacks.

A non-combative use of Enel's abilities resides in his powering of machinery, primarily his flying ark, which was engineered to run on electricity as a main power source (the gold of Shandora's ruins built into the ship conducting Enel's lightning); ultimately, Enel achieved his goal of reaching "Fairy Vearth" (the Moon) using his colossal ark. Once on the Moon, Enel was able to channel his lightning to awaken an army of automata, robots that were in a dormant state, by charging up the machinery holding them in the ruins of "Birka".

Techniques
Several of Enel's techniques are named after thunder and lightning deities from real-world mythologies, in keeping with Enel's self-proclaimed "God" status. Furthermore, for some of his attacks Enel puts before their name a mention of how many volts they contain, to indicate their power level.


 * El Thor: Called "Heaven's Judgment" (天の裁き) by Skypieans, El Thor is one of Enel's signature attacks, used by him whenever he sought to punish Skypieans across the country for speaking against him, all the way from his shrine. Enel sends out lightning to gather above his target in a cluster, then makes it crash down as a massive column via a downward swipe of his arm, frying said unlucky target while, usually, leaving a deep crater in the ground. Enel has also cast El Thor in more direct combat situations, including as a forward beam from his hand, with the attack proving potent enough to instantly take out Nola, the giant "Master of the Sky" that previously had withstood multiple Burn Bazooka shots from Wyper without issue. The first usage of El Thor came before Enel's in-person debut, when he punished a trespassing Blue Sea dweller on the edge of Upper Yard, sending down lightning from on high; the technique was later named when used on Nola. "Thor" is the Norse god of thunder. "ʼĒl" is a Northwest Semitic word (Hebrew: אֵל) that means "god" or "deity"; additionally, "el-" is a romanization of the Arabic definite article while, in Spanish, "el" the article for masculine singular nouns (hence the name being also interpretable as "The Thor"). In the VIZ manga and Funimation dub, the move's original name is retained, but in the game One Piece: Pirates Carnival dubbed by 4Kids, it is called Volt Bolt.


 * Vari: A basic technique whereby Enel discharges variable amounts of electricity — 200 million volts at maximum — from his body, primarily through his hands, in order to shock nearby targets, becoming a living body of lightning upon reaching higher voltages. There are multiple versions of this attack designated according to the voltage employed, with a million volts already very powerful. Vari was first seen used by Enel to defeat Kamakiri. "Vārī" comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for crackling electricity, varivari (ヴァリヴァリ) or baribari (バリバリ), like "bzzt bzzt" in English. The Funimation dub retains the name Vari for the attack while the VIZ manga renders it as Varie.
 * 1,000,000 V (100万): A Vari used by Enel to dispatch Kamakiri, one of the strongest Shandia warriors, leaving him badly burned. The resulting stray discharge jumped over to the Milky Road that Enel was on, travelling through it and taking out another 20 fighters remotely.
 * 20,000,000 V (2000万): A Vari twenty times more powerful than that which defeated Kamakiri, used by Enel to take out Gan Fall by creating and hitting the knight with an arc discharge focused between his two index fingers.
 * 100,000,000 V (1億): An extremely strong Vari that Enel used on Luffy, producing an large and unruly blast of lightning that engulfed the Straw Hat. However, Luffy was completely unfazed by the attack thanks to his rubber body, despite having been in direct contact with Enel's hand.
 * MAX 200,000,000 V (2億): The strongest version of Vari used with the highest possible voltage that Enel can muster up through his powers. He was seen using this not for attack but to charge up his Ark Maxim so it can fly. The VIZ manga renders the MAX as Maximum.


 * Sango: A large-scale attack where Enel raises an arm and from it shoots a vast, erratic, expanding stream of lightning upward, destroying everything above him with no specific target in mind. The attack was seen when Enel blew apart the Upper Yard's highest ruins to send its remains, plus the last remaining survivors of his survival game, down to the lower ruins of Shandora. "Shango" (Ṣàngó) is a West African thunder god of the Yoruba religion. The kanji read inazuma (稲妻), a popular Japanese term for lightning due to an ancient Japanese belief that rice plants would mate with or otherwise be fertilized by lightning. The attack is called Sango Smash in the VIZ manga and Shango in the Funimation subs, while the Funimation dub retains the original name.


