 Luffy has reached his peak. Gif 5th is a crazy power-up that will forever go down as one of the most iconic moments of One Piece, perhaps even all of manga or anime. A classic example of not only an insanely wild power-up, but one of the greatest twists in the series' history. A moment that completely recontextualized Luffy's power and ability. He's Gomu Gomu No Mi, which we've come to know since Chapter 1, being in fact a whole other beast. In reality, the legendary mythical Zoan Fruit, the Hitohita No Mi Model Niko, giving Luffy quite literally the powers of a god. Powers that meant that he would eventually go on to defeat a Yonko, and the one known as the strongest creature in the world, and become a Yonko in his own right. A title given to only the strongest individuals in the One Piece world. So, what does that mean about the rest of the series? Who's left in One Piece that could actually fight and defeat Luffy in his new and exciting, essentially god-like form? Well, you're about to find out. But before we begin, let's quickly establish what Luffy is actually capable of, and the nature and extent of the powers of Gear V. What Luffy calls Gear V is essentially the unlocking of the true powers of his Niko Devil Fruit, giving the user the powers of the Sun God Niko, also known as the Warrior of Liberation. It allows the user great freedom to fight however they please. And what this means is that on top of giving its user's body the properties of rubber, which is what we've seen of Luffy's typical use of his Devil Fruit throughout the series. This true form also allows for the extension of these properties to the user's surroundings, such as the environment as well as to other people. And this is what allows a huge amount of freedom in the way that this power can be used, even defying or bending the laws of physics and reality. Hence why it's dubbed the most ridiculous power in the world, because it's said that the wielder of the Niko Devil Fruit is only limited by their imagination, which makes this Devil Fruit the perfect ability for Luffy because of his intuition, impulsivity and creativity. We've seen what this means practically in battle, where Luffy's fight against Kaido essentially became something like out of a kid's cartoon show, with fantastically comical and hype combat, by extending and optimizing his abilities in the most unique ways, such as stretching Kaido and using him as a skipping rope, or giving lightning the properties of rubber, so that it's a tangible weapon that Luffy can hold and use. It also allows Luffy to combine other styles or other combat elements, such as techniques from his other gears, as well as coating it with armament or conqueror's haki, adding even greater oof to his attacks. And as Luffy grows more accustomed to the new mechanics of his Devil Fruit, I'm sure we'll see even more outrageous use of his legendary ability, because seriously, the previously humble and unassuming Gomugomu no Mi, which only seemed to be useful in battle thanks to Luffy's ingenious battle-like Q, has now been set up to be a broken fruit, quite possibly the strongest in one piece, just because of the essentially uncapped potential of disability, which begs the question, with a Devil Fruit that has almost no limitation, how do you beat it, or who could beat it? Has Luffy become too overpowered that he'll have no more difficulty going forward? While I do think that Luffy is hardly the underdog in his current status, this doesn't mean that he's just going to breeze on through until he becomes Pirate King for the rest of the series. And there are still combatants in One Piece that will prove to be difficult foes should they ever come to blows, which brings us to this video. Characters in One Piece that could defeat Luffy's Gear 5th, and the first opponent that we're going to consider is the Subscribe button. The legendary Subscribe button grants you the powers of the YouTube God Model One Piece. Clicking this button will give you access to a limitless variety of One Piece videos and discussions, making sure that you never run out of One Piece content. So make sure you click Subscribe and get your power up. So first things first, let's set some parameters. This is Luffy in his current use and mastery of Gear 5th, and not considering how strong he'll be as he develops even further. We're also only going to discuss characters who are still alive in One Piece, which means no discussion of how a fight between Gear 5th Luffy and Goldy Roger would go down. So instead, in Roger's place, is his former apprentice Red Hair Shanks. After remaining an enigma for the majority of the series, we have recently seen the Sheep Hauer House that Shanks is. In particular, Shanks is a Harky Master, and quite possibly the strongest Harky user in One Piece. And this is very important when it comes to defeating Luffy. Kyro mentions during his fight against Gear 5th Luffy that more so than Devil Fruit abilities, it's Harky that transcends all. And Roger is the prime example of this. Despite the late Pyro King having no Devil Fruit, he was able to conquer the world by the sheer strength and mastery of his Harky. And it's clear that Shanks, an individual without a Devil Fruit, has followed in his late captain's footsteps. We know from his recent displays that Shanks' mastery of Conqueror's Harky is on another level. He's also very skilled in Observation Harky, being one of the very few individuals with Future Sight, and while Luffy has been developing his own use of Harky as well, and