Monkey D. Luffy



Monkey D. Luffy is the main protagonist of One Piece and captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, which are sometimes even referred to as the "Luffy Pirates".

Appearence
Luffy is renouned for wearing his trademark Straw Hat (in which he gets his nickname 'Straw Hat Luffy' from) which was given to him when was young by the legendary pirate captain Red-Haired Shanks. His outfit somewhat mimicks Shanks' own outif in that he wears short trousers (although his are much short then Shanks') and sandals. Luffy also wears a red vest and has a scar underneath his left cheek and short black hair.

Luffy, for some reason, has the same outfit over most of the series, as opposed to the rest of the crew. Luffy may wear a different outfit to suit the climate of an island (like Drum Island or Arabasta), but will switch back to his trademark vest and shorts after the adventures on that island are over.

Eiichiro Oda has mentioned that Luffy mostly resembles a monkey (he sometimes even makes a monkey face).

Statistics

 * Japanese Name: モンキー・D・ルフィ
 * Romanized Name: Monkī D. Rufi
 * English Name: Monkey D. Luffy (note: it has been stated that "Luffy" is his given name while "Monkey" is his surname )
 * Nicknames: "Straw Hat Luffy"
 * Age: 17
 * Birthday: May 5 (Children's Day)
 * Height: 172 cm
 * Affiliations: Straw Hat Pirates
 * Japanese VA: Mayumi Tanaka; Urara Takano in One Piece OVA
 * English VA: Bella Hudson
 * First Appearence: Manga Chapter #1; Anime Episode #1
 * Last Appearence: Manga Chapter #430; Anime Episode #281
 * Rivals: None
 * Confirmed Relatives: Portgas D. Ace (Portgaz D. Trace in English dub)
 * Dream: Find One Piece and become the Pirate King in order to surpass Red-Haired Shanks, along the way having as many adventures as possible
 * Devil Fruit: Gomu Gomu no Mi (ゴムゴムの実)
 * Meaning: "Gomu" is the Japanese word for "rubber".
 * English Name: Gum Gum Fruit
 * Type: Paramecia
 * Effect: Permanently turns the body into extremely durable natural rubber, allowing the user to stretch his or her body like rubber and become immune to regular blows, falling, bullets, and lightning; furthurmore, with careful manipulation of the rubber body (such as using the legs to pump blood), user can also increase a certain aspect of his body for increase strength or speed. However, the user's body can be affected by sharp objects, explosives, fire and ice.


 * Bounty:
 * First: 30 million berries after defeating Arlong (Chapter 96 to 213; Japanese Episode 45 to 144; English Episode 39 to current)
 * Second: 100 million berries after defeating Sir Crocodile (Chapter 213 to current; Japanese Episode 144 to present)

Personality
At first glance, Luffy does not appear to be very intelligent. However, because he views the world in a straightfoward and simple manner, he occasionally is the only person who can see past events that have taken place and realizes the true goal.

Although Luffy is fairly lightheaded and a funny character, he has a strong sense of determination and commitment and will do anything to stand up for his friends and comrades. Luffy is simple-minded and can easily be amazed by the simplest things, and can be confused by things such as the concept that by digging a hole right next to another he may be unintentionally filling the other hole. He likes to make fun of other's imperfections and character traits, such as Zoro's bad sense of direction (though he is rarely better). Luffy seems to have an unstoppable appetite (this characteristic is common to the Japanese archetype of the, at times simple-minded, young male hero/adventurer with a heart of gold, as in the case of Son Goku of Dragon Ball fame for example, which is Eiichiro Oda's favorite manga.)

He also appears to have very little fear, as when Spandam asked if he really thought he had a chance against the whole world when Sogeking burned down the World Government's flag, he yelled "YEAH!!" at the top of his voice. Luffy has no fear of death, stating that if he reaches his goal, that's fine, but if he dies on the way, that's fine too. He even smiled when he was nearly executed by Buggy the Clown in Loguetown.

Because he is the captain and recruited all the crewmates, Luffy is on good terms with everyone on the ship. Luffy also has the rare ability to cheer up just about anyone with his idiotic antics, even pulling a smile every now and then from the serious Zoro and Robin. Usopp and Chopper, as the youngest of the crew, often join him in singing and fooling around. Nami often scolds Luffy's airheadedness, but he never gets angry at her, even when she manipulates him. He adores Sanji's cooking, especially meat, and drops anything he's doing for a meal. He usually gets into fights with the male members of the crew when he attempts to steal their food. Luffy also likes to comically imitate his crew members, and sometimes even himself. He is willing to do anything and everything for his friends, even the ones not in his crew. Even after someone has done something bad to him and his friends, he tends to quickly forgive them, as seen in the cases of Robin and Franky.

In confrontation of groups of enemies, Luffy will normally fight the strongest fighter (who usually is the leader) and won't give up until he defeats him, even if it takes him several tries. Sometimes he even shows direct admiration towards the abilities of an enemy: that is of course until he finds a way to outweigh his opponents strength. To the same degree, he will be angered if he witnesses indifference of a captain for the fate of his crew.

