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Monkey D. Luffy: The Solar King of One Piece

We all know that Luffy was always associated with the sun in some way and here I will explain this connection and how even this is present in mythology and alchemy:

Let's start with Luffy's birthplace Foosha Village ubicated in Dawn Island, East Blue. We know that dawn refers to the moment when the sun rises.

In the Skypia arc Shandia worships the Sun God. Skypieans and Shandia prayed for the Sun God to act, at the same time that Luffy punched Enel and rang the bell through the sky. And in this arc is where we are introduced to Joy Boy, known as the Sun God. At this moment we are shown that Luffy has a connection with Joy Boy and to make it more evident they show us the silhouettes of both that are practically the same. Considering the later revelation that the fruit Luffy consumed is the same one that Joy Boy AKA the Sun God Nika consumed 800 years ago makes it seem like Luffy, the true "deity" defeated Enel, a false deity, as a result of the skypieans and Shandia prayers to the Sun God in general.

Then in the Water 7 arc Going Merry is destroyed and Franky builds the new ship which is called Thousand Sunny.

Later in Fish-man Island arc we learn that the fishman dreams of one day living in the sunlight (we found out later that Joy Boy made a promise to the mermaid princess and possibly living in the sunlight this is the promise). We also learn of Fisher Tiger, a former fishman slave who went to Mary Geoise to free the fishman enslaved there as well as free other slaves there including Boa Hancock and her sisters Sandersonia and Marigold. After his attack on Mary Geoise, Fisher Tiger, together with the fishman he freed, founded the Sun Pirates, 

a group of which Jinbe was part of and came to lead after Fisher Tiger's death , who later would be one of the Warlords of the Sea, while Arlong, another member, deserted after Jinbe became warlord and because his anger over Fisher Tiger's death, he with his original pirate crew goes to East Blue and terrorized Nami's village for years. The connection that the Sun Pirates have with Luffy is that Luffy confronts Arlong and defeats him, achieving the freedom of Nami and her village and as a result Nami joins his crew as a navigator and Jinbe saves his life several times and in the end of Whole Cake arc officially he joins Luffy's crew.

In Wano Country arc we find out that Luffy's fruit is not Gomu Gomu no mi but the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika and that Joy Boy was the previous user of said fruit. And in this arc Luffy manages to awaken the fruit from him, defeats Kaido and brings a new dawn for Wano.

Now I will mention something that may seem insignificant to the point of going unnoticed and it's Luffy and the sunflowers. In an SBS Oda revealed that the flower representing Luffy is the sunflower, this is so true in Dressrosa arc Luffy wears a sunflower print t-shirt. 

This flower gets its name from its ability to follow the path of the sun as it turns in search of sunlight and also was used as the representation of the solar deity in many of the Amerindian cultures, mainly among the Aztecs in Mexico and even the sunflower features clearly in the shield designs of several prominent Mexican deities, including Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc and Opochtli (god of hunting and fishing).

Another thing that seem irrelevant but that are also linked to mythology is the love that Luffy has for beetles.

It is known that collecting beetles is one of the main hobbies that children in Japan have, which highlights Luffy's childlike nature but his connection with beetles is also related to the sun as in ancient cultures these animals were considered sacred animals and in Ancient Egypt they were associated with the sun and principally with Khepri, one of the Egyptian sun gods who was the morning sun god who had the head of a scabbard beetle and morning sun is also known as a dawn

and Luffy loves beetles and in the manga its said that Luffy will bring the world to a new dawn.

Also, Gum-Gum Bajrang Gun, Luffy final attack on Kaido, is named after a Monkey deity from hinduism mythology, Bajrang Bali or Hanuman. Who, when he was a child, tried to eat the sun, mistaken it as fruit, making reference to Luffy, a character associated with monkeys and inspired by Sun Wukong, a character who was powerfully inspired by Hanuman and just as Hanuman tries eat the sun believing that it was a fruit, Lufy eats the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika believing that it was a normal fruit and later believing that it was a paramecia type.

The connection that Luffy has with the sun is present even in alchemy, to understand this first let me talk about alchemy:

In alchemy there are two important figures that are known as Solar King and Moon Queen, which are two substances that, when united through the alchemical wedding, give rise to the philosophical child or the philosopher's stone, this is important because the final objective of alchemy is to create the philosopher's stone that transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life.

Therefore, they are often referred to as the "red man" and the "white woman", the "red stone" and the "white stone" as well. Essentially, the two principles are as follows:

Red: sun, fire and air, sulfur, active, golden, hot and dry, heart or soul, masculine.

White: moon, water and earth, mercury, passive, silver, cool and humid, mind or spirit, feminine.

Having explained this as Luffy has the characteristics of the Solar King.

To begin with, the Solar King and Luffy, in addition to being associated with the sun, are also related to royalty (Solar King is represented as a king and Luffy wants to be the Pirates King).

Sulfur has always been associated with yellow (one of the Solar King's colors)

and fire (confirmed by the triangle of the fire element present in its symbol),

and Luffy has strong associations with fire and yellow which are explained below.

Fire: Luffy has two brothers Ace and Sabo with whom he has a fairly close relationship. Ace was the previous user of the Mera Mera no mi and had fire powers and after his death Sabo eats the fruit and inherits Ace's powers.

