Monkey D. Luffy

Monkey D. Luffy, also known as "Straw Hat Luffy" and commonly as "Straw Hat", is the main protagonist of the manga and anime, One Piece. He is the founder and captain of the increasingly infamous and powerful Straw Hat Pirates, as well as one of its top four fighters. His lifelong dream is to become the Pirate King by finding the legendary treasure left behind by the late Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. He believes that being Pirate King means having the most freedom in the world. After his invasion of Totto Land and actions against the Yonko Big Mom, he is currently considered by the global press to be the Fifth Emperor.

In the AWA fics, Luffy is a student at the AWA Academy and is part of Class 1.

Appearance
Luffy is a young man who is renowned for his trademark straw hat(from which he gets his nickname "Straw Hat Luffy"), which was lent to him when he was young by the legendary pirate captain, "Red-Haired" Shanks, who in turn received it from Gol D. Roger. He wears short, blue trousers with cuffs, sandals, and a sleeveless red vest. Luffy also has a scar with two stitches underneath his left eye (which he earned by stabbing a knife under his eye to show Shanks that he was tough and not afraid of pain) and short, messy black hair. He was severely wounded by Akainu in the Battle of Marineford, leaving a large X-shaped scar on his chest. Appearing to be scrawny underneath his shirt, he has a surprisingly well-built physique. He is quite short since he appears dwarfed by most individuals in the series (though it must be noted that characters in One Piece are often very tall by real-life standards).

After those two years, a few things have changed. Luffy wears an open, long-sleeved red cardigan with four buttons (which shows the X-shaped scar covering most of his chest he received by then-Admiral Akainu), with a yellow sash tied around his waist, somewhat reminiscent of Gol D. Roger's outfit. He has grown slightly taller and is shown to be significantly more muscular due to his training. This can be seen in his slightly thicker neck, more pronounced deltoids, and better-defined chest. During his fight with Sanji, Luffy loses one of his top teeth after being struck by a Diable Jambe Joue Shot directly into his face. However, it grew back after he drank a bottle of milk.

Personality
Luffy's two dominant traits are his apparent lack of intelligence and his utter fearlessness. Luffy can easily be amazed by the simplest things, such as hermit crabs, and can be confused by concepts such as that by digging a hole right next to another he may be unintentionally filling the other hole. In addition, during long and complex explanations of something, he immediately calls it magic. He likes monsters and will ask weird creatures to join his crew (as seen in the Thriller Bark Arc, asking a talking tree to join his crew). He also has no knowledge of medicine: when Nami had a high fever he told her to eat cold food and later tried to make Roronoa Zoro better (after battling Bartholomew Kuma) by pouring sake onto him because Zoro likes sake. When attempting to think up a plan to get off of Amazon Lily, while he managed to make some logical sense of where to look, he is seen to strain himself and notes that he is going to feel sick from too much thinking. He is rarely disturbed by violence and bloodshed as he has fought his whole life. Even the worst battlefields rarely disturb him except when it involves a friend or relative as in the case of Ace. He is seemingly unphased by the most horrifying sights such as headless men left after Law's attacks or the extreme violence of Kid.

Luffy's personality is like that of a child's, in the sense that he tends to go to the extremes. He can either be extremely greedy, especially in cases of food, who his crew is, and adventure; or extraordinarily selfless, going so far as to virtually sacrifice himself to avenge or protect his friends, crew, and family. This childish mentality of his allows him to get to the root of the problem, and allows him to figure out the most simple way of solving it.

He almost never gets irritated with normal people, though there are a few exceptions, like when they seem to have an opposite taste in food as he, or when they ask if they can take a look at his "privates". Luffy also has no problem with other people stretching and playing with his rubber body, however, he does get a little irritated if they are doing so while he's in the middle of eating.

Luffy calls every mixed-appearance creature he finds by whichever creature is its secondary (non-dominant) part. On Gaimon's island, the dog/chicken was referred to as a chicken when it was mostly a dog, the snake/rabbit a rabbit even though it was mostly snake, and the pig/lion a lion even though it was mostly pig. This becomes a running gag: later when he meets Bananawani, he calls them bananas with crocodiles attached to them. Also, after seeing Pierre transform, he continued to refer to him as a "horse" instead of a bird. And related to this running gag, when on Long Ring Long Land island, he called every animal by what he thought they resembled rather than the actual species they were.

