 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece and more specifically welcome to One Piece 101, the series that breaks down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. And today we are going to begin a long awaited update series as we dive into the captain himself, Monkey D. Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy is an optimistic, questionably intelligent and all around supremely charismatic existence who is charged with helming the beast that is One Piece. And as part of doing so, he is the captain of the iconic and ever infamous Straw Hat Pirates and Luffy himself harbors the dream of eventually becoming the pirate king, an eye on insurmountable tasks to achieve in this world and a desire that consistently throws Luffy into conflict with other pirates holding the same ambition. Although one advantage Luffy has in this regard is that he is subscribed to the Grand Line Review which allows him to receive regular One Piece content uploaded straight into his YouTube feed. So make sure you press that stunning button right now to elevate yourself from the status of generic pirate to main character. However, Luffy also very much stands apart from most if not all pirates in almost every way imaginable. First up, he possesses a rather whimsical childlike nature and is not well known for planning or even really thinking about his various courses of action which makes Luffy extraordinarily unpredictable and a very difficult force to stand up against when the element of chaos he is able to cause reaches a critical mass. Furthermore, unlike most pirates following that same path, Luffy has very different ideas regarding why he wants to become the pirate king and he appears to value the journey and adventure of getting there far more than the desired outcome of wealth, fame and power which are the traditionally sought after elements of becoming the pirate king. However, Luffy's personal philosophy is that the pirate king is simply the individual with the most freedom in this world, a belief which stokes his desire for exploration, wanting to see and experience as much of this planet as humanly possible. And Luffy was inspired to go down this path as a child by his role model Redhead Shanks, a man who remains a prolific pirate to this day. But these two would encounter each other in the Goa Kingdom in East Blue where the young Luffy being immediately smitten by the entire concept of freedom and adventure as a pirate and he even beg Shanks repeatedly to allow him to join his crew. And while Shanks would repeatedly deny this request, the captain would well and truly recognize Luffy's spirit and in a tragic but essential moment, he would even end up sacrificing one of his own arms to save Luffy from being eaten by the Lord of the Coast as well as entrusting Luffy with his straw hat and telling the boy to return it to him once he had become a great pirate. And from here, Luffy resolved not only to do that but to become an even greater pirate than Shanks himself and thus Luffy's dream to become the pirate king was born. Although in retrospect, there was a strong air of fate around this collection of events as well as events going forward involving Luffy. Very importantly, you may have noticed that his name is Monkey D. Luffy and that D initial is not just arbitrary because in this world every now and then we encounter characters with this mysterious middle initial all of whom are heavily subject to fate. One of which would be the former pirate king himself, Gold D. Roger, who unbeknownst to Luffy was also once the owner of the straw hat that he now proudly wears. And it has been heavily, heavily hinted that Luffy is the individual who currently carries the inherited will of Roger as well as that of a much deeper and more complex history of the world. None of which really matters to Luffy though because he's just focused on his own adventure. It does matter to the world at large though with many of Roger's former companions recognizing a certain quality in Luffy akin to that of their once great captain. But even without these connections to Roger Luffy has a fairly impressive pedigree as he is the biological son of Monkey D. Dragon the leader of the revolutionary army and the most wanted man in the world. Although Luffy has no memory of his father and he himself has a hard time believing that this is indeed the case. Meanwhile, Luffy's grandfather is Monkey D. Garp one of the most powerful and revered marines to have ever existed having been hailed as a literal hero of the world. And Luffy has a, well, he has a much more complex relationship with his grandfather both fearing and loving him in equal measure. Although one being a pirate and one being a marine places them in very opposite ends of this world which has forced them into serious conflict on one occasion. Meanwhile, Luffy also grew up with two future important figures which he considers brothers. One of which is Paul Castillais who would go on to become a division commander of the white beard pirates. And the other would be Sabao who became the chief of staff of the revolutionary army both of whom are highly infamous in their own right. With that said Luffy was and arguably still remains more or less ignorant of his family's impact on this planet. And instead he is focused entirely on his own journey which is just so very Luffy like. This journey would begin in earnest at the age of 17 when Luffy left the Goa kingdom determined to sail into the ground line and become the pirate king. Very bold of him to say the least. However, this wasn't just some foolish boy in a boat because by this stage Luffy had a fair bit of raw power to back him up. Having trained as a child in the Goa kingdom as well as coming equipped with a devil fruit ability being the Gomu Gomu No Mi an existence which had permanently altered Luffy's body turning him into a rubber man. And he attained this power after accidentally eating the devil fruit as a child. But this would come to be Luffy's most fearsome weapon alongside his adventure and he demonstrated his capabilities immediately by one shotting the Lord of the Coast. But the greatest advantages of the Gomu Gomu No Mi are two-fold because it gives Luffy access to heavily increased power via the forced elasticity but it also grants him incredible endurance because it becomes much harder to damage his rubber body at least by normal means anyway. And with this Luffy quite comfortably made his way through the relatively peaceful Sea of East Blue dispatching fairly feared pirates such as Captain Kuro Dongkrieg and even a powerful fisherman by the name of Arlong. But throughout all this as well as going forward Luffy's sights were set on acquiring a powerful crew to assist in his journey. And in the early days Luffy was how shall we say less than picky about who he would invite to become a member of the Straw Hat Pirates although the hand of fate would guide him to a very specific selection of individuals. And in the early days of East Blue he was able to acquire a swordsman and navigator, a sniper and a chef each of whom holding their own seemingly impossible dreams to achieve. And even as we went forward this would continue with Luffy eventually gathering a doctor an archeologist, a shipwright, a musician and a helmsman to complete his fearsome forces. When it comes to his crew though