Also in the Wano country arc, Luffy learns to use Ryou which makes his attacks appear to be on fire.

Air: believe it or not, Luffy is also related to air. Air is an element that is always associated with lightness and freedom. Luffy is from Foosha Village (basically mean Windmill Village), he's someone with a light and relaxed character and values freedom because his dream of being Pirate King is to be the freest man in the world, Luffy always frees individuals and islands from oppression and his fruit is a symbol of everyone's desire for freedom. Also his gear 4 and 5 forms have clouds and Luffy in his gear 5 form can fly.

Solar characters are active and Luffy is someone quite active, he seeks adventure and prefers action over words. Also the characters associated with the Solar King are related to the heart or soul, that is, they are governed by emotions and/or are empathetic, that is, they understand the emotions of others and Luffy is emotional, he only does things because he he wants to and incredibly Luffy is one of the characters with the highest emotional intelligence in One Piece (gets mad at Morgan for giving the marines a bad image because it hurts Coby's vision of them and his dream of being one, he puts his hat on Nami to comfort her and assure her that if he will help her, he protects Hiruluk's flag because he knows how important it's to Chopper, encourages Robin to express her true desire to live and orders Usopp AKA Sogeking to burn the World Government flag to show her that his support for her is honest, covers Katakuri's face with his hat black as a show of respect and because he knows how sensitive Katakuri is about his mouth, etc.).

The Solar King's colors are red and gold (or yellow) and Luffy is seen wearing these colors most of the time.

The Solar King represents the masculine so most of the characters associated with it are male and Luffy is male.

It would be quite interesting if Luffy began to share some characteristics with the figure of Moon Queen (Luffy also has associations with blue and white, he has associations with earth growing up in a place with abundant plants and with water wanting to be a pirate and navigate, his gear 5 transformation does it on a full moon) which, together with the characteristics of Solar King that he already has, could turn him into the philosophical child or simply he would help to symbolically form the philosophical child with another character, well, let's remember that the two main functions of the philosopher's stone are transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life and with Luffy these two functions can be related in this way: Luffy improves the lives of the people he meets and even frees individuals and even whole countries (creates an elixir of eternal life) and he inspires them to be the best versions of themselves (transforms lead into gold).

I don't know if it was intentional on Oda's part but finding these features was quite interesting for me.

Luffy and Collector: Gods of Joy, Children of Heart

I don't know about you but Collector reminds me of Luffy from One Piece in the sense that Collector is what Luffy would have been if he didn't have good adult figures in his life and didn't have healthy relationships with other people.

Both are characters who highly value freedom, and they have a playful nature and just want to have fun, so much so that they even play children's games like tag. Luffy wants to be Pirate King because he wants to be free to do whatever he wants and Collector just wanted to be free from his confinement. But Luffy has emotional intelligence and moral maturity so he doesn't take away the freedom of others while Collector simply doesn't have these things and doesn't realize that his actions are wrong. Their desire for freedom is evident in their family history. Luffy was the grandson of Monkey D. Garp, a Navy vice admiral who is recognized as the hero of the marines for finishing off Rocks D. Xebec, and Garp wanted Luffy to be a marine but Luffy doesn't want to be. On the other hand, Collector comes from a race that preserved the lives of other beings by force and destroyed those who opposed them like the titans

while Collector didn't like the extermination that his species did with the titans

and it even seems that he is afraid that King will judge him for this.

If there is something that Luffy has that makes him stand out from other shonen protagonists, it is that he is selfish. We know this from his meat speech in which he says that he doesn't want to be a hero because he would have to share his meat and he doesn't wants to share his, he wants to be the Pirate King because he wants to be free and fulfill his secret dream, which until now we don't know what it is and the only thing that is known is that Gol D. Roger also wanted the same thing, he destroyed governments and caused wars with the sole purpose of does what he wants or simply saving someone because he finds it interesting or funny, and Collector also does this. This selfishness is seen even in his friendships as Luffy drags his crew to any place that is dangerous and always chooses to go to those places the hard way because he wants to have adventures and have fun just like Collector just wants to play and have fun with those he considers them his friends.

But Luffy has a balance between his egoism and disinterest because Luffy does what he wants and what he wants is for him and his friends to be happy and free but collector doesn't have that balance, which makes him more dangerous.

The reason why Luffy has kindness, morality, emotional intelligence and doesn't take his selfishness to the extreme is because he has healthy adult figures who have helped him establish his moral values and Collector doesn't.

To begin with, Luffy meets Shanks and his crew and seeing how free and carefree Shanks was, he wishes to be a pirate like him. After eating the Gomu Gomu no mi and he is involved in an incident with some bandits who disrespected Shanks and Luffy tries to take revenge but they kidnap him and Shanks saves him but not before losing an arm protecting him from a sea king and before Shanks gives his straw hat to Luffy, telling him to give it back to him when he is a big name pirate.

This whole incident makes Luffy admire Shanks and molds his way around him.

Later his grandfather Garp, as I said before, wants Luffy to be a marine so he trains him to the extreme to be strong since he was a child and when he found out about Luffy wanting to be a pirate leaves him with Dadan and the mountain bandits.

