Luffy is a teenage young boy with fair skin, black eyes, and short, messy black hair. He has a scar under his left eye, which he earned by stabbing himself under the eye with a knife. He was severely wounded by Akainu in the Battle of Marineford, leaving an X-shaped scar on his chest. His primary outfit consists of his trademark straw hat (which he received from Red-Haired Shanks), a red sleeveless vest with 3 buttons, short, blue trousers with white cuffs, and light brown sandals with black straps. After the timeskip, he wears an open, long-sleeved red cardigan with four buttons with a yellow sash tied around his waist. He maintains his short blue trousers, sandals, and of course, his trademark straw hat.
Physical Abilities
- Enhanced Strength: As captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy has immense physical strength and is capable of lifting up large boulders, breaking stone, shattering steel with his bare hands, pushing apart large buildings, and shoulder flipping a huge man. Additionally, Luffy has always fought the strongest villain of the story arc (except in the Romance Dawn Arc). Luffy’s sheer physical strength and dexterity is a result of his grandfather’s unorthodox training methods (such as being thrown into a bottomless ravine, tied to several balloons, thrown into a forest at night, etc.) and he claimed he had a punch as powerful as a pistol even at seven years of age. Overall, Luffy’s immense physical power allows him to fight the most powerful and dangerous enemies such as Arlong and Hody Jones, two fearsome and brutal fishermen; Enel, an extremely powerful Logia user; Rob Lucci, the strongest member of the CP9; three previous members of the Shichibukai: Crocodile, Moriah, and Doflamingo; and even Charlotte Cracker and Katakuri, two of the Three Sweet Commanders of the Big Mom Pirates. He is also shown to increase in strength quite dramatically in a short period of time, most noticeably being the fight against Minotaurus, where the first time it took the combined efforts of Mr. 2, Mr. 3, and Buggy just to beat him, but the next time, Luffy defeated him with a single “Gum Gum Jet Pistol”. After he became a Yonko, Luffy has became one of the strongest pirates in the world. His bounty of 300,000,000,000 has considered him as one of the most dangerous threats to the World Government’s operations. During his reunion with Rob Lucci, Luffy is shown to be much stronger when he is easily overpowering Lucci in Egghead.
- Enhanced Speed & Reflexes: Luffy also possesses tremendous speed and reflexes to match his strength and endurance. In fact, on more than one occasion, Luffy was able to anticipate moves and counter attacks that would normally be beyond his field of vision due to his sharp reflexes. Early on in the series, Luffy is seen being able to react to foes faster than him, like Kuro, Arlong, Bellamy, and Enel. After learning the CP9’s Soru technique to enhance both speed and strength, he became even more so. After the timeskip he has become even faster, being able to dodge attacks even while in Third Gear, and even creating enough friction while running at full speed to set the ground on fire. He could evade a majority of Katakuri’s assaults, which the latter noted to be extremely rare.
- Enhanced Endurance & Durability: His endurance and durability are incredible; taking continuous, deadly assaults from powerful opponents that would have killed a normal person easily in most of his fights, yet still being able to stand up and continue fighting effectively. Over the course of the series, he progressively becomes able to take more and more punishment and fight for longer periods of time without tiring. He could withstand a direct hit from Kaku and Kalifa’s combined Rankyaku attacks without any injuries and survived Rob Lucci’s extremely destructive Rokuougan twice at point-blank range and even manage to muster enough strength to perform a full-powered Jet Gatling. At Thriller Bark, Luffy was brutally smashed by the 1000 shadow enhanced Moriah without losing consciousness. By the events of the Whole Cake Island Arc, his endurance and durability have grown to the point that he is able to fight a grueling battle with Charlotte Cracker for 11 straight hours (while activating Gear Fourth at least twice), and after only a brief nap, endured a vicious beating from Sanji’s Diable Jambe enhanced kicks only to be back on his feet shortly thereafter and still capable of using Gear Second when attacked by Big Mom’s army. Furthermore, he then goes on to rampage through the Whole Cake Chateau, defeating dozens more of Big Mom’s underlings even while being badly injured, extremely fatigued, and near-death from starvation. He even managed to survive Katakuri’s extremely powerful Haki enhanced attacks. Despite heavy injuries, he shrugged off the damage to continue the battle. Due to him being rubber, lightning and electricity are completely useless against such as both Enel’s lightning and later Zeus’ lightning. His enormous willpower adds to his incredible endurance, as demonstrated on several occasions throughout the series, most noted of all in the Thriller Bark Arc when he manages to take in 100 shadows without passing out, compared to normal humans, who can only take in 2 or 3.