Luffy never kills any of the villains (no matter how cold-hearted they are); instead, he frequently sends the villain flying, knocking them out or until the point that they are almost near death, which results in some of the villains searching for revenge, such as Buggy the Clown. Oda explains that it's not a question of morality so much as a matter of punishing the villains for their crimes - he feels that killing the villains lets them off too lightly, whereas he considers letting them live to see their dreams be ruined a far more fitting punishment.

In Japanese fan polls, Luffy always is the most popular character and is often considered one of the more likeable shonen lead characters.

Abilities and Powers
Luffy has gained extraordinary stretching powers from eating the Gomu Gomu no Mi, which is one of the rare and legendary Devil Fruits. After consuming the Gomu Gomu no Mi, Luffy's body becomes like rubber, giving him the ability to stretch long distances. Having trained hard for ten years, Luffy is able to supplement his stretching powers with immense strength, agility, and creativity in combat. His strength is probably not an effect of the Gomu Gomu no Mi, as he does not display unusual strength in his battle with Higuma the Bear.

Luffy uses his stretching power in ingenious ways. He is able to use the malleable stretchiness of his limbs to gain tremendous velocity and hit enemies with devastating impact. His rubber body is also virtually immune to blunt objects such as bullets (in One Piece, bullets are still round pellets), punches and electricity, either reflecting off his body harmlessly or being absorbed into him. It's even become a running gag that people find out the hard way Luffy is made of rubber when they shoot at him, only to have the bullets bounce right back. However, he is still very susceptible to sharp objects such as swords and knives. He can not only use his ability to increase the range and strength of his attacks, but he can also use it to restrain and even control foes like puppets.

Like all Devil Fruit users, Luffy cannot swim (although he could not swim even before he ate the Devil Fruit). Even though blunt objects do no damage to him, sharp blades or points can harm him, as well as nonphysical attacks like flames, explosions, and freezing.

Some of his more common attacks are the Gomu Gomu no Pistol/Gum Gum Blast (a stretching punch) and Gomu Gomu no Bazooka/Gum Gum Double Barrel (Luffy sends his arms back a long distance and snaps them back for a powerful hit). The majority of his attacks revolve around having stretched limbs snap back quickly for added force or using his rubber qualities to flail his limbs rapidly for several quick attacks. Luffy follows no set fighting style, but even so he appears to be quite skilled at hand-to-hand fighting even without his Devil Fruit.

Go here for information on individual attacks.

Forms
Mizu Luffy (Water Luffy): Appears in Manga Chapters 200 to 201, Japanese Anime Episode 122, and English Anime Episode 90. In the fight with Sir Crocodile, the leader of Baroque Works, Luffy used a barrel filled with water, in order to weaken Crocodile and make him vulnerable by disabling to use his sand-morphing ability. Luffy later swallows the entire barrel of water, becoming Mizu Luffy and able to use water-supported attacks.

Afro Luffy: Appears in Manga Chapters 314 to 318 and Japanese Anime Episodes 217 to 219. In the fight with Foxy the Silver Fox, Usopp said Luffy will gain strength with an afro. Believing Usopp, Luffy gets an afro in the battle along with a temporary tattoo on his chest along with saying things such as "Hell yeah!".

Gears

Gears refer to the shifting of car gears. In Luffy's case, he uses his rubber powers in different ways to unlock new forms.

Gear Second

First appears in Manga Chapter 387 and Japanese Anime Episode 272. First seen in Luffy's fight against Blueno, he pumps his blood rapidly with his legs kickstarting the process, increasing his blood flow, thus providing more oxygen and nutrients to various parts of his body which makes him faster and stronger; Lucci compares the process to taking a stimulant. In Luffy's case, all of his organs are rubber, so they can expand and allow the blood to move at the increased speed without stressing any one internal organ and causing it to explode. This mode's enhancements to Luffy's physiology gives him the ability to use a new set of attacks which are generally the same as his old ones but now are so fast that even a skilled assassin would have a hard time actually seeing them. In this form his metabolism rate is so high that his sweat vapourises rapidly giving rise to a steaming appearance, and his skin turns slightly pink from the increased blood flow.

Currently Luffy can only use Gear Second for a short period of time, because the accelerated speed at which nutrients are used up depletes his stores rapidly. The mechanics behind this enhancement also mean reduced strength and ability after significant amounts of usage (with nutrient stores running low, having a faster blood flow would be quite pointless since there are no nutrients to deliver), as pointed out by Lucci when Luffy's attacks start losing their speedy edge. After gear second wears off, Luffy can recover quickly through replenishing of his nutrient storage by eating meat.

Also, while not considered canon, in the 7th movie of the series which takes place before the Water 7 arc, Luffy briefly and unknowingly activated Gear 2 during his fight against Ratchet, the antagonist of the film, showing this to be the move's origin of sorts.