impressively so, it's fair to say that he still doesn't hold a candle to Shanks. Additionally, Shanks is still a swordsman, which is uniquely another weakness of Luffy's, because his Devil Fruit doesn't make him immune to slashing attacks. And although I don't think Shanks would rely on sword fighting, it does seem like Shanks is adept in the two styles of combat that Luffy is still vulnerable to. And although I'm sure Luffy will one day live up to his promise that he's going to surpass Shanks, that time is yet to come. Next up, we're looking at Luffy's own father, Monkey D Dragon. If there's a character whose strength and abilities has evaded us even more than Shanks, it's Dragon. So it's kind of crazy that he's on this list, given that we don't actually know what he's capable of as a combatant, but what we do know suggests that he very much does deserve to be on this list. First of all, the fact that we haven't seen him fight yet is actually a pretty clear sign that he is indeed a very skilled fighter. It's the anime rule or storytelling in general, really, that we have to leave the strongest for last, which means that Dragon is hiding some crazy abilities that we've yet to witness. And even within the series, Oda has indicated in small ways that Dragon is in fact strong and capable. We saw him hold back Smoker with ease at Locetown, and apart from the fact that he's the leader of the revolutionaries, a military organization that directly opposes the world government, which does involve physical conflict. We also know that as the Supreme Commander, he personally trained Sabo, who is himself a very capable fighter. So it only makes you wonder just how strong Dragon is. There's also the fact that Dragon is perched between Garp and Luffy in the Monkey-D family. And if Garp, who is now past his peak and yet steal a powerhouse, and his son Luffy has only just started to reach his peak and deemed worthy to be a Yonko, it's fair to assume that Dragon currently must be in his peak. And if we're using Garp and Luffy as the benchmarks to gauge Dragon's strength, then that's a scary thought. Now, without knowing the exact mechanics of Dragon's abilities or combat styles, it's hard to say how he would defeat Luffy's Gifif, but I think we can suppose for now that he is at least strong enough to do so. Now considering the other Monkey-D member, Monkey-D Garp, Garp's shown incredible physical strength even in his old age. And so I think he's definitely a contender as to who would make the fight interesting for Luffy. But ultimately, I think that at this point in the story, we're at a stage where Garp is clearly on his way out so that the new generation can take over. And while Granddaddy Garp still packs a mean punch, the whole point is that Luffy is reaching his peak while Garp has now passed his, meaning that I don't think Garp would be able to defeat Luffy in his current Gifif form or it would more likely come down to a draw. Although I'm certain there is definitely a version of Garp that would have been able to do so. Next up are the admirals of One Piece and this is where things get very interesting. The Marine admirals have long been held to be some of the strongest characters in One Piece. Collectively, they were considered the world government's greatest military powers and individually, they represent the strongest fighters within the Navy. Personally, I think that the admirals are each around the level of a Yonko. And so I think that if it came down to a one versus one between Luffy and each of the admirals, it could go either way for most of them. Which may be an unpopular opinion because I took this to a poll recently and for each admiral, Luffy came out as the overwhelming victor. And while Luffy is definitely in the tier of the strongest fighters in One Piece, I think we may be suffering a bit of recency bias and not taking the fight with Kaido into context. Because yes, Luffy defeated Kaido. The strongest creature in the world. But that was only after Kaido had been carrying an entire island and went round after round multiple times. If Kaido and Gifth Luffy were to go fresh into battle, I think Kaido would ultimately come out on top. And when it comes to the admirals, I also don't think we've seen what they're fully capable of yet. There's even a chance that they each could have an awakening of their respective devil fruits. But without taking that into account because, well, that's unconfirmed at this point, let's unpack Luffy versus each admiral a little deeper. Starting with Rokugu because this is probably the easiest to answer. I think out of all the admirals, Rokugu's portrayal has been the most unfavorable so far in terms of his strength and abilities. On one hand, Rokugu did easily defeat both Queen and King, so he's definitely above the level of a Yonko commander. And you can say what you want about both of them having just been defeated and the fact that they were likely in Seastone Cuffs. But I don't think that it's controversial to say that an admiral is stronger than a Yonko commander. Like I said, it's probably more fitting to place them around the level of a Yonko. So then why was Rokugu so scared of shanks, tuck his tail and went scarring away? Because he knew that he wouldn't be going up against just shanks. He was already at Wano against orders. And so he knew that fighting an entire Yonko crew, potentially even two Yonko crews, would be unfavorable for him and would cause a massive mess that he would be ultimately blamed for. But in saying that, Rokugu was