While Collector has never had a positive interaction with adults throughout his life. The other Collectors just wanted to preserve things and destroy anyone who got in the way and Belos has been manipulating him for 400 years.

And while Luffy already has a strong moral, it's his relationship with his friends that helps him mature. Vivi teaches him that he cannot solve everything with violence, Zoro teaches him that being the captain of his crew he must take his role seriously so that others respect him, Ace's death teaches him that he must strengthen himself and even before everything Luffy himself admits that there are things he cannot do alone, such as lying, navigating or using swords, and he needs other people to do what he cannot and this is something that Collector needs to learn but he hasn't had the chance until he meets King.

But despite the fact that I mentioned earlier how Luffy and Collector are both selfish and how Luffy has a balance between selfishness and selflessness and Collector doesn't, at the same time they both respect their friends, trust them and are extremely protective of them. Luffy would never trample on the dreams of his family and crew and he'll get mad at anyone who tries to hurt them and Collector, despite taking King with him, doesn't take François by force and never violates his privacy and only does so because Belos told him to and he got mad at Terra for insulting King and turned her into a doll for it.

One thing that Luffy and Collector have in common is their hatred of loneliness. Luffy meets Ace and Sabo after living with Dandan and Ace acts mean towards him but Luffy doesn't react meanly towards him but seeks to talk to him. Then he finds out that Ace and Sabo hid a treasure that they got from some pirates and they wanted to use said treasure to create their own pirate crew and they tied it up, then the enemy pirates look for the treasure and seeing that Luffy knew Ace these pirates left, they take him and hit him to make him say where the treasure is but Luffy doesn't say anything and when Ace and Sabo saw this they decided to help Luffy. Then Ace asks him why he helped them and didn't tell the enemy pirates where his treasure was even though he and Sabo treated him badly, Luffy replies saying that he didn't say anything because he wanted to be friend with them because he didn't want to be alone.

Collector on the other hand helps Belos and later helps King because he wants to be free but above all because he doesn't want to be alone anymore. He considered Belos his friend before he betrayed him by trying to kill him by throwing his disc into the void and he considers King his best friend and loves hanging out with him, Collector is so desperate not to be alone that he agrees to befriend anyone who treats him good.

Another thing that Luffy and Collector share is the nature of their powers as their powers are dangerously destructive, they can even modify reality and the only limit they have is their imagination but they both use it in a funny way. Basically, they are both gods who spread joy and fun through their powers but can be dangerous if left out of control.

Luffy possesses the Gomu Gomu no mi (whose real name is Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika) which gives him the freedom to shape and stretch his body however he wants, he is quite creative with his power and he doesn't care if he or his techniques looks ridiculous. We see this with some improvised techniques and we even see it with his Gears and Gear 5 is the maximum expression of all the above mentioned.

In his Gear 5 form, Luffy can turn everything he touches into rubber, from objects to people, thing that he takes advantage of to do techniques like this.

or this

even in his fight against Lucci he creates goggles with his hair before attacking him.

Collector has cosmic powers. He taught Belos the draining spell and he was able to move the moon with his finger but we see that he has a preference for using his powers in a fun way and he doesn't care if his magic looks childish while using it: uses his powers to turn others into dolls,

creates a castle with a part of the Titan's skull,

and even uses a star to travel.

Interestingly Luffy and Collector share certain physical traits: they both have markings under their left eyes (Luffy's signature scar and Collector's star-shaped freckles) and when Luffy is in his Gear 5 form he takes on an appearance that makes him more similar to Collector (white hair, red eyes, white clothes with purple).

Another curious fact is that both relate to each other since Luffy is linked to the sun and collector is linked to the moon and stars and in the culture the sun and the moon always intertwine making them complementary in addition to the fact that the moon has no light own and reflects that of the sun. This could be interpreted as Collector and Luffy are the same but Collector doesn't have maturity and emotional intelligence (the moon lacks its own light) that Luffy has (the sunlight) but is trying to learn that maturity and emotional intelligence (moon reflects the sunlight).

Monkey D. Luffy: The Solar King of One Piece

We all know that Luffy was always associated with the sun in some way and here I will explain this connection and how even this is present in mythology and alchemy:

Let's start with Luffy's birthplace Foosha Village ubicated in Dawn Island, East Blue. We know that dawn refers to the moment when the sun rises.

In the Skypia arc Shandia worships the Sun God. Skypieans and Shandia prayed for the Sun God to act, at the same time that Luffy punched Enel and rang the bell through the sky. And in this arc is where we are introduced to Joy Boy, known as the Sun God. At this moment we are shown that Luffy has a connection with Joy Boy and to make it more evident they show us the silhouettes of both that are practically the same. Considering the later revelation that the fruit Luffy consumed is the same one that Joy Boy AKA the Sun God Nika consumed 800 years ago makes it seem like Luffy, the true "deity" defeated Enel, a false deity, as a result of the skypieans and Shandia prayers to the Sun God in general.

Then in the Water 7 arc Going Merry is destroyed and Franky builds the new ship which is called Thousand Sunny.