 * Kari: A technique whereby Enel unleashes a blinding burst of lightning around his body to superheat the air, making it expand at the speed of sound and create a thunderclap. This, in turn, allows Enel to neutralize nonmaterial attacks directed at him, as seen when he snuffed out the fire of Wyper's Burn Bazooka. "Kari" (or "Karei/Karey") is a Malayan thunder god of the Semang people. In the VIZ manga, this attack is called Kari Krash, and the Funimation adaptations retain the original name.


 * Shinzo Massage (心臓マッサージ): A passive use of his powers that allows Enel to regain his consciousness in the event that his heart enters a state of cardiac arrest, by applying repeated jolts of electricity to his body that effectively "massage" his heart, thus restarting it as if using a defibrillator. This was somehow done unconsciously by Enel to self-resuscitate after having his heart stopped from Wyper's use of a Reject Dial on him, and while not directly named in the manga or anime, the technique is named in One Piece: Burning Blood.


 * 30,000,000 V Hino (3000万): An attack where Enel taps one of the drums at his back with his gold staff, causing a giant, eagle-shaped mass of electricity to appear from it and fly toward Enel's chosen target, passing through and electrocuting them with 30 million volts. The technique was used by Enel in an attempt to defeat Wyper. "Hino" is a thunder god in Iroquois (Native American) mythology. The kanji read raichō (雷鳥), the Japanese name of the rock ptarmigan, a type of grouse; the separate translation of the kanji may reference the "thunderbird", a creature from Native American peoples' legends that is known for its powers over lightning and thunder (which Hino can be associated with). This attack is called Hino Bird Zap in the VIZ manga and Hino Avian Zap in the game One Piece: Grand Adventure, while the Funimation dub retains the original name.


 * Kiten: An attack where Enel taps one of his shoulder drums using his staff to create a large, wolf-shaped mass of lightning from it, which jumps at an opponent to severely electrocute them with a bite. The attack was used by Enel to incapacitate Roronoa Zoro. Though the volts of Kiten were not stated, Enel hitting a single drum like for Hino (and using the two attacks one after the other) may suggest a comparable voltage. "Kiten" (木貂) is the name of a specific thunder beast from Japanese folklore. Usually, the term Raijū (雷獣) refers to the companion of the Japanese thunder god Raijin: sometimes said to be a wolf or dog (hence this attack's shape) with a body made of or wrapped in lightning, which descends to the earth inside thunderbolts. The technique is called Lightning Beast Kiten in the VIZ manga and 30 Million Volt Kiten in Grand Adventure (dubbed by 4Kids), while the Funimation dub retains the original name.


 * 60,000,000 V Jamboule (6000万): An attack where Enel beats two drums on his back using his staff to prompt a large, serpentine dragon made of electricity to come out of them. This dragon flies at the designated target, passing through and electrocuting them with 60 million volts. The attack was performed by Enel in an attempt to hurt Luffy, who due to his rubber body remained unhurt by it. The attack is named after a thunder god of Australia's Arnhem Land and thus may be loosely based on Jagtjadbulla, one of the "Lightning Brothers" from Australian Aboriginal myth of whom famous rock art exists in Northern Australia. The technique's name is retained in the Funimation dub and video games, while being Lightning Dragon in the VIZ manga and Funimation sub (the former of which erroneously calls the voltage six million), and Thunder Dragon in the English version of One Piece: Pirates Carnival. In the Funimation dub of the Episode of Sky Island, it is called Julungul (referring to the Australian Aboriginal "Rainbow Serpent").