- Enhanced Stamina: Luffy’s stamina is also outstanding. He was able to fight 8 hours of fighting Cracker, despite being stuffed from eating biscuits. He also went 12 uninterrupted hours against Katakuri after having only a few hours of sleep in the last three days, sustaining several injuries from Cracker, Sanji, and the Enraged Army, and without eating properly (to near starvation) during that period of time.
- Enhanced Agility: Luffy is also shown to be extremely agile to the point where he can perform flips, rolls, and dodges. Early on in the series, Luffy is seen being able to react to foes faster than him, like Kuro, Arlong, Bellamy, and Enel. After learning the CP9’s Soru technique to enhance both speed and strength, he became even more so.
- Enhanced Healing: He has immense healing capabilities and an extremely fast recovery rate. In Impel Down, when his natural healing abilities were boosted by Ivankov’s healing hormones and further driven by his will, Luffy was able to not only survive the excessive dose of Magellan’s deadly poison but also managed to overcome the poisoning within less than a day, a feat which Ivankov noted to be more than just a miracle. In Whole Cake Island, despite being on the verge of death and being brutally injured by Sanji beforehand, he quickly regains all his lost stamina and energy after eating Sanji’s bento and was completely unfazed by the serious injuries he had suffered beforehand. He also regrows a missing tooth instantly after drinking some milk similar to how Brook healed his injuries.
- Enhanced Jaw Strength: He also possesses extraordinary jaw strength, as seen in the Orange Town Arc in the manga, where he had almost chewed through the metal bars of the cage Buggy put him in. In the following arc, he shattered Jango’s steel chakram with his teeth alone (anime). He also ate the cage that Gekko Moriah put him in, and managed to give Rob Lucci a small bite wound, as well as break the steel chain used to bind Nami (in Franky’s body) after the timeskip. His greatest feat in this area, however, was that he managed to make Jinbe, who is known to have an extremely high tolerance towards pain, yell out in pain when he bit the fishman’s arm.
- Supernatural Survivability: Thanks to his willpower and great amount of luck, he can survive near death situations and withstand far beyond what normal people are capable of. This is demonstrated when he was poisoned very far beyond what a human is capable of surviving, only living on despite his critical condition through sheer willpower. This is also shown when he survives through Emporio Ivankov’s “Healing Hormones” ability, which even with a slim chance of surviving had not only survived the endeavor but made a recovery in twenty hours when the normal time for the healing procedure is two days. After being dehydrated by Crocodile, he survived by sheer luck when a single misfired shot of water came back and fell on him. In Loguetown, he also survived almost being executed by Buggy because of a lightning bolt that struck the execution platform at the exact moment he was going to be killed. Luffy’s abnormal odds of survival were later shown with Basil Hawkins’ “fortune telling” ability, as despite doing it multiple times, he was surprised that he could never get Luffy’s chances of survival to reach 0.
Fighting Style
Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Luffy’s fighting style has proven to be rather adaptable and versatile, which is because of his Gomu Gomu no Mi, which turns him into a rubber man and supplemented by his own immense physical prowess. Unlike Zoro and Sanji, his fighting style isn’t based off actual martial arts instead being almost self-taught and improvised, however, Luffy has proven to be capable of fighting against martial arts specials like Rob Lucci. In battles, he used several tactics ranging from creative and unusual counterattacks and techniques against experienced foes who wondered whether or not he was serious like Crocodile when Luffy became Water Luffy. He created several different techniques based on his Gomu Gomu no Mi, in addition to his Second, Third, and Fourth Gears, which given him an edge in combat.
Intelligence: Despite his dimwitted nature, he has at least the fundamental understanding of his Gomu Gomu no Mi, which makes him rubber, a natural insulator, letting him take Enel’s lightning attacks head-on without avoiding a single attack since it was pointless because of he was immune to electrical-based attacks. Luffy could develop moves such as Second and Third Gear; the former uses his rubber blood vessels to increase his blood flow thus providing him more oxygen and nutrients, granting him greater speed and power; and the latter, he bites into his fingers to inflate his arm and bones, thus making his arm giant, letting him deal greater damage. Although, Luffy is the least strategic member of his crew, because of his habit of charging without a plan or knowledge of his own enemies, Luffy is adaptable in combat, taking advantage of his strengths and devil fruit powers, as well as even taking advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses. This causes even warriors long considered unbeatable to have trouble keeping up. Also, even if most of the time he acts instinctively, in some cases Luffy has shown to be intelligent enough to give some orders to his crewmates in the wake of making a strategy or simply making things go as he prefers. This usually ends up being an advantage for the crew.