Later in Fish-man Island arc we learn that the fishman dreams of one day living in the sunlight (we found out later that Joy Boy made a promise to the mermaid princess and possibly living in the sunlight this is the promise). We also learn of Fisher Tiger, a former fishman slave who went to Mary Geoise to free the fishman enslaved there as well as free other slaves there including Boa Hancock and her sisters Sandersonia and Marigold. After his attack on Mary Geoise, Fisher Tiger, together with the fishman he freed, founded the Sun Pirates, 

a group of which Jinbe was part of and came to lead after Fisher Tiger's death , who later would be one of the Warlords of the Sea, while Arlong, another member, deserted after Jinbe became warlord and because his anger over Fisher Tiger's death, he with his original pirate crew goes to East Blue and terrorized Nami's village for years. The connection that the Sun Pirates have with Luffy is that Luffy confronts Arlong and defeats him, achieving the freedom of Nami and her village and as a result Nami joins his crew as a navigator and Jinbe saves his life several times and in the end of Whole Cake arc officially he joins Luffy's crew.

In Wano Country arc we find out that Luffy's fruit is not Gomu Gomu no mi but the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika and that Joy Boy was the previous user of said fruit. And in this arc Luffy manages to awaken the fruit from him, defeats Kaido and brings a new dawn for Wano.

Now I will mention something that may seem insignificant to the point of going unnoticed and it's Luffy and the sunflowers. In an SBS Oda revealed that the flower representing Luffy is the sunflower, this is so true in Dressrosa arc Luffy wears a sunflower print t-shirt. 

This flower gets its name from its ability to follow the path of the sun as it turns in search of sunlight and also was used as the representation of the solar deity in many of the Amerindian cultures, mainly among the Aztecs in Mexico and even the sunflower features clearly in the shield designs of several prominent Mexican deities, including Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc and Opochtli (god of hunting and fishing).

Another thing that seem irrelevant but that are also linked to mythology is the love that Luffy has for beetles.

It is known that collecting beetles is one of the main hobbies that children in Japan have, which highlights Luffy's childlike nature but his connection with beetles is also related to the sun as in ancient cultures these animals were considered sacred animals and in Ancient Egypt they were associated with the sun and principally with Khepri, one of the Egyptian sun gods who was the morning sun god who had the head of a scabbard beetle and morning sun is also known as a dawn

and Luffy loves beetles and in the manga its said that Luffy will bring the world to a new dawn.

Also, Gum-Gum Bajrang Gun, Luffy final attack on Kaido, is named after a Monkey deity from hinduism mythology, Bajrang Bali or Hanuman. Who, when he was a child, tried to eat the sun, mistaken it as fruit, making reference to Luffy, a character associated with monkeys and inspired by Sun Wukong, a character who was powerfully inspired by Hanuman and just as Hanuman tries eat the sun believing that it was a fruit, Lufy eats the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika believing that it was a normal fruit and later believing that it was a paramecia type.

The connection that Luffy has with the sun is present even in alchemy, to understand this first let me talk about alchemy:

In alchemy there are two important figures that are known as Solar King and Moon Queen, which are two substances that, when united through the alchemical wedding, give rise to the philosophical child or the philosopher's stone, this is important because the final objective of alchemy is to create the philosopher's stone that transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life.

Therefore, they are often referred to as the "red man" and the "white woman", the "red stone" and the "white stone" as well. Essentially, the two principles are as follows:

Red: sun, fire and air, sulfur, active, golden, hot and dry, heart or soul, masculine.

White: moon, water and earth, mercury, passive, silver, cool and humid, mind or spirit, feminine.

Having explained this as Luffy has the characteristics of the Solar King.

To begin with, the Solar King and Luffy, in addition to being associated with the sun, are also related to royalty (Solar King is represented as a king and Luffy wants to be the Pirates King).

Sulfur has always been associated with yellow (one of the Solar King's colors)

and fire (confirmed by the triangle of the fire element present in its symbol),

and Luffy has strong associations with fire and yellow which are explained below.

Fire: Luffy has two brothers Ace and Sabo with whom he has a fairly close relationship. Ace was the previous user of the Mera Mera no mi and had fire powers and after his death Sabo eats the fruit and inherits Ace's powers.

Also in the Wano country arc, Luffy learns to use Ryou which makes his attacks appear to be on fire.

Air: believe it or not, Luffy is also related to air. Air is an element that is always associated with lightness and freedom. Luffy is from Foosha Village (basically mean Windmill Village), he's someone with a light and relaxed character and values freedom because his dream of being Pirate King is to be the freest man in the world, Luffy always frees individuals and islands from oppression and his fruit is a symbol of everyone's desire for freedom. Also his gear 4 and 5 forms have clouds and Luffy in his gear 5 form can fly.

Solar characters are active and Luffy is someone quite active, he seeks adventure and prefers action over words. Also the characters associated with the Solar King are related to the heart or soul, that is, they are governed by emotions and/or are empathetic, that is, they understand the emotions of others and Luffy is emotional, he only does things because he he wants to and incredibly Luffy is one of the characters with the highest emotional intelligence in One Piece (gets mad at Morgan for giving the marines a bad image because it hurts Coby's vision of them and his dream of being one, he puts his hat on Nami to comfort her and assure her that if he will help her, he protects Hiruluk's flag because he knows how important it's to Chopper, encourages Robin to express her true desire to live and orders Usopp AKA Sogeking to burn the World Government flag to show her that his support for her is honest, covers Katakuri's face with his hat black as a show of respect and because he knows how sensitive Katakuri is about his mouth, etc.).

