Remembering One of ‘One Piece’s Most Epic Fights

There’s only one reason I watch a Big Three show: The fight scenes. One Piece is lousy with them. Chock full. Triple-decker combat sandwich. One of the show’s finest episodes? Luffy vs. Lucci.

When do they fight?

The brunt of the high-flying, rubber-man action happens in episode 302, “Luffy vs. Lucci: Peak of the Decisive Battle.” As the title suggests, it’s the climax of the battle between Luf and Lu. At least … the FIRST battle.

A few hundred episodes later, Lucci wants a rematch. But wait, how does this man really think he’s going to beat Luffy this far into the series? Lucci squares up with Luffy again in episode 1100, but it was never going to go his way. The title of the episode is “Powers on a Different Level! Luffy vs. Lucci!”

In classic shonen anime protagonist fashion, Luffy has grown orders of magnitude more powerful since he first threw rubber hands with Lucci. Can’t Lucci just quit while he’s behind? I don’t know if I can handle watching this man embarrass himself. I mean, Luffy has unlocked Gear 5 for laughing out loud. He’s quite literally able to turn reality itself into a Looney Tunes cartoon. Even The World’s Strongest Beast Kaido was taken by comic surprise. Naturally, fans of the series don’t have much hope for this fight to go Lucci’s way either. It’s like Jake Paul fighting Mike Tyson. People might be fooled into thinking there’s a contest, but there’s only one way this thing is gonna go: in favor of the champ.

(Featured Image: Toei)