I've never hated a transformation before. They serve as extremely blunt representations of development, positive or negative. I've always really liked looking into these transformations to see what they represent, and how they relate to the depth of a story.

Ichigo's Fullbringer forms showing how much being a soul reaper meant to him, that even when he visualizes and brings out the soul of his most treasured object, all he can subconsciously envision it as is being a soul reaper. He didn't want to save the day and be revered for it, he wanted to be the person that keeps protecting, that keeps fighting, he was like an artist that lost their hands and desperately wanted anything to replace them, which makes Ginjo taking them hurt EVEN MORE, because it *feels* the same, it *feels* like Ginjo taking away Ichigo's life as a soul reaper, it *feels* like Ginjo is stopping him from being able to fight for his friends again. The only person Ichigo'd ever wanted to kill was Tsukishima, who turned Ichigo's friends against him in this same arc. His new Fullbringer powers taking shape the way they did mattered and built upon the foundational rules of his character and the story at the time.

Naruto's Version 2 Kurama forms were intwined with his mental states at the time. Each time was him giving in to hate. To weakness and desperation. He wanted power by any means to destroy what he hated, and ended up not only never defeating anyone with these forms, but hurting the people around him and potentially becoming the Nine-Tails unleashed. When he aims to conquer hate after the pain arc in honor of his late master Jiraiya, he never goes into these forms again. Kurama tries to make him give in to hate one last time as Naruto tries to conquer his power, but Naruto rejects it and earns the Nine-Tailed-Chakra-Mode by successfully overcoming hatred. In some ways, the cloak used against Pain can be seen as a relapse.

That brings us to Gear 5. I'm not going to say something stupid like "Gear 5 is just goofyslop that undermines the stakes of the story" or anything, it's definitely a form that fits Luffy, and the tone of One Piece, but it's inclusion is actively being held up by massive recharacterization and undermines a lot of what made One Piece good.

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First, let me tell you my relationship with One Piece. I binged one piece nearly every night from East Blue to Zou on my Nintendo Switch. I watched every filler arc except for silver mine. I fell asleep at the end of Dressrosa and woke up to gear 4th T-T. One Piece was a big deal to me when I watched it, however, once I reached Post-Timeskip, I slowly started to follow it less and less. 

Fishman Island and Punk Hazzard are terrible arcs. Fishman Island takes place 80% in one crater with the same background and it's so unbelievably bland. It's the exact inverse of Skypeia. They explore a new land and somehow nothing there is interesting at all. The Straw Hats barely do anything of intrigue until the big fights against foes who need to have their backstory told mid-encounter to mean anything. Fisher Tiger is a great story, and the relation with Boa Hancock was very cool, but Hoady Jones was the absolute worst. He doesn't show what he represents well at all, being generational hate, he just feels incorrect in a too obvious way, and didn't leave any effects on anything or anyone to build or grow. I *guess* Shirahoshi, but that's more Shirahoshi having a clear line of progression made for her and less Hoady making Shirahoshi change.

But more importantly, the straw hats just don't do anything but stall for the big fight at the end. Once the time skip rolled around, Oda started treating the Straw Hats other than the monster trio as completed characters. Not only do storybeats like Usopp's vow or Nami's weather studies not mean much because they fall into their gags of cowardice, but important dreams like Sanji's wish to find the All Blue, Robin's wish to uncover the void century's history, Franky's wish to create the boat to sail all the seas, none of that matters beyond when they said it. Especially for someone like Franky or Robin, who don't really have any sub-goals. 

Franky's little more than a plot device to give the crew random constructs when necessary, because Oda's forsaken giving importance to any lower scope issues like in pre-timeskip. The Going Merry breaking was marvelous storytelling, but the Thousand Sunny just feels like an invincible nothingburger that doesn't even mean that much to the ship. There's no emphasis put on ship damage, or treacherous sailing, or anything centered around Franky's construction skillset until Oda wants to add a giant robot. He feels glossed over. Done with, and shows up just for the vibes. Frankie vs Senor Pink didn't need to happen, it was just Franky posturing over something extremely minimal with a BS character that has their backstory shoved into the middle of an encounter just because. It felt like a quota Oda had to meet to make sure Franky did something.