The Solar King's colors are red and gold (or yellow) and Luffy is seen wearing these colors most of the time.

The Solar King represents the masculine so most of the characters associated with it are male and Luffy is male.

It would be quite interesting if Luffy began to share some characteristics with the figure of Moon Queen (Luffy also has associations with blue and white, he has associations with earth growing up in a place with abundant plants and with water wanting to be a pirate and navigate, his gear 5 transformation does it on a full moon) which, together with the characteristics of Solar King that he already has, could turn him into the philosophical child or simply he would help to symbolically form the philosophical child with another character, well, let's remember that the two main functions of the philosopher's stone are transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life and with Luffy these two functions can be related in this way: Luffy improves the lives of the people he meets and even frees individuals and even whole countries (creates an elixir of eternal life) and he inspires them to be the best versions of themselves (transforms lead into gold).

I don't know if it was intentional on Oda's part but finding these features was quite interesting for me.

Luffy and Collector: Gods of Joy, Children of Heart

I don't know about you but Collector reminds me of Luffy from One Piece in the sense that Collector is what Luffy would have been if he didn't have good adult figures in his life and didn't have healthy relationships with other people.

Both are characters who highly value freedom, and they have a playful nature and just want to have fun, so much so that they even play children's games like tag. Luffy wants to be Pirate King because he wants to be free to do whatever he wants and Collector just wanted to be free from his confinement. But Luffy has emotional intelligence and moral maturity so he doesn't take away the freedom of others while Collector simply doesn't have these things and doesn't realize that his actions are wrong. Their desire for freedom is evident in their family history. Luffy was the grandson of Monkey D. Garp, a Navy vice admiral who is recognized as the hero of the marines for finishing off Rocks D. Xebec, and Garp wanted Luffy to be a marine but Luffy doesn't want to be. On the other hand, Collector comes from a race that preserved the lives of other beings by force and destroyed those who opposed them like the titans

while Collector didn't like the extermination that his species did with the titans

and it even seems that he is afraid that King will judge him for this.

If there is something that Luffy has that makes him stand out from other shonen protagonists, it is that he is selfish. We know this from his meat speech in which he says that he doesn't want to be a hero because he would have to share his meat and he doesn't wants to share his, he wants to be the Pirate King because he wants to be free and fulfill his secret dream, which until now we don't know what it is and the only thing that is known is that Gol D. Roger also wanted the same thing, he destroyed governments and caused wars with the sole purpose of does what he wants or simply saving someone because he finds it interesting or funny, and Collector also does this. This selfishness is seen even in his friendships as Luffy drags his crew to any place that is dangerous and always chooses to go to those places the hard way because he wants to have adventures and have fun just like Collector just wants to play and have fun with those he considers them his friends.

But Luffy has a balance between his egoism and disinterest because Luffy does what he wants and what he wants is for him and his friends to be happy and free but collector doesn't have that balance, which makes him more dangerous.

The reason why Luffy has kindness, morality, emotional intelligence and doesn't take his selfishness to the extreme is because he has healthy adult figures who have helped him establish his moral values and Collector doesn't.

To begin with, Luffy meets Shanks and his crew and seeing how free and carefree Shanks was, he wishes to be a pirate like him. After eating the Gomu Gomu no mi and he is involved in an incident with some bandits who disrespected Shanks and Luffy tries to take revenge but they kidnap him and Shanks saves him but not before losing an arm protecting him from a sea king and before Shanks gives his straw hat to Luffy, telling him to give it back to him when he is a big name pirate.

This whole incident makes Luffy admire Shanks and molds his way around him.

Later his grandfather Garp, as I said before, wants Luffy to be a marine so he trains him to the extreme to be strong since he was a child and when he found out about Luffy wanting to be a pirate leaves him with Dadan and the mountain bandits.

While Collector has never had a positive interaction with adults throughout his life. The other Collectors just wanted to preserve things and destroy anyone who got in the way and Belos has been manipulating him for 400 years.

And while Luffy already has a strong moral, it's his relationship with his friends that helps him mature. Vivi teaches him that he cannot solve everything with violence, Zoro teaches him that being the captain of his crew he must take his role seriously so that others respect him, Ace's death teaches him that he must strengthen himself and even before everything Luffy himself admits that there are things he cannot do alone, such as lying, navigating or using swords, and he needs other people to do what he cannot and this is something that Collector needs to learn but he hasn't had the chance until he meets King.

But despite the fact that I mentioned earlier how Luffy and Collector are both selfish and how Luffy has a balance between selfishness and selflessness and Collector doesn't, at the same time they both respect their friends, trust them and are extremely protective of them. Luffy would never trample on the dreams of his family and crew and he'll get mad at anyone who tries to hurt them and Collector, despite taking King with him, doesn't take François by force and never violates his privacy and only does so because Belos told him to and he got mad at Terra for insulting King and turned her into a doll for it.

