Hello and welcome to the GrandLineReview, your source for everything One Piece.
Today we are going to embark on a new and very long journey, exploring the world of One Piece
through the wonderful vessels that are Devil Fruits.
With the goal of creating a video encyclopedia of every Devil Fruit in the series.
And today we are going to kick things off with the OG Devil Fruit; the Gomu Gomu no Mi.
The Gomu Gomu no Mi is a Paramecia type fruit that turns its user's body into rubber.
It was eaten by the main protagonist of One Piece; Monkey D. Luffy
and as you can probably infer from that fact, it is the first Devil Fruit seen in the series.
Making a pre-consumption appearence all the way back in Chapter 1 in the manga, and Episode 4 of the series.
This fruit takes its name quite literally from the Japanese word for rubber, "Gomu."
Which interestingly enough is itself a loanword from the Dutch language.
In Dutch the word "Gom" is used to refer to natural rubber.
So for example, the gooey latex harvested from rubber trees would be gum as opposed to synthetic rubber.
In the English translation, this fruit is called the "Gum Gum Fruit."
Which isn't a literal translation, but definitely a pragmatic one that at least retains the phonetic intention of the original.
Despite that, I'm going to continue to reffering to it as the "Gomu Gomu" like the weeb I am.
So given that this fruit turns its user's body into rubber,
the primary feature gained is the ability to stretch with properties similar to that of elastic.
Now very importantly, that means that any use of stretching will result in the user's body naturally wanting to return to its base state.
Which also results in the first major weakness of this fruit: the build up of elastic potential energy.
To illustrate, when you take a rubber band and apply force to stretch it out,
this action results in a buildup of elastic potential energy.
Which is used to, rather violently return the object to its natural state.
The powers of the Gomu Gomu no Mi work very similarly, except in the form of the user's body.
Which means that a user of this fruit will incur the full force of any elastic potential energy they create.
Essentially what I'm saying, is if you decide to hit somebody with a basic attack like a "Gomu Gomu no Pistol,"
then you had better be prepared for your own body to hit you back with an even stronger force.
I think that something that often gets forgotten when viewing Luffy using this power,
but what we need to remember when viewing the Gomu Gomu no Mi in this context,
is that Luffy possesses the strength of a super human.
Eating this Devil Fruit did absolutely nothing to increase his strength.
That was entirely his own training and hard work.
As a result, Luffy's naturally strong body can mitigate most negative effects in regards to elastic potential force.
In fact to the average human being, this Devil Fruit would be pretty useless initially
because without the superhuman muscle capacity, the most useful thing a regular person could do
is maybe stretch their arm a couple of meters to avoid standing up to get an object that is slightly inconveniently out of reach.
But should you put in the time to build you body, then a whole universe of options awaits you in regards to the Gomu Gomu no Mi.
For example, you could take advantage of elastic potential force, deliberately stretching yourself to a limit
and then taking aim at an enemy or object, and unleashing the full force of energy onto them.
Such as with the "Gomu Gomu no Bazooka."
This will result in a far more devastating effect than the user could conjure with a more direct strike.
Of course the main counter to this, is that an opponent will be able to see it coming
however, if you apply one more layer of creativity - such with Luffy's "Gomu Gomu no Bullet,"
you can engage in the act of flinging an arm back while simultaneously running towards an enemy.
In this way, you can make sure that your strike will land as well as maximize the damage inflicted,
by unleashing the full force of built-up energy,
rather than wasting some of that energy traveling to the target.
And you can continue to build on this by adding further alterations,
such as twisting your limbs to further increase the force of impact- acting like a very blunt drill.
But you get the idea-
The potential applications of this fruit in terms of attack power are absolutely absurd,
and we haven't even begun to explore the weird potential of other techniques,
like being able to blow up your body like a balloon-
or stretch your fingers to the point where they can act as a net-
or even expand your mouth to the point where you can literally attempt to eat an enemy.
With the right creative mind, there are essentially no limits to the variety of movement the Gomu Gomu no Mi can accomplish.
You are restricted only by your imagination.
So with that said, let's get into the craziest demonstrated use of the Gomu Gomu no Mi- which is undoubtedly the advent of Gears.
Gear Second is a technique whereby Luffy is able to pump blood around his body at a much higher rate.
Exactly how does he do this naturally? Nobody knows.
However the extreme rate at which he performs this task, would not be possible with a regular human body
as veins and arteries would burst from the pressure.
The end effect however is a higher discharge of red blood cells, which carry oxygen and other assorted nutrients.
So the attempted logic behind this, is that the increased ammounts of delicious nutrients-
would make muscles work more effectively, and result in greater speed and power.
The next technique; Gear Third- is much simpler to explain,
Luffy bites into his thumb joint and blows in enough air to inflate his bones.
Yes, his bones.
Because they also happen to be made of rubber.
And then we have Gear Fourth, which is a similar process to Gear Third-
except it uses Haki, and involves inflating the majority of the body's muscle structure.
And look, there's a much better explanation that that, but I'm not going to get too deeply into the mechanics of gears in this video.
The point, is that all of this is oly possible with a rubber body- courtesy of the Gomu Gomu no Mi.
Some other miscellaneous things to consider when becoming a rubber human.
Having a body composed of entirely of rubber, makes you essentially immune to electricity-
because electricity is a notoriously lazy energy, that will always travel the path of least resistance.
Rubber happens to have a very high resistance, so electricity will avoid rubber like an introvert avoids social interaction.
While being a rubber human greatly insulates you against blunt force attacks,
you are still very vulnerable to cutting or stabbing attacks.
This is particulary problematic when you consider that stretching increases your chances of being struck,
due to opening up more points of compromise.
The stretching powers of the Gomu Gomu no Mi have a finite limit.
Just as any stretchy substance, this limit may depend on the strength of the user,
but in the very first SBS, Oda revealed that Luffy's particular stretching limit is "72 Gomu Gomus."
A fictional unit of measurement invented in order to avoid the question.
However if the user does try to go beyond this limit, there is a rish of their limbs being ripped apart.
Essentially the Gomu Gomu no Mi is what I would consider to be a pretty average Devil Fruit, with an absolute ton of potential.
However to access that potential, you need to be an extraordinarily driven individual both physically and mentally.
Your everyday person is unlikely to see a lot of benefit from its consumption,
and if it had been eaten by anyone else in the series other than Luffy, it may even be quite forgettable.
But instead, the Gomu Gomu no Mi acts as the perfect example of how a Devil Fruit is only as good as the individual using it.
So with that, we are going to commit the Gomu Gomu no Mi as the inaugural entry into the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.
Next week we will be examining the Bara Bara no Mi.
Another Paramecia Type with some pretty crazy body splitting abilities.
Lots of fun, you'll love it.
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This has been the GrandLineReview, and I'll see you next time.