Gear Third

Aftermath first appears in Manga Chapter 403, but first fully seen in Manga Chapter 421. First fully seen in Luffy's fight against Lucci, Luffy corks his mouth with his thumb, bites into his thumb joint and blows very hard into it, which inflates his arm. He is then able to transfer the air through his entire body, requiring the torso to act as an interface for his various limbs. Luffy blows so much air into his body that when they're all focused on a single limb, they become the size equivalent to that of a giant's. Used with his already-strong physiology, this apparently gives his arm more mass and a larger area to attack with, but he sacrifices speed for this strength. The bones are the key difference between this form and his old "Gomu Gomu no Fuusen" move, where his balloon form was soft and squishy like a regular balloon, whereas the inflated bones are very hard, similar to an inflated car tire, to the point of withstanding bullets. The bones being much harder also mean a lot of compression of air takes place when using Gear Third, making Gear Third not just a 'for-show' move as Lucci initially thought, but like a giant mace of astounding mass when used in attacks. In between his attacks, Luffy brings the air back to his chest and then shifts it into another body part. To deactivate Gear Third, Luffy leaves the form by exhaling heavily, which can cause him to be propelled backwards.

The deactivation of Gear Third brings about shrinking (to chibi size), which is a negative side-effect. The amount of time Luffy spends in his shrunken form is roughly equivalent to the amount of time spent in Gear Third mode. This shrunken form has shown no ability to stretch at all, and it has been shown that Luffy loses strength when he kept hitting Lucci's face to no effect. A currently used strategy would be to run and hide from an opponent for the duration of the shrinkage.

Past Story
When Luffy was young he met a band of pirates led by a kindly pirate named Red-Haired Shanks. Luffy befriended that band of pirates and from that moment on wanted to become a pirate as well. Luffy cut himself under his eye to show that he was tough enough to join Shanks's crew, a scene that was never reproduced in the anime. During his time spent with Shanks, Luffy ate a Devil Fruit (Cursèd Fruit in the English dub) known as the Gomu Gomu no Mi (ゴムゴムの実, Gum Gum Fruit, Rubber Rubber Fruit), and unwittingly turned himself into a rubber man.

After Luffy stood up to Higuma the Bear, a local mountain bandit that insulted Shanks and his crew, Luffy got caught up in a hostage situation and his captives were defeated by the Red-Haired Pirates, but the bandit leader Higuma had fled out to sea with Luffy, only for the two to be attacked by a Sea King. Higuma was eaten, but Shanks mangaged to save Luffy. However the incident cost Shanks his left arm. Shortly after, Shanks set sail along with his crew, but before leaving, he and Luffy promised each other that one day Luffy would surpass Shanks and become the Pirate King and then Shanks left Luffy his straw hat as a parting gift, telling him to return it once he surpassed him.

Present Story
Luffy has since worked diligently on keeping that promise and is known famously as "Monkey D Luffy", or simply "Straw Hat Luffy". Most people don't take his goal seriously, until they see his absurd strength; although we never surely know how he got to be so strong or how he trained in the ten years of his training.

Even the Marines started to take him more seriously after he defeated the villainous Marine Captain "Axe-Hand" Morgan and several known pirates such as Captain Buggy the Clown, "Pirate Admiral" Don Krieg, and Arlong The Fish-man (Captain Kuro is left out from this because their confrontation was never publicized, and the marines believed Kuro to have been killed by Morgan 3 years ago). A 30 million beli reward was placed on his head after he had beaten Arlong. This reward eventually becomes 100 million belli after he defeated Sir Crocodile when the World Government deemed him a serious threat for beating one of their Seven Warlords of the Sea.

During his voyage, Luffy has had a few meetings with the Marines, from the not-too serious looking return of Ironfist Fullbody (whom Luffy met first by the Baratie) and Captain Smoker (Captain Chaser in the English anime) of Roguetown (Loguetown in the Japanese version), to Admiral Aokiji.

Luffy has passed several islands on his way to and along The Grand Line, including Drum Island, Little Garden, Alabasta, and Skypiea. He has met many new allies, as well as making several enemies, such as Wapol, Sir Crocodile, and Eneru.

Luffy's Relatives
Luffy's relatives are still shrouded in mystery. Luffy meets his other older brother, Portgas D. Ace, in Alabasta. Ace, a.k.a. "Fire Fist" Ace, whom has eaten the Mera Mera (Fire Fire, "Flare Flare" in the English dub) Fruit and thus can manipulate fire at will. After Luffy and his crew land on Longring Longland, Admiral Aokiji relates meeting Luffy's grandfather. Though no details about him were given, it was the only time Luffy has ever appeared genuinely afraid. In the original version planned, Luffy's grandfather was the one shown giving Luffy his straw hat. It is speculated by fans that Luffy's grandfather is either Gol D. Roger or Jaguar D. Saul, although Saul is a giant. There is also evidence that Luffy's middle initial "D." is a key element in uncovering the identity of his relatives. He might also be related to Marshall D. Teach (Blackbeard).

Current Events (Spoilers)
Chapter 430: With the Going Merry, everyone has managed to escape Enies Lobby safely. However, after escaping, Iceburg arrives in a Galley-La just in time to pick up the Strawhat Pirates as the Merry suddenly breaks apart. Luffy then gives the Going Merry a viking funeral by burning it as the crew tearfully says goodbye.

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