One thing that Luffy and Collector have in common is their hatred of loneliness. Luffy meets Ace and Sabo after living with Dandan and Ace acts mean towards him but Luffy doesn't react meanly towards him but seeks to talk to him. Then he finds out that Ace and Sabo hid a treasure that they got from some pirates and they wanted to use said treasure to create their own pirate crew and they tied it up, then the enemy pirates look for the treasure and seeing that Luffy knew Ace these pirates left, they take him and hit him to make him say where the treasure is but Luffy doesn't say anything and when Ace and Sabo saw this they decided to help Luffy. Then Ace asks him why he helped them and didn't tell the enemy pirates where his treasure was even though he and Sabo treated him badly, Luffy replies saying that he didn't say anything because he wanted to be friend with them because he didn't want to be alone.

Collector on the other hand helps Belos and later helps King because he wants to be free but above all because he doesn't want to be alone anymore. He considered Belos his friend before he betrayed him by trying to kill him by throwing his disc into the void and he considers King his best friend and loves hanging out with him, Collector is so desperate not to be alone that he agrees to befriend anyone who treats him good.

Another thing that Luffy and Collector share is the nature of their powers as their powers are dangerously destructive, they can even modify reality and the only limit they have is their imagination but they both use it in a funny way. Basically, they are both gods who spread joy and fun through their powers but can be dangerous if left out of control.

Luffy possesses the Gomu Gomu no mi (whose real name is Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika) which gives him the freedom to shape and stretch his body however he wants, he is quite creative with his power and he doesn't care if he or his techniques looks ridiculous. We see this with some improvised techniques and we even see it with his Gears and Gear 5 is the maximum expression of all the above mentioned.

In his Gear 5 form, Luffy can turn everything he touches into rubber, from objects to people, thing that he takes advantage of to do techniques like this.

or this

even in his fight against Lucci he creates goggles with his hair before attacking him.

Collector has cosmic powers. He taught Belos the draining spell and he was able to move the moon with his finger but we see that he has a preference for using his powers in a fun way and he doesn't care if his magic looks childish while using it: uses his powers to turn others into dolls,

creates a castle with a part of the Titan's skull,

and even uses a star to travel.

Interestingly Luffy and Collector share certain physical traits: they both have markings under their left eyes (Luffy's signature scar and Collector's star-shaped freckles) and when Luffy is in his Gear 5 form he takes on an appearance that makes him more similar to Collector (white hair, red eyes, white clothes with purple).

Another curious fact is that both relate to each other since Luffy is linked to the sun and collector is linked to the moon and stars and in the culture the sun and the moon always intertwine making them complementary in addition to the fact that the moon has no light own and reflects that of the sun. This could be interpreted as Collector and Luffy are the same but Collector doesn't have maturity and emotional intelligence (the moon lacks its own light) that Luffy has (the sunlight) but is trying to learn that maturity and emotional intelligence (moon reflects the sunlight).

The Seraphim & The Concept of Self

I wonder who picked the Seraphim's outfits cause at first glance when you only look at S-Hawk and S-Snake it feels like there's a standard uniform. then you see the whole group and there's definitely some individuality going on; like S-Bear just wearing a mini kuma outfit, S-Shark with the gi, my man Moria got a little suspender situation going on over there. S-mingo wearing a whole ass hawain shirt. So there's definitely some variety though they all incorporate white in some way. And I wonder if maybe they got some input into what they wore one of the only acts of "free will" they were allowed was choosing whether they wore shorts or long pants which is as adorable as it is sad.

Because think about the implications that they are dressed to the taste of their adult counterparts, right down to how doffy and mihawk like to open their shirts (except for S-Snake which thank god) but yeah what if it wasn't an allowance of free will but a test to see just how deep DNA ran. If it could influence something as simple as choice of clothing, just another fact for Vega punk to marvel at.

Or maybe the clothes were chosen by one of the Vega punks (I can imagine Shaka doing it) or one of the other various lab assistants. And it's just another way to get them to embody the warlords, to reinforce who they were cloned to be, impressing on them that they are not their own people, their lives are not their own. They are already predetermined; from what powers they get, to what weapons they use, even down to what clothes they wear. Everything reinforces that they are not people, just "better" "stronger" versions of someone else.

Either way, and It might have not have been purposely meant that way because I'm pretty sure Vega punk doesn't really register them as human (which is weird cause he treats stussy very humanly and a whole other can of worms seeing as they seem to be aware and possess a personality to some capacity) it's another way of dehumanizing them, reducing them to the people they are meant to become. They have no "free will" no illusion of choice; they have a predetermined destiny, a pre-determined order, there was never any room for choice even down to the shirts on their back.

The Seraphim & The Concept of Self

I wonder who picked the Seraphim's outfits cause at first glance when you only look at S-Hawk and S-Snake it feels like there's a standard uniform. then you see the whole group and there's definitely some individuality going on; like S-Bear just wearing a mini kuma outfit, S-Shark with the gi, my man Moria got a little suspender situation going on over there. S-mingo wearing a whole ass hawain shirt. So there's definitely some variety though they all incorporate white in some way. And I wonder if maybe they got some input into what they wore one of the only acts of "free will" they were allowed was choosing whether they wore shorts or long pants which is as adorable as it is sad.

