How Soon Until Gear 6? Decoding Oda’s Clues About Luffy’s Nika Form

So, the Gear 6 chatter is back. And yeah, Episode 1145 basically poured gasoline on it. If you thought Gear 5 was as wild as Luffy gets, the show just reminded us we might only be scratching the surface.

Why Episode 1145 has fans buzzing about Gear 6

Topman Warcury drops a nasty pulse of Conqueror's Haki, and it literally blasts bits of Luffy off his face — eyes, old scars, the works. Luffy shrugs, snaps himself back together like it is Tuesday, and keeps clowning. It is funny on the surface, but the subtext is loud: this body is doing things that feel way beyond rubber logic.

Then Warcury grills Dorry and Brogy — why are they guarding Luffy, and do they actually know who he is? That is not just posturing. It reads like the Five Elders are sitting on very specific intel about Sun God Nika. If Oda is telegraphing anything, it is that Gear 5 might not be the ceiling. And since Luffy's fruit is actually the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika — a Mythical Zoan, not a Paramecia — Gear 5 could be a Zoan-style hybrid rather than the final form.

Quick refresher: what Nika actually is

• Nika is tied to Elbaph myth. The Giants worship him, and the Buccaneers passed down a version of his legend too. The stories vary because the real history lived in ancient texts — most of which were erased.
• Luffy's 'Gomu Gomu no Mi' was a cover. It is the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika. The World Government tried to bury that because Nika opposed their rule and freed slaves during the Void Century.
• Joy Boy was a previous user — another name the government would rather scrub out of the record.

Gear 5's cartoon rules keep expanding

We have seen Luffy bend reality with Gear 5, but the Final Saga keeps pushing it. He can reassemble his body after getting blown apart. He can whip objects into existence out of nowhere — those goggles, for example. Oda was straight up asked how that works in Weekly Shonen Jump Issue 49 (translation via @pewpiece on Instagram), and his answer was delightfully, intentionally vague:

"It is the entrance to Nika's fantasy."

Episode 1145 doubles down. Luffy pulls out a bat and even paints it, like he is rummaging through a cartoon prop closet. It is goofy on purpose, and yeah, the power set is starting to feel extremely overpowered. The limit of that 'fantasy' door? Still unknown.

Do we actually need a Gear 6?

When the Drums of Liberation hit and Gear 5 arrived, it felt like Luffy's summit. He even framed it as his peak — the absolute best he can be. But we are now deep in the Final Saga, and the threats are scaling up in ways that make Gear 5 look... not small, but not assured. Imu's abilities alone — just by taking control of Gunko — are overwhelming. If Imu personally steps onto the board, it is hard to picture Luffy winning with the current toolkit.

There is also the practical side: One Piece is not wrapping tomorrow. Fans eventually got bored of watching Gear 4 solve everything; Gear 5 could hit that wall too. A new form would reset the excitement. On the flip side, slapping a Gear 6 label on top of 'peak' risks deflating the mystique around Nika unless Oda ties it to the Zoan nature of the fruit and makes the escalation make sense. Warcury's pointed questions sure feel like Oda nudging us in that direction, but this is exactly the kind of move that could either supercharge the endgame or mess with the myth too much.

Where I land

I would not be shocked if Gear 6 shows up — framed less as 'more muscles' and more as 'full Nika mode' beyond a hybrid. If Oda goes there, it has to be about clarity, not just power creep. Otherwise, keep letting Gear 5 get weirder and more strategic and call it the top.

Got a Gear 6 theory you are betting on? Drop it. One Piece is streaming on Crunchyroll if you are catching up.