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If you’ve only dabbled in One Piece by either playing a game or only watching the Netflix series, you probably don’t know much about the history of Luffy or the rest of the Star Hat Pirates. And watching the whole One Piece anime series can be extremely daunting as it has already gone well over a thousand episodes. So, if you were wondering how Luffy got his elastic powers, then read on to find out how the Rubber Man came to be
Where Did Luffy Come From?
Born in a small village in the Goa Kingdom called Foosha, Luffy spent the earliest part of his life there. That is where he would go about his daily mischief and meet some of the most prominent characters in the series, including Shanks. Luffy is the son of Monkey D. Dragon, the Revolutionary Army’s leader, and the grandson of Monkey D. Garp, the greatest Navy admiral to ever live.
The world of One Piece has mythical fruits known as Devil Fruits; these odd and disgusting edibles, when consumed, give a user one unique ability. Once a person dies, the fruit shows up somewhere in the world and is said to find the person who deserves to eat it. This means that when a very powerful person dies, the hunt for their fruit begins. While there are other powers like Haki as well that Luffy later masters, they can be learned by almost any driven individual.
How Did Luffy Get His Powers In One Piece?
The Navy, the World Government, and, of course, the pirates all want to get their hands on the most powerful Devil Fruits. On one such occasion, a Marine ship was carrying a certain formidable and high-priority fruit and taking it to the “right hands.” The aforementioned Marine ship was attacked and raided by the Red-Haired pirates, who were headed by, you guessed it, Red-Haired Shanks, one of the four emperors of the sea.
Shanks decided to stop by the Foosha Village, which he used to visit regularly, and unloaded their bounty from the Marine ship. As luck would have it, Luffy was very hungry at that moment. He found an oddly colored fruit and decided to eat it; the fruit he ate was the now familiar Gum-Gum Fruit.
When Shanks found out, he tried his best to get it out of him, but upon holding him by his ankles and shaking him about, Luffy suddenly started stretching as if he was made of rubber, which he was. At that point, it was too late to do anything about it. Although this meant that Luffy would never be able to swim in the sea ever again, he gained one of the most legendary abilities in the world, and the rest, as they say, is history.
