User blog comment:SuperStrawHatSaiyan/Are You Gonna Fix It, Toei?/@comment-34981281-20130107045624/@comment-3119203-20130109051022

First up, are the pre-timeskip images.

Enies Lobby

Marineford

Note that Luffy is covered in smoke here. Now compare that to the previous sources from after the timeskip.

Sabaody

Fishman Island

and some more....

Punk Hazard 1

Punk Hazard 2

As you can see, Luffy is no longer wreathed in smoke. True enough, it's hard to tell, but I think that we can safely conclude that the anime isn't just BS'ing this. Maybe the blood-pump thing, but the partial Gear Second activation seems to be legit.