A little ago I have looked for some theories on Luffy's Gear 5, and the vast majority of them all try to, in some way, relate it to the Awakening of the Gomu Gomu no Mi. Indeed, seems to me, this is a rather interesting position to take sight of, but the concepts behind it +

also seem to not be as interesting as this starting point shows itself. As such, I come here to try to establish how I imagine it to be. Well, at least for the intent of this thread, let us at least presuppose that, yes, Gear 5 is intimately connected to the awakening of Luffy's+

fruit. For this scenario, people, imagining the GGM's awakening (gomu gomu no mi) as the Ito Ito no Mi one, argue that Luffy's fruit will make him able to transform any soil into a trampouline, since he would be extending his gum property to a larger area.

I don't see, however, how this could make anything stronger at all, and, for this, we have seen luffy bouncing and flying with Gear 4 already. So I guess it's safe to say that a power of such is not a necessity for the protagonist. But some quotation from Cracker especially lead+

to me deducing some conclusions on this context. When Luffy activates Gear 4, he absorbs a large quantity of air end releases it inside his muscles, therefore filling all the muscles of his body with air, from where comes the name "Muscle Balloon".

But Cracker explicitly affirms "But all that there is is a balloon. Let's see what a simple balloon can make", or something that looks like so, implying that Luffy transformation is no more than this injection of air into himself and, thus, wouldn't give him much more power.

And how, then, could Luffy be capable of having the same effect of Gear 4, yet stronger, without the use of air? If he was able to increase the mass of his own body, on a way that he could freely increase the amount of elastic mass that he has. Since it is not only a "balloon",+

That is, there is a real and much greater increase of mass on himself than air could give, I believe that his physical prowess would increase substantially more than what a "simple balloon" ever could. The ability of his awakening, as such, is not to make the environment a+

large rubber mass, but to increase the rubber of himself and increasing his own size and mass. For the applications or further implications of this concept, however, i'm not to talk about, since what is said here doesn't necessarily corresponds to what is being planned by Oda,+

and for this reason, I have no further reasons to say more. Thanks to whoever has read until now.