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| Tuesday, December 05, 2006 |
| Monkey D. Luffy |
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About Luffy
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
He is the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates (sometimes referred to as the "Luffy Pirates") and comes from Fuschia Town. Luffy had the highest bounty in the East Blue with 30 million Berries after his defeat of Arlong, but the bounty increased to 100 million Berries when he defeated the Seven Warlords of the Sea member Sir Crocodile, and again to 300,000,000 after Enies Lobby and his entanglement with CP9 member Rob Lucci.
He has clashed with other Devil Fruit users many times; he has also made many good friends who have eaten the Fruit but are not part of his crew, such as Dalton, and Mr. 2 Bon Clay. His favorite food is any kind of meat.
In Japanese fan polls, Luffy always is the most popular character. In a recent 4Kids character poll, he was named the 2nd popular character.
Appearance
Luffy is renowned 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 outfit in that he wears short trousers and sandals. Luffy also wears a red vest and has a scar underneath his left eye and short black hair.
Luffy, for some reason, has the same outfit over most of the series, as opposed to Nami, Robin, Sanji, or even Zoro. Luffy may wear a different outfit to suit the climate of an island (like Drum Island or Alabasta), but will switch back to his trademark vest and shorts after the adventures on that island are over. However, he changed into black shorts instead of blue during the Enies Lobby arc though he only did this because the shorts have pockets and he could use them to carry food.
Oda Eiichiro has mentioned that Luffy mostly resembles a monkey (he sometimes even makes a monkey face). Also according to Oda, he uses the color red to represent Luffy; and Luffy smells like meat.
Personality and Relationships
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. He likes to make fun of other's imperfections and character traits (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 seems to have little to no fear (only dreading his grandfather) and great courage to back it up as well as unbelievable strength. Ever since consuming the devil fruit he has shown little to no fear over his inability to swim, much like his brother. An example of this is because when they are sailing he can usually be found on the stem of the Going Merry, he calls this his "special seat" and is usually hanging off of it without minding the danger of falling overboard. Much of these traits are common among Ds.
Luffy's dream is to find the One Piece and become Pirate King. He knows that to achieve his goal, he will have to defeat many strong opponents, including the World Government and his childhood hero Shanks. He is not frightened by this, but anticipates the fight.
Family
Luffy's family has been through the series shrouded in mystery. His father is Monkey D. Dragon, the infamous revolutionary, who left Luffy and Ace to be raised by their grandfather. Luffy was oblivious about Dragon despite his fame, and states he didn't know he had a father. He has an older brother, Portgas D. Ace, also a powerful pirate, and they are quite close. Luffy's grandfather is the famed marine Vice-Admiral Monkey D. Garp, who raised both Luffy and Ace. Luffy is intimidated by his grandfather, due to Garp's unorthodox training methods during Luffy's childhood. Even though Garp, being a Marine, is opposed to Luffy being a pirate and frequently beats him, they maintain good relations, as Garp refused to arrest Luffy. Other family members, including Luffy's mother, are unknown.
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.
History
Luffy was raised by his grandfather and along with his brother, Portgas D. Ace. Luffy had apparently never even heard of his father. When Garp was gone, Makino and the mayor watched them.
Luffy and Shanks
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. He swore over the hat of the captain of his pirate friends, Shanks, that he would be the pirate king.[4]
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 capable of stretching, inflating, or bouncing back impact based attacks. Because Luffy didn't know the nature of the fruit, they remained friends, but after that Luffy seemed to be even more defensive of Shanks's seemingly meek band of pirates.
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 was later rescued by Shanks. 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, saying:
Monkey D. Luffy
"Then I'll give you my precious hat, in hope that someday you will return it to me as a great pirate!"
Monkey D. Luffy
Straw Hat Luffy
Luffy has since worked diligently on keeping that promise and is known famously as "Monkey D Luffy", or simply "Straw Hat Luffy". Luffy now aims not only to be a grand pirate, but to become Pirate King. Most people don't take his goal seriously, until they see his absurd strength. While the exact detail of his training is unknown, it is known that his grandfather had trained him for an unknown amount of time, by throwing him into deep valleys, left alone in dangerous forests in middle of the night, and tied to balloons over high altitudes, all for the sake of making Luffy stronger. He and Ace are then placed under care of a friend of his grampa for more training, but details are unknown as of now.
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 Fishman (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 belly 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) to Captain Smoker (Captain Chaser in the English dub) of Loguetown (Roguetown in the english dub), 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, Eneru and most recently, CP9 and the World Government.
Abilities
Luffy is the captain and the strongest member of the crew as shown in his powers and abilities, his extremely high bounty and all of the powerful enemies he has defeated, such as Crocodile, Eneru and Rob Lucci. He possesses tremendous inhuman physical strength and endurance. He has made unbelievable feats of pure strength, such as defeating Sir Crocodile by punching him through a thick ceiling of pure bedrock and by doing so caused a huge earthquake with his bare fists. He also was able to punch through a reinforced steel wall while trying to get to Robin by entering Gear 3. He also defeated Rob Lucci, who was the strongest member of the CP9 ever as well as the CP9 itself and was marked a serious threat by the World Government with a huge new bounty of 300,000,000 Belly, this gives him a bounty on par with the Shichibukai and this means that his strength is now on par with them. Superhuman strength also seems to be common with his family, as shown by his grandfather, though this also could have been honed through the hellish training he was also subjected to, and possessing the initial of D.
Luffy has gained 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. Every single part of his body can stretch. [5] 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 not an effect of the Gomu Gomu no Mi, as he does not display unusual strength in his battle with Higuma the Bear and the fruit only gives him the ability to stretch and does not mention anything about giving him super-strength.
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 (which gave him an advantage while fighting Eneru) reflecting off his body harmlessly (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 the impact of blunt objects are greatly cushioned by his rubber physiology, sharp blades or points can harm him like he were a normal person. On a lighter note, Luffy can also be injured if he is hit by a fist of love or emotion, as demonstrated by his grandfather (although it could be that his grandfather is so strong that it could actually hurt him).
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).
While he seems dimwitted, he is quite ingenious when it comes to combat; he isn't the best tactician, as he prefers straightforward attacks, but has shown to be capable of adapting into different combat situations. For example, he figured out how to counter Eneru's Mantra, and learned Soru, one of the Rokushiki techniques, by seeing it in action. He is constantly developing new attacks to keep up with his foes, the most dramatic development being Gears 2 and 3.
Also, due to the fact that he hates missing his meal while he falls asleep, especially after a battle, he had developed an ability to eat while sleeping. This trait also seems to be common with Luffy's family, as seen with his brother and his grandfather. |
posted by Fredz @ 10:31 PM  |
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