Another interesting personality trait is that during sailing, he likes to sit on the bow of the ship, such as the head of the Going Merry and the Thousand Sunny, the nose of Rocket Man, the head of the right Yuda of the Kuja Pirates' ship or even on top of the front cannon of a captured Marines' ship.

Luffy's interest in women is a complex matter: in an SBS Volume 54, Oda stated that the reason Luffy acted in an aroused manner when Nami stripped, yet remained neutral when Hancock did so, was that he was with Usopp at the time Nami did so, as Usopp is his age and therefore a bad influence on his behavior. He also hasn't yet displayed any romantic inclinations, having nonchalantly refused to marry Hancock without a second thought. Ironically, despite his lack of interest in all things love related, Luffy has earned the affections of many women along his travels (such as Alvida's admiration, the love of Boa Hancock, etc.), quite a few of whom are royalty.

Luffy has shown to admire heroes, though he has stated vehemently that he really does not want to be one, his reasoning more-or-less translating that the definition of a good hero is to be entirely selfless. Ironically, many of Luffy's actions are mostly selfless, with his selfishness mainly revolving around his gluttony and his thirst for adventure. This trait leaves everyone he meets with to think he is some kind of hero, but not by his own design. However, he is easily convinced by Jinbe for his plan of becoming a hero of the Fishman Island with an agreement of meat.

Luffy acquired the reputation of a very dangerous person because of his recklessness and even insanity. However, unlike other pirates who have a reputation as a psycho (like the Killer of the Marines Caribou or Bellamy) for unjust violence against civilians or authorities, Luffy gained his reputation for helping his friends in the face of power, usually passing over beyond the bounds of reasoning.

It is shown that Luffy can get irritated when his crew or people around him constantly whine about the dangers they are in that he caused, which is mostly shown in Zou. He would appreciate if people stayed happy and cheery in these situations, like the rabbit mink Carrot.

When his adoptive older brother Ace was killed at Marineford, the mental strain of watching Ace die in his arms caused him to fall into a catatonic state. After waking from this state, Luffy flew into a rage and went on a destructive rampage to vent his grief and anger. Afterwards, Luffy re-evaluated himself and came to the conclusion that he had been too naïve, and was weak and unworthy of becoming Pirate King, falling into a state of depression and self-pity. Some encouragement from Jinbe and Rayleigh gave Luffy some renewed courage to continue pursuing his dream. After the timeskip, he tells Rayleigh that he will be Pirate King, having regained his confidence to fight for his dream.

Luffy is also a extremely heavy sleeper. During the operation to ruin Sanji and Pudding's wedding ceremony, Jinbe could not wake him up even after smacking him hard several times and yelling directly into his ears. Only after he was presented meat, his favorite food, did he finally woke up.

Abilities
Physical Abilities

Luffy possesses immense physical prowess, being capable of lifting up large boulders, breaking stone, shattering steel with his bare hands, lifting and dragging a massive ball of solid gold attached to his arm, pushing apart large buildings, and shoulder flipping a huge man; his strength was further proven when he effortlessly stopped a stomp from Donquixote Doflamingo, a tremendously strong man who is twice Luffy's size, with only one foot from an angle with no leverage.

Fighting Skills

Luffy has extremely adept hand-to-hand combat skills, which were learned through practice from sparring matches with Ace and Sabo since childhood, supplemented with his physical prowess and the abilities of the Gomu Gomu no Mi. Such skills allow him to defeat numerous enemies and even an entire army at once with great ease and Luffy even match Rob Lucci, an immensely powerful Rokushiki master in one on one combat.

Tactical Skills

While simple-minded by nature, Luffy can be a strategic genius in fighting. He also appears to be intelligent enough to at least understand fundamental concepts, such as rubber being a natural insulator, which might be why he did not bother ducking out of the way of Enel's lightning attacks as it would have been pointless because of his immunity. He also was able to develop new techniques such as "Gear Second" and "Gear Third", using logical concepts and knowledge of rubber and its properties. While easily noticeable as the least strategic member of his own crew, largely due to his tendency to simply barge in head-first into battle (often without any kind of battle plan or even any knowledge of his opponent's abilities), Luffy is an extremely adaptive and resourceful combatant with incredible ingenuity. He is constantly coming up with ways to keep ahead of his foes, either by taking advantage of his own strength and Devil Fruit powers or utilizing the opponent's own strengths (along with their weaknesses) against them. This causes even warriors long considered unbeatable to have trouble keeping up.