Luffy treasures these bonds more than anything else and in fact he has been shown on multiple occasions to be very willing to risk his own wellbeing and more importantly his ultimate dream simply for their benefit. Although at the same time he is very much willing to do the same for just about anybody he takes a liking towards. And it's important to note that Luffy is a traditional pirate in many ways but he does have his own innate sense of justice and will usually act for the greater good should he see it necessary. A great example of which would be when the crew encountered Princess Vivi in the grand line resulting in Luffy taking it upon himself to directly challenge her crocodile a warlord of the sea in order to save Vivi's kingdom of alabaster. And it doesn't really matter what Luffy is up against for the right reasons he will embark into conflict without a second thought. Another great example of which would be the sky pierock where Luffy decided to fight against someone who was literally referred to as a God or on the island of any sobby where he very casually declared war against the entirety of the world government simply for the sake of rescuing a single member of his crew. And in fact Luffy even took it upon himself to participate in the paramount war with the goal of saving his brother race by facing off against a whole host of people who completely outclassed him in terms of strength, speed, intelligence, look whatever they had, Luffy didn't. But he didn't care though, Luffy was determined to do it anyway which is one of the most admirable qualities about this man. And this attitude of willingly leaping into combat has also led to his rapid development as a fighter with Luffy needing to consistently innovate in order to overcome stronger and stronger opponents. And one such Luffy innovation would be the discovery of gears which can basically be described as a method of bodily augmentation available only to him through the wonder of rubber that allows Luffy to surpass his natural limits. And so gear second for example sees Luffy increasing the size of his blood vessels allowing for more oxygen and general nutrients to be pumped throughout his body which has the effect of increasing both his speed and power by an order of magnitude. Meanwhile gear third is a much more simplistic idea whereby Luffy inflates the bones of particular parts of his body resulting in him temporarily being able to use giant sized limbs with truly, truly devastating power. And through this combination of personality and strength Luffy would be issued a series of bounties by the world government his initial one being 30 million berries but that would end up being 300 million berries after the any sloppy incident. Surely after this though it would become apparent that Luffy did not possess the power necessary to continue his journey to become the pirate king which was made blatantly clear by the defeat of the Straw Hats on Sabotea Capellago as well as Luffy's failure to save the life of his brother Ace during the paramount war. And as such it was suggested by Silver's Relay the former first mate of the pirate king that the Straw Hats undergo a two year hiatus during which time he would mentor Luffy in a hidden art form known as Harky an offer which Luffy would come to accept and thus place his dream on hold for two whole years as he learned and mastered the basic applications of observation armament and even conquerors Harky the latter of which is a very rare ability that can only be accessed via the genetic lottery but Luffy took to these three practices quite comfortably mastering the basics within six months and by the time he reunited with his crew two years later he was now well and truly a force to be reckoned with as well as all of the Straw Hats actually and this group now proceeded into the new world crushing anything and everything in their path which would also culminate in the defeat of yet another warlord of the sea Don Quixote de Flamingo on the island of Dressrosa during which time Luffy displayed a new gear to us being gear fourth. This form is very much a mixture of gears and Harky with Luffy this time inflating his muscle structure rather than the bone of gear third as well as coating himself in a degree of armament Harky which once again results in an incredible boost of strength and speed both of which are adjustable because gear fourth comes with multiple forms depending on which element Luffy wishes to maximize. So Bound Man as an example strives for a balance between both speed and power while Snake Man is intended to allow Luffy more versatility and agility at the cost of weak and strength and defense. And then there's also situational stuff like Tankman which currently serves as the ultimate defensive application of gear fourth and in addition to this Luffy has continued to develop the basic forms of Harky and is now able to access advanced applications of both observation and armament. And with all of the above Luffy has caused considerable chaos in the new world having declared war against two of the four emperors and after a mildly successful skirmish depending on how you view it with Charlotte Linlin on Holkake Island Luffy was awarded with a 1.5 billion berry bounty as well as hailed as the fifth emperor of the sea. And of course there's a lot more to it than that including the fact that by this point Luffy had a fleet of over 5,000 individuals who had sworn their loyalty to him known as the Straw Hat Grand Fleet. But Luffy at this late stage of One Piece has now developed a critical massive influence which is currently playing out in his struggle against two of the emperors on Wano the results of which will no doubt radically change the structure of this planet as we know it. Some more fun facts about Luffy. When drawing Luffy One Piece author Etra Oda always keeps the idea of overwhelming simplicity in mind. As he wished to keep Luffy a very straightforward existence this character's emotions at any given time are always on full visual display and in addition to that Oda generally prefers not to give Luffy any thought bubbles either. This is because they're fairly redundant given that Luffy is the type of character who will say or do rather than think. And fun fact about Luffy's morality now while One Piece is very notable in that Luffy does not kill his enemies this is not out of a sense of not wanting to commit the act but rather scarily it is because Luffy legitimately believes that death would be letting his opponents off the hook the easy way. Instead Luffy prefers to crush their dreams and live with that idea as punishment for their various dick moves. Which very much opens up a whole new world of a very vengeful Luffy going to great-great lengths to exact his own form of justice. Luffy has a trademark number within One Piece as if a number is relevant you will almost always see him with the number 56 on his clothing. And this is because five and six can be pronounced as gormu in Japanese which is a reference to the name of Luffy's devil fruit. And finally a truly useless fact when asked why he decided to give Luffy the gomagomenu mi Oda simply replied because it was ridiculous and it would allow him to goof around with the character. But that pretty much does it for Monkey D Luffy and what do you guys think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.