LUFFY’S BIGGEST LOSS! One Piece Chapter 1188 Early Spoilers!
Is Imu unbeatable? Or will Luffy actually achieve Gear 6 to fully stop Imu, to fully awaken the power of Joy Boy?
In the previous One Piece chapter, Sanji is about to awaken Conqueror’s Haki to fight against Rimushifu Killingham and Luffy activates Gear 5, beginning the 800-year rematch against Imu.
One Piece Chapter 1188 is titled, “Void”
We get the color spread in honor of One Piece’s 29th manga anniversary, showing the Straw Hats underwater.
With Gear 5, Luffy turns into a genie.
Imu continues recalling Joy Boy and we see that he has the same smile as Luffy.
A similar smile?
This seems to confirm the hint of the top half of Oda’s mystery paper, which is now kept in the One Piece Base shop.
As well as SBS Volume 115 hinting towards a strong connection between Luffy and Joyboy due to Oda intentionally choosing the first voice actress for Luffy, Urano Takano, to voice Joy Boy since she came from the One Piece pilot OVA by Production IG back in 1998.
And given the chapter coincides with the manga’s 29th anniversary, we are about to answer one of the two big questions.
Who is Luffy?
At the end of the chapter, we see Imu stabbing Luffy, with his polearm once again shapeshifting with Omen to make a sword called Void.
Imu then tells Luffy that he knows Luffy is NOT Joy Boy since Joy Boy would never be this weak
The panel is said to be similar to Luffy being stabbed by Crocodile.
If Luffy’s first fight with Crocodile was his first big loss, then this one with Imu would be his last, assuming that we will have another Kaido and spend another 20 chapters of Luffy recovery for a final strike.
But this does bring people some hope that Gear 5 barely scratches the surface and may even lead to a Gear 6, beyond the five gears of a car.
There will be a BREAK NEXT WEEK.
One Piece Chapter 1189 will be released on July 27, 2026.
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