(SPOILERS AHEAD)

In his war with Kaido, Luffy is slain and all seems lost.

We cut to Luffy's lifeless body and hear an ancient sound — the drums of liberation.

Joy Boy awakens! Luffy comes back to life, reborn: wild with laughter, ping ponging in his fast and loose fighting style, bursting with freedom.

For 1000 episodes, our hero of the Gomu Gomu (rubber rubber) fruit, Monkey D. Luffy, was known to us as the rubber man. But what looked like the superpower of rubber was actually the superpower of joy! It was joy all along!

The world government’s conspiracy to hide the truth of the Gomu Gomu fruit betrays their fear: life is beyond man’s attempt to control it, to police it into order. Luffy’s declaration to be pirate king is a defiance against tyranny, “I’m not going to conquer anything. The one who is most free is the pirate king.” Freedom is joy, for joy can never be locked up, boxed in, or clamped down. When Luffy awakens into Joy Boy, his body materializes as joy: stretching, warping, bouncing, bending the world around him.

Luffy — the pirate arhat (slayer of foes), the warrior of nirvana, the rebel of happiness — reminds us that joy bows to no king or law. Even the gods cannot chain Spirit.
It was this moment that cemented its greatness forever, One Piece is not just some cartoon show, but it is the expression of The Muses, an emanation of truth itself. As I watched, I felt that what I saw was holy — I felt that I was witness to a historical event.

One Piece has captured the essence of life, time and time again. One Piece is truth in the form of color, sound, and story. Thank you Eiichiro Oda.

What does Luffy’s phoenix song of death-and-rebirth mean for us?