And it's the same with someone like Usopp. Usopp shouldn't be a coward anymore. His vow over the time-skip is all but meaningless because Oda refuses to let Usopp change. His entire story through Dressrosa is just Loguetown but again. To be fair, that duel wasn't in the manga, but it does affect my experience as someone who watched One Piece and loved how Usopp tried conquering his fears, and expected that with something as major as the time-skip, that he wouldn't be reduced to the same joke until the special "lock-in moment" before being irrelevant again. He can still be afraid, he can be *non-confrontational* like Vash the Stampede in Trigun, but to still just be a coward makes me feel like he hasn't grown at all. At least make him go from "OH SHIT I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" to "Not dealing with that, I'm getting out of here!". Usopp, the character who's all about posturing, doing whatever you can even while you're weak, standing up for what matters to you even when you know you're not strong enough to enforce it on your own, has no meaningful moments with Momonosuke in Wano, who's entire role is based on the same things.

And these things are present EVERYWHERE Post-Timeskip. I think Whole Cake was the arc that felt most like a pre-timeskip arc, especially with moments like Brook's resolve against Big Mom, or how they were fleeing from Big Mom after the cake- that felt a lot like something out of Alabasta's long running arc- but it's got other major problems like too many villains that don't get enough time to be more than their initial designs until the Katakuri fight. Compare someone like Cracker to Drophy, the mole fruit user in Alabasta. Even though Drophy isn't more significant than Cracker as an individual character, their encounter serves as a medium to grow Usopp and Chopper, while Cracker is just "funny" fodder in the way. Any straw-hat that isn't in the monster trio has entirely independent feeling stories that don't amount to much of anything or contribute to the higher plot of the arc. Nothing like Sanji's spying or Usopp trying to storm the Franky house. Even when Oda tries this, like Chopper with the Ice Onis, it's so shoehorned in at the last minute that there was no time to assign any weight to it.

And the absolute WORST thing Oda does with characters post-timeskip is backstories. Oh my god. *Every. Time.* Every time, Every arc, Oda just feels the need to throw in a character with an overly sad backstory to make you care about them and then give them no time to be or mean anything. I am looking at Oden. Oden's a cool guy, but not only do the samurai not do nearly enough with the supposed "Dying will of Oden", but their payoff is incredibly weak when they wound Kaido. The story dumps all of it on you near the end and you're expected to care when they don't show any sort of literary tension (Internal desire + External desire vs. Internal struggle + External Struggle) surrounding the topic. He does this fine with Bartholomew Kuma, and that's because Kuma had been around for long enough and enigmatic enough that there had been space for such a thing.

So I'm feeling all these problems with the time skip, and then Oda drops the nuclear bomb of Gear 5. 

Gear 5.

GOD.

What?

Luffy's just, an incarnation of a deity now? Why?! That completely undermines his ingenuity with his fruit. Pumping his blood, Expanding his bones, sacrificing his lifespan for more power? Completely wearing him out and bleeding through his teeth as he delivers one last display of willpower against Lucci? There's just not anything near the struggle that Luffy had to put in to force his way through these situations with Gear 5. This was already a problem before Gear 5 where he starts using his Gears far too liberally. but now, Gear 5 can just kind of be whatever Oda needs it to in the moment. It's the ultimate "No stakes" plot device. Some people point to things as Luffy biting Arlong as examples of his "silliness", and while that's still true, back then it felt like a bar fight between rugged pirates that hit below the belt, not because he's the god of no fucks given. By the time Gear 5 hit, I realized that One Piece had lost its grounding and changed into being Fate/. It's annoying. It's lame, even. It grinds my gears. It muted Jason Newsted's bass. I hate it. I hate how much it changes the feel of the series, how much it changes Luffy from a man who's "Dreams have no end" and will prove to the world how much those dreams are worth like Blackbeard said, to someone who can't struggle, who's such a flanderized clown version of himself in his world with no meaning anymore, with his crew that doesn't want anything, going to islands that mean nothing to each other until Oda retroactively decides there's some bullshit. I support Shirahoshi being Mosa though.

This form sucks. I hate it so much. I hate Wano. I don't even want to watch anymore. I made it to around episode 1000 and now I just don't care. I'm bored out of my mind, and the only things to look forward to are youtube clips of "insane" fights with terrible backgrounds and a bunch of poorly drawn VFX spam. I'm not continuing. I'm not interested. [I don't care.](https://youtu.be/LwKjEfvpeu0?si=mdHK5Hq98qO0A3ZV)

Gear 5 was when I fell out of love with One Piece.