Because think about the implications that they are dressed to the taste of their adult counterparts, right down to how doffy and mihawk like to open their shirts (except for S-Snake which thank god) but yeah what if it wasn't an allowance of free will but a test to see just how deep DNA ran. If it could influence something as simple as choice of clothing, just another fact for Vega punk to marvel at.

Or maybe the clothes were chosen by one of the Vega punks (I can imagine Shaka doing it) or one of the other various lab assistants. And it's just another way to get them to embody the warlords, to reinforce who they were cloned to be, impressing on them that they are not their own people, their lives are not their own. They are already predetermined; from what powers they get, to what weapons they use, even down to what clothes they wear. Everything reinforces that they are not people, just "better" "stronger" versions of someone else.

Either way, and It might have not have been purposely meant that way because I'm pretty sure Vega punk doesn't really register them as human (which is weird cause he treats stussy very humanly and a whole other can of worms seeing as they seem to be aware and possess a personality to some capacity) it's another way of dehumanizing them, reducing them to the people they are meant to become. They have no "free will" no illusion of choice; they have a predetermined destiny, a pre-determined order, there was never any room for choice even down to the shirts on their back.

You do get the sense that the fallout of Roger's death and the Roger pirates disbanding not so much traumatized Buggy and Shanks indifferent ways but instead generated such drastically different reactions to the trauma.

While the trauma of everything seemed to push Shanks into the future, always constantly waiting for something, putting plans on hold and then later in place, for this great moment, this great coming that he sees on the Horizon. For Buggy it rooted him firmly in the past keeping him trapped in this grief masquerading as anger.

While Roger's death forced Shanks to grow up fast, it kind of arrested Buggy's development keeping him stuck in those same feelings, rooted int that same place.

You get the sense that Buggy's whole east blue schtick is just one long overdue rebellious phase one big fuck you to Roger and his ideals. He's rebelling against Roger's principles. One of their rules was don't steal from innocent people and Buggy was keeping a whole town in poverty. If Roger and Luffy's pirating styles are diametrically opposed to someone like Blackbeard, who might be the most literal pirate in the entire series, then buggy is the parody of that Blackbeard piratism. He is playing up cruelty, being the most piratey pirate possible, hell he's literally a clown on a stage. It's all a show! It's his own special way of trying to "get back at Roger" of trying to discard everything Roger taught him for this overacted, over exaggerated clownish cruelty. Mentally he never left that execution square. He is still 15, alone and scared.

Hell he literally never left either, while I'm pretty sure Shanks' booked it out of the east blue as fast as he could, Buggy never lef, might have never left, if not for Luffy. It's part of why Luffy bothers him so much, he's just like Roger everything that Buggy is trying hard to forget and here comes this kid, whose never even met the Captain but is wearing his hat, shoving it right back in his face.

It makes sense that he never leaves the east blue till Luffy literally forces him out of it (fucking with Luffy gets him captured and imprisoned) and it makes sense that it's Luffy that literally breaks him out of prison, literally sets him free, and on the path to greatness that maybe he was always meant to achieve (even if he trips his way into it). This boy that is tragically so much like his old captain but so beautifully unabashedly himself, is what Buggy needs to start letting go off the past, to start trying to move forward.

Maybe that's why Buggy, at what could arguably be described as his lowest moment, gets the strength to free himself from his own self imprisonment, realizing that even back then he was locking himself away and pinning his own dreams on Shanks. And, maybe for the first time ever, Buggy really own his dream. He declares to his tormentors and his crew and the entire world that; actually He wants to find the one piece, him, as captain of his own crew, this crew, not just a part of someone else's. That's his dream and he's willing to turn the world upside down to do it.

Zoro fights a lot with just 2 swords now instead of heading straight for the three sword style. Like I know he would uses only two swords previously for some things and he even had some 2 and 1 sword style moves but that was mainly just cutting obstacles. But now even in fights with some weight to them he uses 2 swords for the majority of it and then 3 sword style to finish them off (like with pica or lucci)

Which I never really noticed before but makes total sense now giving who he trained with for 2 years .

This is his evolution of Mihawk fighting lesser opponents with his knife. He’s learning restraint. Because if Zoro was going to learn anything from Mihawk in the two years they spent together. It was going be how to stunt on fools.

God Characters like Erwin Smith and Shanks and the way they’ve let their trauma run their lives. Erwin to the more obvious extent of course but;

Something about men imprisoned by the love they have for their dead fathers violently taken from them to young and too soon.

Cloaking yourself in the weight of his dreams won’t save you. The dream will end and there will still be a hole in your heart and bodies in your wake.

Something about Vegapunk using the dna and blood of a caged and experimented on child to create more caged child experiments and the cycles we perpetuate.

Because what does it mean that all that King has left as proof, that the lunarians were real, that they existed as a tribe, as a people, are seven manufactured children he doesn’t even know about, enslaved as weapons to the government that wiped out the culture they’ll never get to be a part of, and Alber himself another enslaved child lost to something he’ll never fully know.

And what of the warlords? Already young once and hurt by their government, young again and slaves to it. Boa looking at a version of her practically pulled out of time stuck in her worst nightmare or Jimbei looking at a version of himself living out a past he escaped by the skin of his teeth but so many he loved didn’t, even Doffy once again at the mercy of the people that already abandoned him, has Kuma not suffered enough? Given enough, is this child version of him doomed to repeat the same path he already could not escape from . Property of the world government, beholden to the celestial dragons, this version of me that cannot go free?

