‘One Piece’: Gear 5 Arrives Next Week, and the Hype Is off the Charts

Do do do do do do!! You hear that? That completely infectious and badass drum beat? That means it’s arrived, the moment One Piece fans have waited so patiently for since it was depicted in the manga in March 2022. Gear 5 is about to be animated. It will air next week, on August 6, 2023, and much like Luffy himself very soon, the hype cannot be stopped.

After all, Gear 5 is essentially the climax of One Piece so far—a ridiculous, epic event a cool 24 years in the making, from the anime’s premiere date. I’m worried about placing my expectations too high. Then again, the episode director is Tatsuya Nagamine, who directed an entire One Piece film, Z. And he said that Mayumi Tanaka, the 68-year-old demi-god/woman who voices Luffy, “exceeded expectations” while recording this episode. I simply cannot contain my excitement.

Technically speaking, this isn’t the first time Gear 5 has gotten screen time—it had the sneakiest possible cameo during the climax of One Piece Film: Red. But this will not be sneaky. This will be epic and bombastic and will, most importantly, absolute bucketloads of joy. Joyboy’s returned, baby!

Just the scene leading up to the transformation was hype as hell. As a professional musician and a professional One Piece fan, I was incredibly excited to see what kind of drumbeat Luffy’s heartbeat was transformed into. I was expecting something out of a Japanese festival—bombastic taiko, with some tiny cymbals for good measure. And the anime does start there, but then it turns into a mix of taiko, Brazilian percussion (Oda pegs Luffy as Brazilian, remember), and the biggest marching band you’ve ever heard. Get outta here. Incredible.

This is my new jam. My entire new vibe. I will be unbeatable as long as I’m listening to this in headphones. Furthermore, the internationally flavored badassery of this music has inspired memes like this, which is just a net win. If Gear 5 memes take the form of showcasing different incredible drumbeats from around the world, humanity has won here today.

The hype is so immense, it’s dripped right out of the internet and into the real world. For an entire week, an entire wall of a prominent promenade in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, the busiest train station in the world, is dedicated to recounting Luffy’s journey up to Gear 5. It makes me emotional to witness.

The ad is ridiculously long in both time and space. I’ve seen ads on that wall that are just the same trailer repeated over and over again, but no, this ad is bespoke. It deftly alternates between repeated visuals and having a single long, unique image. It’s entrancing, and it’s a whopping three minutes long—which, for an ad in a freaking train station, is very long.

The hype is so intense that the largest cinema hall in the world—Le Grand Rex in Paris, France—is doing a theatrical screening of Gear 5. However, most of us are not lucky enough to live in Paris. The good news is that this means you can make your own household Gear 5 celebrations. Do you have any plans? I’m making purple-and-white muffins, dammit. I’m so hype, I’m baking in Luffy’s honor.

(featured image: Toei Animation)