Devil Fruit

Luffy gained extraordinary stretching and elastic 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 became like rubber, giving him the ability to stretch and attack long distances.

Having undergone intense training for over ten years, Luffy is now able to supplement his stretching powers with immense strength, agility, and creativity in combat. His fighting style is largely improvised, and thus relies heavily on his Devil Fruit powers. It should also be noted that Luffy cannot automatically stretch his limbs out, and since his body acts much like an actual rubber band, he has to throw some force into his punches in order for his limbs to stretch out.

It should be noted that he has somehow managed to do it automatically (much like the aforementioned superheroes) after the timeskip. However, he has been shown to be able to hold his limbs outstretched for a long period of time, as seen when he reaches his arm out about half a mile down to try and retrieve Usopp from falling through the Sea Clouds.

Luffy regularly uses his stretching powers in ingenious and creative ways, as he is able to use the malleable stretchiness and elasticity of his limbs to gain tremendous velocity, and hit his enemies with devastating impacts and blows. His rubber body is also extremely durable and virtually immune to blunt attacks such as bullets (in One Piece, bullets are still round pellets, except for Don Krieg's), punches, and electricity, more often than not, bouncing off his body harmlessly or canceling out the attack. It has even become a running gag that people find out the hard way that Luffy is made of rubber when they shoot at him, only to have the bullets bounce back at them.

Another running gag is that whenever Luffy's body is in a dangerous situation that would kill a normal person, he simply states that "he's made of rubber, so it's okay", or acts like it is a small problem despite that person trying to kill him, such as being shot in the heart. However, he is still normally susceptible to sharp objects such as swordsand knives as well as nonphysical attacks like heat, cold, beams of light, dehydration, and poison (though, after the timeskip, Luffy has been shown a strong immunity to poison due to his fight against Magellan in Impel Down). Not only can he use his stretchiness to increase the range and strength of his attacks, but on some rare occasions he can also use his stretched limbs to help restrain and even control weaker foes like puppets (to fight for him).

Like all Devil Fruit users, Luffy cannot swim. However, unlike other Devil Fruit users, he does not avoid water sports, and sometimes will jump into the ocean to save someone from drowning (though will drown himself as well). Before eating his Devil Fruit, Luffy didn't know how to swim anyway, so this has made little difference in this capacity (aside from gaining the weaknesses of losing strength while submerged or in contact with seastone). At the time Shanks visited Luffy's hometown, Luffy had decided he would learn how to swim by the time Shanks left so that he could leave with them, indicating Luffy had yet to learn how to swim. He does seem to know that a person cannot eat more than one Devil Fruit, as shown when he said he couldn't eat the Mera Mera no Mi.

Gears

By taking advantage of the unique physical abilities granted by his Devil Fruit, Luffy has invented techniques that augment his speed and strength in different ways, though each one also has corresponding physical drawbacks. He refers to these techniques as Gears.

After the timeskip, Luffy has grown immensely in power and skill. He has shown new mastery over his Gear Second and Gear Third along with his Haki, and easily destroyed a Pacifista with a single punch in conjunction with his Gear Second and Busoshoku Haki (a feat which has been shown to be amazingly difficult). Later, he defeated the Kraken with one hit from Gear Third imbued with Haki in a similar manner, and then managed to beat Vander Decken IX while tied up. Another testament to his power was shown when he defeated Hody Jones while fighting underwater for the majority of the fight, and only received one bite wound throughout the whole duration.

Gear Second is where Luffy uses his legs to pump blood throughout his body at a much faster rate. Activating Gear Second also uses a lot of stored energy from his body. Leaving his body exhausted, his heart rate also increases to levels that are normally impossible. His veins are able to withstand this since they are made of rubber, thanks to the Gomu Gomu no Mi. In this form, Luffy gains a considerable boost in speed and strength.

Gear Third is where Luffy pumps air through his bones to make them literally gigantic. Obviously, only Luffy can do such a thing by using the Gomu Gomu no Mi. Used with his already-strong physiology, this apparently gives his arm more mass and a larger area to attack with far greater force, but he sacrifices mobility for this strength, as his limbs are now so large that Luffy has extreme trouble moving unless he is in his Fusen form.

