Luffy vs. Enel: Who Won the Fight? (& Is He Really Stronger?)
One Piece is an anime that certainly has its fair share of strong and powerful characters. And while its protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, is certainly among them, there are some characters that are (or have been) as powerful or even more powerful than Luffy at some point, causing a lot of trouble and even defeating the prospective Pirate King. In this article, we are going to analyze one such character, as we are going to pit Luffy against one of his most dangerous opponents, the god Enel, to see who the stronger of the two is.
Luffy was able to defeat Enel in a very difficult and highly entertaining fight. Enel was a very tough opponent for Luffy, as the God of Skypea had some amazing powers, but Luffy was able to defeat him even then, which means that he could certainly defeat him now that he has activated Gear 5 and unlocked the true form of his Devil Fruit, the Gomu Gomu no Mi.
The rest of this article will further elaborate on the above-given answer, as we are going to compare Luffy and Enel in more detail. Through several categories, you are going to see who the stronger of the two is and why our answer is like it is, i.e., why Luffy was ultimately able to defeat Enel when they fought.
Physical powers
Luffy is endowed with immense physical strength, enough to lift gigantic boulders and shatter steel with his bare hands. His physical strength derives in part from the workouts his grandfather Garp subjected him to as a child, where he survived critical circumstances and used to face huge ferocious beasts. Even as a child he was able to defeat grown-ups and endure Polchemy’s torture.
His physical strength is such as to overwhelm the strongest fugitives of the eastern sea and to rival even that of the fish-men, as demonstrated in the battles against Arlong and Hody Jones, whose strength was even higher than that of the average of their race. In particular against Hody, after two years of training, he showed himself clearly superior, so much so that he defeated him despite being powered by Energy Steroids.
Being the “God” of Skypiea, Enel had full control of the island thanks in particular to his Mantra. He took this title too seriously. Enel is extremely powerful, and gave the impression of being weaker than many others due to Luffy being naturally immune to Goro Goro no Mi’s powers.
Enel’s strength was demonstrated when he defeated easily Robin, Gan Forr, Wiper and Zoro very quickly without his opponents having had time to do anything. Enel also possesses incredible physical strength and is a genius at hand-to-hand combat. Although not practicing any recognized martial art, he is very agile and has above average stamina as evidenced by his resistance to Luffy’s multiple blows.
Back in the day, Enel was a match for Luffy and he was basically on the same level as the protagonist of the series. Ultimately, Luffy managed to surpass him and that is why he wins this point.
Points: Luffy 1, Enel 0
Devil Fruit
Luffy ate Gomu Gomu Devil Fruit which made him rubber, giving him the ability to stretch his body parts and hit enemies from a long distance. Although as a child he had problems in fully controlling his power, after an intense training of over ten years, Luffy was able to use the fruit to exponentially improve his physical strength and his agility, thus making him a dangerous opponent.
Despite his fighting style sometimes appears improvised, it is precisely his creativity that makes him an unpredictable opponent, capable of overturning critical situations by adapting from time to time to combat. His rubber body also makes him extremely durable and immune to marine bullets, normal punches and even electricity.
However, he is not immune to swords and knives, as well as to dehydration or poison, although after the fight with Magellan he becomes immune to a wide variety of these.
Enel consumed the Goro Goro no Mi, a Logia-type Devil Fruit that gives him the ability to create and turn into electricity. This allows him to use a variety of lightning-based attacks by hitting the drums on his back, which are almost all attacks named after thunder gods from different cultures. He also gives her the ability to reset his heart after being killed, as well as increase his mantra to omniscient levels.
To make matters worse, his attacks are as fast as lightning which makes them very difficult to avoid. Due to these abilities, the Goro Goro no Mi is one of the few Devil Fruits that are considered “invincible”. He also proved to have a lot of physical resistance since despite being a logia and not feeling pain in a long time, he managed to quickly recover from Wyper and Luffy’s attacks.
In the mini-story he reveals that he doesn’t need to breathe, and that he can survive outside of the atmosphere. However, his electricity-based powers have no effect on certain substances, such as rubber, making Luffy a formidable foe, as he is immune to Enel’s powers. He is also weakened by Sea Stone, as all Devil Fruit users suffer from that effect.
Lightning is five times hotter than the surface temperature of the sun and has a potential of over a trillion volts. This means that if Enel can produce 200,000,000 volts, he can generate temperatures of around 6,000°C.
However, sometimes this is not enough to completely burn some electrically conductive materials, for this reason, most of Enel’s attacks are carried out through conductive materials that in a short period of time are capable of burning, damaging internally, and even kill. The only attack capable of completely burning a conductor is El Thor, because this attack lasts more than five seconds, as seen when Luffy fought Enel, that he melted a wall made of stone and was not using 60,000,000 volts.
Enel’s Goro Goro no Mi was really a big challenge for Luffy at the time as it is a truly powerful Devil Fruit, but since Luffy’s abilities have grown so much, he wins this point easily.
Points: Luffy 2, Enel 0
Haki
Luffy has been trained by Silvers Rayleigh to become an expert Haki user. He knows how to use the Observation Haki, which he instinctively used for the first time against Mihawk, avoiding a swing that would have cut off his arms. He also mastered the Armament Haki at high levels, making it an essential part of Gear Fourth. Using this ability in combination with the powers of his own devil fruit, Luffy is also able to ignite his fists thanks to his friction.
