When Nepal’s famous Sinhadurbar Palace got fired last week, protesters decided that the government would rattle the rattles.
The juxtaposition of the cartoon flag with the home of the current government building may have seemed strange, but the gesture is full of meaning, filling the city of Nepal, ousting the country’s prime minister, causing two days of fatal social unrest.
The flag comes from the popular 1997 Japanese manga One Piece. This tells the swashbuckling story of the charming pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy and the crew of his misfit “Straw Hat.” Together, they sailed under the banner of a cheerful Roger wearing Luffy’s typical straw hat and his trademark beamsmile.
For One Piece fans, the flag symbolizes Luffy’s quest to pursue his dreams, free the oppressed people, and fight against an authoritarian world government. He is fearless and determined. With some tricks, you’ll include the enviable ability to lift his sleeves to stop the enemy, and avoid capture with a stretch, bouncing, and bent rubber body.
But in the real world, the One Piece flag adorning Luffy’s ship transcended borders and language to become a rally and symbol for young-led protests.
In Asia, the flag gained popularity as a tool of political expression and rebellion during protests in Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal, and also appeared on the streets of Paris.
Bikiyat Kathri, who helped organize the protests in Nepal, said the flag “symbolizes aggression and determination that gets in the way.”
“Many young people in Nepal love anime,” Katri explained. “We wanted the movement to feel like the Gen Z movement, so the slogans and symbols used during the protests were linked to what Gen Z Youths could be involved.”
Luffy first appeared in the popular manga magazine Weekly Schoenen Jump in July 1997. At the time, the character was 17 years old and owed his bent superpower to eat mythical fruit.
According to Guinness World Records, One Fee has broken world records for most copies released in the same comic book series.
Over 500 million copies are printed worldwide. The long-term series has influenced animated television series, podcasts and fan sites. Fits into the Netflix series in 2023.
Andrea Hobinski, a doctoral manga and anime expert in modern Japanese history, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the One Piece flag adopted for political causes.
Luffy, the protagonist of the series, is a hilarious character who smiles at adversity.
“You’re forced to eradicate him,” Hobinsky said.
If he can find the treasures of One Piece, there is no too difficult challenge for a young man with the ambition to become the Pirate King.
“Luffy, he’s very determined. He has this quest. He and his crew certainly went through a set break, but they continued to pursue it,” Hobinski added. “It’s something people react and think when they’re bringing the flag to these kinds of protests.”
Nuurrianti Jalli, professor of media and communication at Oklahoma State University, said these symbols are effective in protest because they can help people to raise what they are trying to say without speaking.
Through the internet and social media, these symbols spill across borders to galvanize other young people who share similar concerns.
“They don’t speak the same language, but they know what the story is,” Jali said.
Why the One Piece flag is being rolled up all over the world
The real and digital worlds merge
Popular culture characters and symbols are often employed by protesters to communicate shared causes or values systems.
The right-wing online meme, Pepe the Frog, was adopted by Hong Kong’s democratic protesters in 2019, but the three-finger salute from the Hunger Games film series will be used by Thai young democratic protesters and opponents of Myanmar’s 2021 military coup as a symbol of resistance.
Natalie Pan, professor of Communications at the National University of Singapore and the new media, said that Jolie Roger’s flag in One Piece is a useful symbol because it can easily adapt from protest to protest and inject new meanings more concretely than time and place.
In Nepal, protesters showed slogans such as “Gen Z will not be silent” and “Your extravagant misery!” And “Nepo Babies” alongside the flag in connection with anger towards politician children who display gorgeous lifestyles on social media.
“As a visual symbol, it’s gaining a lot of traction in a way, because it’s very effective for people to gather it together and say, ‘I represent these symbols, I represent these values,'” Pan said.
“It could bring people around values, but it could also mobilize them to participate in those protests.”
She added that through social media, the real world and the digital world are blending together.
“We see a kind of remix: something that spreads both the political culture of expression along with the consumer culture of the masses.”
In Indonesia, the One Piece flag became lightning after residents chose to display it ahead of the Independence Day celebration in August.
Government officials accused the protesters of trying to divide the country and sent the flag to treason.
These comments and local media coverage of authorities ordering murals seizing flags and removing murals have urged Amnesty International to issue a statement calling for the Indonesian government to “stop restraining freedom of expression.”
Indonesian artist Kemas Muhammad Fadaus told Reuters that he put the finishing touches on the spray-painted mural of Jolie Roger in a straw hat, which he told Reuters that the cartoon drawing “is a symbol of a warning to the government, so we have to look at people.”
“Many Indonesians are raising the One Piece flag because they want the government to listen,” Fadaus told Reuters.
“At the end, people want the government to resolve the ongoing issues.”