 * Gloam Paddling: A technique whereby Enel channels electricity into a piece of metal he touches — like his gold staff or the gold plating of his flying ark — to superheat, melt, and then reshape it into anything he desires. During his duel with Luffy, Enel used Gloam Paddling to reforge his gold staff into a sharp-bladed trident, while retaining the electrical heat inside the weapon to simultaneously cut and burn Luffy upon contact with it. Later, Enel used this technique to encase Luffy's arm in a giant globe of gold, impeding his ability to move and fight properly. The name of this technique may be a pun on grom (Гром), which means "thunder" in several Slavic languages, like Russian and Serbo-Croatian. The technique is called Luminous Forge in the VIZ manga and Grom Puddling in the Funimation subs, while the Funimation dub retains the original name.


 * Deathpiea (デスピア): One of the prime functions of Enel's flying ark, the Maxim. Using his energy to power the ark's engines, Enel has the ship generate and spew out a massive, artifical jet stream of thunderclouds from its smokestack, which start covering the skies. The clouds accumulate energy while spreading, and Enel can take control of them at any time to start raining down from them dozens of lightning bolts to devastate the clouded-over area. True to the name of this ability, Enel sought to use it in order to annihilate the country of Skypiea.
 * Mamaragan: Once the thunderclouds of Deathpiea have begun covering the sky over the stretch of land that Enel wishes to hit with lightning, he can initiate this technique, causing the clouds to shower everything below them with dozens of massive lightning bolts that create fire wherever they strike, while continually growing in strength. Enel was seen using Mamaragan to start assaulting all of Skypiea with lightning, wreaking mass destruction; a single bolt of lightning proved enough to destroy a Shandian village. Enel can direct individual lightning to strike select locations by directing the bolts with his arms. "Mamaragan" is an Australian Aboriginal thunder god. The kanji read banrai (万雷), a word for heavy thunder that literally means "myriad/10,000 lightnings".


 * Raigo (雷迎): One of Enel's strongest techniques, possible after Deathpiea has been invoked. Enel shapes a vast quantity of prior-made thunderclouds into one giant, dark sphere laden with inordinate amounts of electricity. Enel then moves this cloud above a chosen location on the ground and drops it there. Upon hitting the ground, the cloud bursts, causing an enormous lightning explosion that can annihilate a whole island. When first seen in use, Raigo managed to destroy Angel Island, leaving a giant crater in its wake that reached deep into the White-White Sea. Later, Enel formed another Raigo cloud even bigger than the first, in order to decimate the rest of Skypiea; this second cloud was dissipated from within by Luffy before it could do any damage, however. The technique's name is a homophonic pun on raigō (来迎), a term in Japanese Buddhism that refers to the Amitābha's appearance on a purple cloud to welcome spirits of the dead into the pure land; here, the rai (来) for "next/coming" is replaced by rai (雷) for "thunder". In the VIZ manga, the technique is called Kingdom Come while, in the Funimation dub, the original name is used. In Burning Blood, Enel performs Raigo by assuming his Amaru form (explained below) and thrusting his dual tridents (his gold staff split in two) into the cloud sphere from above, making two bolts of lightning shoot down from it. In other forms of media such as Pirate Warriors, Enel instead drops the cloud on top of his individual targets.


 * 200,000,000 V Amaru (2億): Enel's ultimate technique. He morphs his body into pure, 200,000,000-volt electricity while growing in size to become a giant, potbellied, Raijin-esque lightning figure. In this state, Enel can unleash immense bolts of electricity from his hands and wields his original gold staff split into a pair of tridents, which burn anything they touch. However, even with Amaru, Enel was unable to significantly injure Luffy due to his rubber body and had his intangibility bypassed by the latter's strikes, ultimately being defeated by Luffy's final attack on him: a spiraling rubber punch strengthened by the gold orb then-attached to Luffy's arm, which instantly forced Enel out of his Amaru form upon hitting him. The name of this technique is a pun on amoru (る), alt. read amakudaru, in reference to both the falling of lightning and a god's descent. The kanji read raijin (雷神), either a generic term for any mythical thunder god or specifically the Japanese "Raijin".

Past
Six years before the start of the series, Enel found the Goro Goro no Mi and ate from it. Gaining its powers was what drove him to destroy his homeland and develop a god complex.