confident that he could beat Luffy and everyone else at Wano. Otherwise, he wouldn't have attempted to infiltrate it alone at all. And now we don't have enough to suggest that this confidence is founded in any way. But I don't think it was completely misplaced. Rokugu was shown to be very durable and we were also told that he fought with Fujitoro when the latter helped slaves escape during the Revolutionary's attack on Marijuwa. We don't know the details of the fight and exactly how physical it got. But again, you have to have some level of confidence and the ability to back that up to challenge another adm like that. Against Luffy, however, I do think that the nature of his devil fruit puts him at a disadvantage because I think Luffy would be able to defend against most of his plant-based attacks. If he tried to restrain Luffy with his vines to suck out his life force, for example, Luffy could change the shape of his own body to free himself. The biggest trouble would be if Rokugu kept spamming Luffy with different sorts of attacks that just came too quickly for Luffy to dodge or somehow disarm. But overall, I don't think that the nature of Rokugu's ability poses a great threat. Something interesting, however, is the fact that Rokugu carries a sword, which we haven't seen him use. But if he is a proficient swordsman, this could pose more of a challenge to Luffy who is still vulnerable to slashing attacks. But then again, we actually haven't seen how capable he is in terms of sword fighting. So overall, I think this would be a fight that Luffy would struggle with and it certainly wouldn't be a breeze in the park. But Luffy would still probably come out on top, at least in a high difficulty match. Next, Fujitora. And in terms of strength, I do think that Fujitora's skills in swordsmanship is something that Luffy would seriously have to watch out for. Fujitora's devil fruit could also pose a threat because it would be interesting how Luffy's unique devil fruit counters gravity. Although we've seen Luffy turn the intangible into tangible, I think that would be much harder to do with something like gravity, which is a force. Because of Luffy's haki, I think he would be able to withstand against gravitational force. But if Fujitora was to use that to distract Luffy, while also sending a meteor hurtling his way, I think this could prove to be quite difficult for Luffy. And even if he's able to fend off some of Fujitora's attacks, he would at least be hit by others and that would eventually take a toll. Same with Fujitora though. I think Luffy would be able to inflict some damage on the Admiral too. So I think this is a battle where it could go either way and it would really depend on the circumstances as to whether Luffy or Fujitora wins. But I actually also doubt that it would ever come to that because I doubt that either of them would ever go fully all out against the other. So next is Kizaru. And I have to say, I think Kizaru is an absolute beast that we've only just scratched the surface of when it comes to his strength. The guy is so chill, almost too chill. And you can only be that relaxed if you are so confident in your abilities to live that carefree. We've never seen Kizaru seriously struggle or go all out for that matter and ever to be at a disadvantage. He came out of the Marineford Wall without a scratch. Luckily for Luffy, I don't think Kizaru's pick-up-picker-nomi would cause too much trouble. Luffy could probably turn his light beams into tangible things unless Kizaru uses it alongside Haki to prevent that. But then we haven't seen whether an elemental attack can be coated with Haki, so we'll just have to wait and see. Also, we haven't seen the extent of its usability. But Kizaru can also create a sword of light. So it's possible that he could send slashing attacks and that might pose more of a threat to Luffy. I think Kizaru's advantage would have been his speed. But now that Luffy has also advanced observation Haki and Future Sight, he could counter Kizaru in that respect. But then it's just this true that Kizaru is fast enough to dodge most of Luffy's attacks. So honestly, I think this one comes down to who tires out first. And in this case, I think Luffy's at the disadvantage here because his use of the gifth form is very draining and he hasn't mastered it completely. So Kizaru may just come out on top because of that or it'll be closer to a draw. But we may actually get to see for ourselves exactly how this fight plays out very soon at Egghead Islands. Now looking at former admirals, let's consider Sakazuki. Sakazuki is definitely one of the strongest characters in One Piece with his magma-based devil fruit, said to have the highest offensive power. Again, we'd have to see exactly what Luffy could do against these elemental attacks because even if he can't grab and take control of magma like he did with Lightning, you'd imagine that he can defend himself like he did against Kaido's Bolo Breath. But ultimately, I think what the matchup between Luffy and Sakazuki would come down to is durability. Being two of the strongest fighters, I'm sure each of them would deal a lot of blows and would equally take some damage from the other. And ultimately, it comes down to durability and stamina. And again, in that respect, I think Sakazuki inches out until Luffy masters his use of Gif 5th and conquers Haki. I think this is a victory for Sakazuki but with extreme difficulty. Whereas for Kuzan, if we consider that Kuzan's strength is just a step or maybe even just a half step