Monkey D. Luffy is a devil fruit user who ate the Gomu Gomu no mi Model: Nika, while at normal this question may seem odd but when you consider the drawbacks of devil fruits in the one-piece universe which make their user deadweight and unable to swim.
And today we will talk about whether Luffy would be able to take a bath and if he cannot, we will discuss the limitations Luffy’s devil fruit put on him in regards to him not being able to swim and making him deadweight.
I am an ardent fan of the One Piece universe and have been watching it since 2008 and have read its manga regularly ever since. My main goal in writing this article is for more and more people to discover this fantastic series and help answer various questions that the fans might have over the years.
How does water affect devil fruit users?
According to Eiichiro Oda the author of One Piece, Devil fruit users are ‘’ hated ‘’ by the sea and in this instance, the sea is referred to as any body of water for example lakes, seas, oceans, ponds, and pools.
And when a devil fruit user enters any body of water their body becomes deadweight and the water strains their body of all their strength making them unable to use their powers as well as not being able to swim which is a huge disability to have especially if one is a pirate.
However, the devil fruit users are not affected by ‘’ rain water ‘’ and dripping water for some odd reason and they are often seen to be using their abilities in the rain and being completely unaffected by the sea curse.
Can Luffy use his devil fruit in water ?
Now while we did say that most devil fruit users will lose all strength and won’t be able to use their abilities underwater, we have seen Luffy’s gomu gomu no mi activate underwater on many occasions in the series, for example, him fighting the huge octopus named Surume underwater and him being able to stretch his neck in arlong park to breathe out of the pool or even activate attack underwater. To know more check our article “How did luffy use red hawk underwater ?”
Now I would like to make this clear that while the sea and water bodies can drain all strength from the devil fruit users’ bodies making them deadweight and unable to use their abilities and making them unable to swim, it does not mean that it nullifies their abilities.
Devil fruit users can still activate their abilities while underwater however because it drains all of their strength from their bodies that in turn makes them unable to activate their power as they have no strength or stamina to use their powers.
Would Luffy drown in a bathtub?
Now let us address the elephant in the room. The main question in this article is whether or not Luffy could take a bath and whether he would drown in a bathtub. A very simple answer to that is Yes and No.
If the bathtub is deep enough for Luffy to submerge his entire body as he lays down or sits inside it, it will surely rob Luffy of all his strength making him deadweight, and would 100 percent drown him resulting in fatality!
However! As long as Luffy sits while half of his body remains outside and the other half remains inside the bathtub, he can take baths without drowning himself the trick here would be to have his upper half of the body remain outside and his lower body to be submerged inside water, it was also seen when he took a bath alongside the brook.