Anime and Manga Differences


While the color of the lightning created by Enel in the anime and video games (like the Pirate Warriors games) is a light blue, in the manga (e.g., its digitally colored version) it is yellow.

Trivia

 * Enel likes to introduce himself by saying "I am God" (がなり), a pun on the homophonous phrase "I am Lightning" (が).
 * This references the etymology of kaminari (雷) for "lightning" in Japanese: it was originally a compound of kami (神) and nari (鳴り), the continuative verb form of naru (鳴る), reflecting the ancient belief that thunder represented calls/crying of the kami in the sky.
 * Enel's ring with four tomoe-marked drums (taiko) on his back — which he uses for some of his lightning attacks by tapping them with his gold staff — is inspired by the Japanese thunder god Raijin. Said god is usually depicted having such drums on a ring behind his back, usually more than four, which he beats to produce the sound of thunder.
 * It seems that, in Enel's case, the tapping of a single drum represents electricity in the range of 30 million volts, as he was shown hitting one drum for his 30,000,000 V Hino attack and two for his Jamboule attack, which has twice that voltage.
 * The appearance of Enel's Amaru form references Japanese religion/mythology:
 * The Japanese thunder god Raijin is sometimes depicted with a potbelly. Said trait on Enel when using Amaru, coupled with his flared-up hair, drum ring, and the narrow, circular, floating strip of cloth around his shoulders, adds to his resemblance to said deity. Said shoulder cloth — a ribbon-like drapery called "tenne/ten'i" (天衣) — can be found on East Asian buddha statues as a traditional ornament. In Japan, the tenne was increasingly included in statuary of various Buddhist (or related) deities over the centuries, such as on Niō statues or, later, statues of Raijin and Fūjin, among others.
 * When invoking his transformation, Enel strikes a pose resembling that of Japanese Niō statues: his right arm stretched forward with its open palm, the left arm behind, bent forward, and making a fist. This same pose is also done by Luffy when entering Gear 4.
 * While Enel designates the voltage of some of his attacks to indicate their strength, the lethality of real-world electric shocks is more so determined by the current/amperage (the actual flow/volume of electrons), shock duration, and pathway (e.g., electricity through the heart is more likely lethal, while even large currents may not be if merely traveling over the skin, as with "flashover" from lightning). However, current is proportional to voltage when resistance is fixed (Ohm's law), and thus higher voltages are needed to actually deliver higher currents (voltage overcomes resistance); still, a high voltage on its own is not necessarily dangerous if the current is very low. Typical lightning bolts can involve voltages (potential differences between cloud and ground) of several hundred million volts and currents worth tens of thousands of amps.
 * Interestingly, the only detrimental effects that Enel's lightning attacks seem to have on those struck are paralysis, burned skin, and unconsciousness. In spite of how some of Enel's foes were shown having significant parts of or their entire bodies exposed to extremely high-voltage electricity, sometimes over several seconds, none seemed to take lasting internal damage.
 * In a similar vein, while rubber is indeed an insulator, the attacks that Luffy has withstood without being affected (capable of vaporizing stone, with voltages as high as 100 and 200 million) would, in a real-world context, easily suffice to overcome the dielectric strength of normal rubber, which would be melted by the searing heat alone. Luffy's immunity may be made believable (apart from willing suspension of disbelief) by the fact that his supernatural rubber body is far superior to regular rubber and thus boasts higher electrical resistivity, if not outright immunity.
 * Enel's ability to control and reshape gold in a semiliquid state using Gloam Paddling resembles the Goru Goru no Mi's gold manipulation, though of course with Enel's abilities being far more limited. Coincidentally, the two Devil Fruits have similar names.
 * In One Piece Magazine Vol.11, Boa Hancock is illustrated wielding the Goro Goro no Mi's power, while also attired just like Enel.
 * According to Oda, Nami would have this Devil Fruit power if she was allowed one. Using it, she would become an invincible weather lady who could not be stopped by anyone other than Luffy.

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