He also knows how to use the rarest form of Haki, the Royal Haki, which is the one he prefers. With it, he was able to knock out fifty thousand fish-men at once. During his confrontation with Kaido, he proved to be one of the very few individuals able to use her to enhance his attacks. His third fight against the emperor also ripped through the sky.
Enel possesses the skill known as Observation Haki, called “mantra” in Skypiea. His Haki is greatly enhanced by his Devil Fruit powers, making him virtually omniscient of thoughts and actions on Skypiea. With enough skill, he can use this Haki to predict his opponent’s move just before he makes it, so he can easily avoid it.
This prediction appears to Enel as a brief “premonition” of what the opponent will do in Enel’s mind’s eye, and the damage he would take if he doesn’t avoid the hit. However, this power allows Enel to predict many attacks that can be avoided in various ways. He cannot inherently predict random attacks, which is how Luffy managed to avoid Enel’s mantra by bouncing his fists off a wall.
Enel failed to notice Luffy’s presence when he was inside the giant snake, Nola, detecting him only after escaping from it. This also doesn’t make the mantra user faster than normal, the speed to avoid attacks depends on how fast the person is; Enel was unable to avoid Luffy’s final attack, as he was moving too fast. Even Enel himself admits that the mantra is not perfect.
Although his Observation Haki is on a near-perfect level, it causes problems from time to time and he cannot use any other Haki technique as far as it is known; this is why Luffy wins this one as well.
Points: Luffy 3, Enel 0
Weapons
Luffy rarely uses weapons in combat, mostly due to his inexperience and the inability to use them. In his childhood, he wielded a metal pipe and that is probably the most sophisticated weapon he successfully handled. In Arlong Park, Luffy briefly tried to fight with swords but failed miserably.
Enel wields a golden staff, and is apparently adept at using it, dealing powerful blows to his opponents with it, basically using it to hit opponents he doesn’t deem worthy of dying for their electrical powers. He is also used extensively against the rubber like body of Luffy when all electric attacks have failed. Due to Enel’s power, he can melt and turn the staff into a trident for more damaging attacks.
Ultimately, like practically every time, Luffy loses in this category because Enel is a better weapons user. Luffy doesn’t use weapons generally and he is quite clumsy with them.
Points: Luffy 3, Enel 1
Luffy vs. Enel: Who wins?
We could, actually, give you a proper analysis of the things we have written above but that wouldn’t really do the trick when compared with what we have decided to go with. Namely, as Luffy and Enel have, indeed, fought in the manga and anime, we thought that it would be better for us to just recap these fights to confirm what we have said above.
Finally, Luffy encounters Enel and the “God” realizes that he cannot inflict damage on Luffy because the latter is made of rubber. In the grand battle between the Straw Hat Captain and Enel, it is evident that Luffy is more than a challenger to Enel due to rubber’s insensitivity to lightning, even the God’s strongest blasts, and Enel is momentarily unable to react being in shock.
The God had never heard of rubber because this material does not exist on the celestial islands. He used his Mantra to predict Luffy’s movements and attacks. He also changed his staff into a burning trident to finally hurt Luffy. He then tells our Captain that he is only a “Simple” Paramecia and that even if he can stretch his limbs the structure of his body does not prevent him from feeling the heat.
Luffy continues to battle Enel thinking of ways to circumvent the ability to predict his movements. His ego bruised, and scared to have found his natural enemy, Enel still manages to get rid of Luffy temporarily. With Luffy out of reach, Enel continues his plan to destroy all of Skypiea. Enel eventually reaches the top of the Giant Jack and finds nothing, but manages to see Luffy right below him.
Enel then attacks him using his power and knocks him much lower. Despite being back to where he started Luffy perseveres. The pirate attempts to board the Ark Maximus of Enel, but the god does not allow him to board and knocks him down again. He then finds the Golden Bell of Shandora. Enel sneering then decides to attack the bean too and make it fall in the wrong direction so as not to fight.
Enel then yells at Luffy that although he is immune to the electricity, he won’t be able to reach him. Luffy attacks “Gomu Gomu no: Storm”, while throwing the large golden ball strapped to his arm into the storm cloud, determined not to let anyone die. Enel is shocked, realizing that Luffy is using the golden ball as an electrical conductor, “sucking” all the electricity from the “Raigo”.
With the threat neutralized, Luffy wraps his arm with the golden ball attached to him for a final attack on Enel. In retaliation for his thwarted attack, Enel uses the full potential of his powers and transforms into a giant God of Thunder. His attack shows all his power. This doesn’t discourage Luffy, as even in this form he makes himself an easy target.
Enel grabs Luffy with his trident, thinking he has won as Luffy will either be burned by the trident’s heat or fall. Luffy decides to fall but, much to Enel’s annoyance, he manages to grab hold of a solid cloud and flies back into the air, in the perfect position to hit Enel. He launches his final attack, the “Gomu Gomu no Rifle Ougon”. Enel in a last attempt launches a discharge of 200,000,000 Volts without success.
He then contemplates Luffy’s attack, calling it too fast to dodge and too powerful to counter. In addition to defeating Enel, Luffy broke the Golden Ball by ramming it into the Golden Bell. As legend had predicted, when that bell rings again, the war will be over. The Maxim being powered by the energy of Enel, it too sank. All of this confirms what we have said, and that is that Luffy is, indeed, stronger than Enel.