behind Sakazuki given that he did in fact lose after their 10-day battle, then I think that means a fight between Kuzan and Luffy comes down to a draw. We know that Kuzan possesses immense strength even without his Haki or Devil Fruit abilities thanks to his training under Garb. But I don't see direct physical attacks affecting Luffy very much unless it's coated with Haki too strong for Luffy to counter. I don't think Kuzan's Devil Fruit abilities would be very effective either because I think Luffy's unique abilities would be able to counter it either by blocking the attack like he did against Kaido or by changing the properties of Kuzan's Ice Attack if that's possible. Which means that this is also a fight that probably comes down to stamina and durability which we know Kuzan to be extremely skilled in. After all, we've seen him go head to head against Garb and survive with not too much damage and he also endured those 10 days with Sakazuki. So this is another fight that could go either way and who defeats whom would probably come down to the circumstances surrounding the battle. Moving on from the admirals slash ex admirals, let's look at another group, the Gorasei. We don't know enough about the Gorasei's powers but we do now know for sure that they are at least combatants turning into beast-like shadowy forms which could suggest zolan fruits but who knows. We just haven't seen enough of their abilities to make a judgement but given their status as fighters was only introduced in the final saga and the fact that they've each been termed a warrior god similar to how Luffy is a sun god and the warrior of liberation I wouldn't be surprised if they're strong enough to defeat Gifu Luffy or at least very close in terms of strength which is similar to Imu who can also turn into a monstrous creature and we've actually seen that Imu is able to pierce their opponents even logear users like Sabo and with Imu seeming more and more like the endgame final boss Imu might even have an ability that is the perfect counter and the opposite to Luffy's. Imu also has a saber although it's not confirmed that they use that in combat but if they do then slashing attacks may also be on the table against Luffy All in all I think it's safe to say that both the Gorusei and Imu are contenders on the list of characters who could fight and possibly defeat Luffy's Gifu. Next up is Dracul Mihawk. As Luffy's main vulnerability is still against slashing attacks there's no one that could exploit this weakness more than Mihawk who does still hold the title of world's strongest swordsman but because Zoro will one day defeat Mihawk and Luffy currently is and still will be stronger than Zoro on that fateful day I think it's only natural to say that Luffy one day would be able to defeat Mihawk no question but as for now that's still hard to say as a swordsman this also means skill in terms of speed, reflexes, agility and vision which means that it would be hard for Luffy to land an attack I mean after all Mihawk's epithet is Hawkeyes he's also one of only two characters we've known to be able to achieve a Blackblade the other one being the legendary Yuma and even then Yoro ranks above Shusui when it comes to sword grates we also have to remember that Mihawk was a fierce rival of Shanks before Shanks lost his arm and we all know how strong Shanks is so that says a lot about Mihawk simply put this is a bad matchup for Luffy because of their very different combat styles and I could see an argument for either of them ending up as the winner but for now I'd still say Mihawk has the edge now for Blackbeard the biggest threat that Blackbeard poses is his yami yami no mi that could cancel out the ability of another devil fruit but this could prove to be difficult to achieve because it does require Blackbeard to get into physical contact with Luffy and continue to hold him so that Luffy can't reactivate his own powers and while I'm sure Luffy would put up a good fight in evading Blackbeard I don't think we should take Teach lightly I mean after all he does have both the yami yami no mi and the guruguru no mi and using them in conjunction could bring about huge destruction and chaos that makes it difficult for Luffy to just continue escaping Blackbeard's clutches it's also important to remember that Blackbeard can be extremely crafty and this may come to Luffy's disadvantage whose attack style is much more direct at full speed without holding back very different to Blackbeard ultimately between the two I think more so than the devil fruit abilities Luffy would have to rely on his haki and sheer brute force to take Blackbeard down so that he can't use his devil fruits but even then that won't be an easy task because Blackbeard was also quite durable and can use at least both armament and observation haki and I think it may be Luffy's fight against Blackbeard where he's going to achieve new feats in terms of either mastering his devil fruit in another way or of his conqueror's haki to ultimately win against Blackbeard but I think as of right now this would be an extremely difficult matchup but what do you think? let me know if you think there are other characters that I haven't discussed that you think could defeat Luffy in a matchup let me know what you think of the matchups that I provided in this video don't forget to like and subscribe and thank you to all of our Patreon and channel members for supporting the channel and thank you for listening to another one of my ramblings this is Joygirl and I'll see you again soon