After a quarter-century of existence, the global triumph of Monkey D Luffy – a fresh-faced and rubber-bodied pirate captain – had seemed almost complete. The One Piece manga series, of which he is the freedom-fighting hero, had become the bestselling of all time, with more than 500m copies bought. The anime was a similar hit, with viewers immersing themselves in over a thousand episodes following his struggle against the World Government, a corrupt and tyrannical oligarchy.
Yet Luffy has now found a new lease of life as inspiration to protesters in a wave of youthful unrest across continents. His crew’s flag – a skull and crossbones crowned with his jaunty straw hat – has appeared from Morocco to Madagascar in recent days. Indonesians enthusiastically adopted it this summer, in a riposte to the president’s urging to fly the national standard. Officials were so alarmed that they threatened to jail those using it. It was perhaps the first time that Amnesty International has had to defend using an anime motif.
