One Piece 784 Review: All These New Gear Fourth Attacks

One Piece, Chapter 784: Fourth Gear

Yeah, that was a pretty awesome upgrade. Gear Fourth is basically Luffy inflating his muscles instead of his bones like Gear Third and generally being this super-awesome wrecking machine. I do like how Gear Fourth actually implements Luffy's base rubber powers, which is something neither Gear Second nor Gear Third does after their initial activation. And I do like how each 'Gear' corresponds to a certain part of the body that's made possible by Luffy's rubber-ness: Gear Second pumps the blood vessels, Gear Third inflates the bones and Gear Fourth inflates the muscles.

This chapter is just undiluted Luffy displaying the power of Gear Fourth and laying the smackdown on Doflamingo -- the first time he's actually been hurt other than Law's Gamma Knife (which he ends up annulling by string surgery).

We get a couple of pages just showing all the other people reacting to how Birdcage is shrinking and how the center of Birdcage is Doflamingo and not the town and it really doesn't matter we don't care. Zoro and the two samurai are apparently going to stop Birdcage, but I also really don't care. We get a bit of Law and Cavendish talking about making splashes in the world but honestly it's just a bunch of redundant scenes... if there is one thing that hurts the pacing of this arc the most, it's the relentless back-and-forth between unimportant characters just playing peanut's gallery to everything that's happening.

But we cut back to Luffy doing Gear Fourth, kicking off his sandals and doing Muscle Balloon. Luffy basically inflates all his upper-body muscles and hops around on his normal-sized feet, and his angry face kind of looks like Nightmare Luffy from way back in Thriller Bark. It looks hilarious and badass at the same time. His limbs and eyes are all Haki'd and shit, so it isn't just simple inflation. Like how the Haki on Luffy's chest tapers off like some sick tribal tattoos.

Luffy calls this form 'Bound Man' or 'Bounce Man' depending on the translation, and claims to have actually used this form while training on that island with Rayleigh. He keeps bouncing around, and then retracts his arm kind of like Bellamy's Bane-Bane no Mi... and if it wasn't for his claim that he's used it during the timeskip, I would've guessed Luffy thought of it on the spot after beating Bellamy up. We get a cool visual of Luffy's fist actually being compressed so hard it retracts into this Mega-Man cannon like thing and for once Luffy's gun/cannon naming sensibilities makes perfect sense. Luffy unleashes this Gomu Gomu King Kong Gun that completely sends Doflamingo flying out of the sky and crashing into a building, and this time he's not just laughing the damage off.

Luffy also demonstrates the ability to basically do CP9's Geppo by retracting his feet like the King Kong Gun and just kicking the air multiple times. Is he actually mimicking the abilities of his former enemies? He then ninja-speeds his way next to Doflamingo and does this double spring-kick straight on Doflamingo's face and good lord that looks so satisfying. It's called 'Gomu Gomu Rhino Schneider'. We get some randoms briefly commenting on how Luffy looks ridiculous bouncing around, which is fair enough -- badass as he is, that does look pretty silly.

Doflamingo gets thrown through the city but shoots straight up again, noting how the Busoshoku Haki helps to enhance Luffy's tensile power. Luffy goes into the sky as well and launches 'Gomu Gomu no Culverin', which apparently is translated into kanji as Python Cannon. It misses Doflamingo in the first go, and Doflamingo does 'Athelete' and kicks Luffy in the gut... but apparently Gear Fourth enhances Luffy's bounciness so much that he can just rubber Doflamingo's attack and push him away, before launching Gomu Gomu no Culverin a second time. Doflamingo is surprised that Luffy doesn't retract his arm like the Kong Gun, and this time the muscles actually stretch out and zig-zag mid-air like an actual snake and fucking punches Doflamingo in the jaw. Pretty awesome fight, though I'm assuming it might be extended for another chapter or two.

Overall it's great! Gear Fourth is awesome, and it's nice to see Doflamingo get his ass rightfully kicked. Not really much else to say other than variations of the word 'awesome' and 'fuck the breaks in between chapters.'