Gear Fourth is a technique which Luffy developed during the time skip when he fought giant creatures on Rusukaina. He first coats his arm in Busoshoku Haki and then bites into his forearm. Similar to how he activates Gear Third, he blows an incredible amount of air into his body, but this time he inflates his muscular structure.

In this form, his body's proportions become warped and is much larger in size, with his arms, upper torso, and legs coated in Busoshoku Haki. The coating across his torso resemble the wispy ends made from flames, and he also gains shading around the inner and outer edges of his eyes.

As a side-effect he is incapable of standing still on the ground, and instead constantly bounces on the spot. His physical strength and speed are increased to the point where he is able to overwhelm Donquixote Doflamingo, whereas beforehand both Gear Second and Gear Third were ineffective in the fight.

Haki

Luffy is able to use Haoshoku Haki, a type of Haki possessed only by one in a million people. Luffy used this ability several times in the series, as it was the type of Haki that manifested the earliest.

The first time Luffy was identified to have possessed this type of Haki was when he stopped Boa Sandersonia from smashing a petrified Marguerite, although he first showed possession of this type of Haki when he scared off Duval's bison steed, Motobaro.

When he protected Bentham from being attacked by wolves back at Impel Down Level 5, Luffy released his Haki unconsciously. During the war at Marineford, he also used another burst of Haoshoku Haki when he saw Ace about to be executed, which knocked out a lot of individuals, both Marines and Pirates. This made it clear that Luffy, setting aside his identity as the revolutionary Dragon's son, is also a serious threat as a pirate just by possessing Haoshoku Haki.

Before training under Rayleigh, Luffy displayed limited to no control over this ability, and did not seem to realize he had it, but used it on instinct whenever it seemed to be most needed, and could still use it even when extremely injured.

With this training, Luffy has demonstrated the ability to focus his Haoshoku Haki, knocking out a small group with a quick glare without affecting anyone else. A possibility of Luffy's Haoshoku Haki is that he can tame large animals as he was capable of taming all the animals of Rusukaina Island, and tame the Kraken, which he did with great success in a very short time. Up until the fight with the New Fishman Pirates, Luffy has only used Haoshoku Haki when he needs to get people out of the way with minimum damage. The true extent of Luffy's Haki is seen when he knocks out 50,000 of Hody Jones' men. During his fight with Chinjao during the Corrida Colosseum tournament, the two unleashed a powerful wave of Haoshoku Haki when they clashed fists. While preventing Doflamingo from killing Law, both Luffy and Doflamingo used their Haoshoku Haki, which blew away a wounded Law and caught the attention of many as it caused damage to the area. This Haki has become Luffy's specialty.

Luffy first instinctively used Kenbunshoku Haki during the war at Marineford when he was about to attack Dracule Mihawk, but then stopped himself after predicting his hands being chopped off had he continued the attack. Since training with Silvers Rayleigh, Luffy has gained incredible proficiency in Kenbunshoku Haki, allowing him to tell what an opponent intends to do. He was able to effortlessly dodge a bullet shot at point-blank range by Demaro Black as well as laser projectiles fired by a Pacifista, commenting that the last attack was "too slow". His great proficiency with this skill is truly shown when he was able to completely avoid Hody Jones' Yabusame without effort. He also managed to evade albeit barely a majority of Katakuri's trident strikes despite the latter being an extremely skilled Kenbunshoku Master who used precognition to increased the accuracy of his attacks, which Katakuri noted to be rare among his enemies.

Luffy has gained an extremely high mastery of Busoshoku Haki, which has been shown to darken his body (or parts of it) and harden it. This is first shown being used when he easily defeated a Pacifista with a single Haki imbued punch used in conjunction with his Gear Second. He is also able to use his Gear Third in conjunction with his Busoshoku Haki, being capable of knocking out a giant beast such as the Kraken easily, despite the great disadvantage of being under water (where his power was considerably weaker).

Trivia

 * Luffy is the first character from One Piece to be introduced in the AWA fics.


 * Luffy currently holds the highest known bounty in the series after his actions in the Whole Cake Island Arc.


 * Like many people, Luffy has a distinct laugh (shishishi).


 * Luffy is very similar to Son Goku from Dragon Ball, being the main character, being very childish and naive, having messy black hair and eating too much food. These similarities are fitting since Oda was inspired by Dragon Ball while creating One Piece.


 * Luffy's favorite dish to cook is raw meat on a plate.


 * Luffy's hobbies are adventures and banquets.