Monkey D. Luffy

The cheerfully reckless captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, Luffy sets sail declaring he will become King of the Pirates and find the legendary treasure known as One Piece. Having eaten a Devil Fruit as a child, his body stretches like rubber. He is driven less by riches than by freedom, enormous appetite and loyalty, and he will trade blows with admirals or warlords to protect a friend.

Lean and wiry rather than bulky, with messy black hair, round dark eyes and a permanently cheerful grin. A small stitched scar sits beneath his left eye, and a large X-shaped scar crosses his chest after the war at Marineford. His trademark is a worn straw hat with a red band, worn on his back when it would get in the way. Early on he favours a red open vest, blue shorts and sandals; after the timeskip he wears an unbuttoned long-sleeved red shirt, a yellow sash and cuffed jeans. His rubber body stretches, inflates and deforms at will.

Loud, blunt and relentlessly optimistic, he follows his appetite and his instincts more than any plan, and he is happy to admit that others on his crew do the thinking. He is easily amazed, easily bored, and almost impossible to intimidate. Beneath the clowning sits a fierce code: he will not abandon a friend, will not tolerate bullies, and treats his crewmates' dreams as obligations of his own. He refuses to be anyone's subordinate and dislikes being called a hero, since he sees piracy as freedom rather than virtue. Reckless to the point of self-destruction, he regularly fights opponents far beyond his level and simply refuses to stay down.

Raised in Foosha Village in the East Blue, he idolised the pirate Shanks, whose crew wintered in his harbour. After stabbing himself under the eye to prove his courage, he accidentally ate the Gum-Gum Fruit from Shanks' cargo and lost the ability to swim; when a sea monster attacked, Shanks lost an arm saving him and left him his straw hat with a promise that it be returned once he had become a great pirate. His grandfather, the Marine hero Garp, dumped him with the mountain bandit Dadan, where he grew up brawling alongside his sworn brothers Ace and Sabo and learning that the world outside was far larger than his island. He set out alone once he was old enough.

1. East Blue Saga

   Setting out in a rowboat, he gathers his first crewmates one by one: a swordsman from a Marine base, a sharpshooter from a hilltop village, a cook from a floating restaurant, and a navigator he refuses to let go. The arc closes with him demolishing the fish-man Arlong's park to free Nami's hometown, which earns him his first bounty.

2. Alabasta

   Entering the Grand Line, he escorts the princess Vivi home to a kingdom being torn apart by the criminal organisation Baroque Works. He loses badly to its leader Crocodile twice before working out how to beat a sand-based enemy with water and blood, and ends the civil war without ever claiming credit for it.

3. Water 7 and Enies Lobby

   When government agents abduct Robin and the crew splinters over the fate of their ship, he declares war on the World Government itself, ordering its flag shot down so Robin will ask to live. He debuts Gear Second and Third against the assassin Lucci, winning at enormous physical cost and making the crew infamous worldwide.

4. Marineford and Post-War

   He breaks out of the undersea prison Impel Down with a makeshift army and invades the Marine headquarters to save Ace from execution, awakening Conqueror's Haki there. The loss that follows breaks him completely, and he chooses to delay his voyage by two years so that his whole crew can grow strong enough to survive the second half of the Grand Line.

5. Wano Country

   Allied with samurai, minks and former rivals, he joins the assault on the shogun Orochi and the Emperor Kaido at Onigashima. Repeatedly beaten and revived, he develops advanced Haki and an elastic, cartoonish awakening of his fruit, and his victory upends the balance of power among the world's strongest pirates.

Roronoa Zoro

First crewmate and strongest subordinate

The one person he trusts to hold the crew together in his absence. Their partnership rests on blunt mutual confidence: Zoro never questions an order he considers worthy of a captain, and Luffy never doubts Zoro's blade.

Nami

Navigator

He hands her complete authority over the ship's course and treats her scoldings as background noise. Freeing her village from Arlong was his first real war, and she remains one of the few crewmates who can redirect him.

Portgas D. Ace

Sworn brother

Shared a childhood of fighting and stolen food in the Goa forests. Ace's capture pushed Luffy to attack Impel Down and Marineford, and the outcome of that war shaped every decision he made afterwards.

Shanks

Mentor figure

The pirate who paid an arm for his life and lent him the straw hat. Luffy measures his own progress against the day he can return it, and the two have gone years without meeting while remaining bound by that promise.

Monkey D. Garp

Grandfather

A Marine hero who tried to beat the piracy out of him with brutal training. Their bond is affectionate but adversarial, since Garp's duty and Luffy's ambition point in opposite directions.

• He announces to anyone who will listen, usually before he can back it up, that he intends to become King of the Pirates.
• He punches a World Noble in the face at the Sabaody Archipelago, knowing it will summon an admiral.
• He storms Marineford with a coalition of escaped prisoners in an attempt to save his brother.
• He has his crew shoot down the World Government flag at Enies Lobby as a declaration of war.
• After the timeskip he throws his crew into the New World by dragging their ship up a current of boiling sea.

• Meat is his favourite food, and his appetite is treated as a running gag and occasionally a plot device.
• Despite captaining a pirate ship, he cannot swim at all after eating his Devil Fruit.
• His bounty has been raised after nearly every major arc, making him one of the most expensive pirates alive.
• Mayumi Tanaka has voiced him since the 1999 premiere.
• He keeps a treasure chest of absurd nicknames given by enemies, and generally ignores all of them.

• Roronoa Zoro
• Nami
• Usopp
• Sanji
• Nico Robin
• Franky

• Tony Tony Chopper
• Brook

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