It’s interesting that Vegapunk joined the government so that he could do the most good, but look at the long line of people right infront of him that he’s hurt with his own hands.

It’s interesting that shanks is a red head and left handed both things associated with being of the devil in a lot of cultures.

I’m not cooking anything with this I just realized and thought it was interesting.

But also they are called Devil Fruits and so there is obviously some kind of devil figure in the world of one piece. And the celestial dragons especially holy knights and the gorsei are considered gods and we already know the D clan are the people meant to bring about the fall of the celestial dragons they are the “devils”. Between Roger and Luffy, Shanks is the only one in the Strawhat line not to bear the D which would make sense if his celestial dragon heritage was true. But Shanks doesn’t fit with the Ceiestial Dragons doesn’t have their “divinity” Shanks has red hair, red eyes and is left handed, he’s always been too much devil to be god.

He’s the fallen angel forming the link between two “devils” Roger and Luffy. Not quite a devil but not holy either.

It’s interesting that shanks is a red head and left handed both things associated with being of the devil in a lot of cultures.

I’m not cooking anything with this I just realized and thought it was interesting.

But also they are called Devil Fruits and so there is obviously some kind of devil figure in the world of one piece. And the celestial dragons especially holy knights and the gorsei are considered gods and we already know the D clan are the people meant to bring about the fall of the celestial dragons they are the “devils”. Between Roger and Luffy, Shanks is the only one in the Strawhat line not to bear the D which would make sense if his celestial dragon heritage was true. But Shanks doesn’t fit with the Ceiestial Dragons doesn’t have their “divinity” Shanks has red hair, red eyes and is left handed, he’s always been too much devil to be god.

He’s the fallen angel forming the link between two “devils” Roger and Luffy. Not quite a devil but not holy either.

The gag is Zoro and Shanks aren’t that different. Zoro is also completely reckless with his body less so now but I have no doubt that even now if he needed to cut off any part of his body to win, to save his crew he would do it without hesitation just like shanks.

And the thing is Mihawk would still fight him as long as Zoro can pick up a sword Mihawk would still fight him and relish in it.

Zoro loses an eye, Mihawk still trains him.

And Shanks…..Shanks loses his mind a little bit

While I’m sure he will because obviously (and I low key want him too because I’m tired of powerscalers)

I think it would make a lot of sense (and be super impressive) if Mihawk doesn’t have conquerors Haki.

He just doesn’t display any domineering attitudes at all, nothing about him screams desire or need to impose his will on anyone.

Like I don’t think it’s a coincidence that everyone we’ve seen use conquerors are either high ranking members of extremely large crews/territories in which they are constantly enforcing their will on their crew or they have such a fierce need to protect something they turn that will on the world. It’s not lost on me that the first time we see Luffy unconsciously use Conquerors it’s in a bid to save ace.

Mihawk neither has nor wants a large crew and there’s nothing he particularly wants to protect. Even his title I’d wager isn’t something he wants to “protect” giving his desperate want of stronger opponents.

Hell I’d argue that he didn’t have a “Will” till he met Zoro and wanted him to inherit it. I think that’s apart of what makes the whole interaction so surprising to him.

Also I think ghat regardless who they are or their general disposition people are drawn to people with Conqueror’s Haki and CH users are drawn to leadership.

Hell even Zoro who of the confirmed users has the closest personality to Mihawk especially before finding the crew. Had Johnny and Yasuke (I’ll never forget you too ✊) who looked to him as an older brother figure. Also I’ll just say that Zoro is more aggressive than Mihawk generally, he does intend to scare people a lot. And Despite his abrasiveness people can’t help being drawn to him just like Luffy (albeit in a lesser way). And Mihawk just doesn’t have that.

But You know who does? Buggy!

People just can’t help but be drawn to the clown they can’t help but make him their captain, they so readily believe his bolstering even though he doesn’t have much to back it up with. Hell even Mihawk and Crocodile have fallen under his spell it’s like they’ve forgotten (especially Mihawk) that they don’t actually have to go along with his bullshit. I wouldn’t be suprised if Buggy had CoH. We’ve already seen him become less of a coward by declaring what he really wants. He has a larger than life dream and The people love Buggy and Buggy for as mush as he hides it loves the people. He’s been too much of a coward so far to unleash it but All he needs is to actually make a stand for the sake of his crew and I wouldn’t be surprised if he unlocked Conquerors (that would have everyone that knows him fucking gaggged my god)

Anyway back to my point By no definition of the word can Mihawk be classified as a “leader” and I wouldn’t classify him as a “conqueror”. And so I think it would make so much sense for his character not to have the Haki of one. But what I do think would be cool is if he’s like an absence for conquerors haki. Like it just doesn’t work on him not because he has a stronger will but because he has no “will” he is the absence of will and so therefore cannot make others bend or be made to bend. He simply is.

As someone that loves ATLA and is recently getting back into the fandom and has also been spending alot of time in the One Piece fandom as off late

Luffy and Aang have a very similar energy that I enjoy. They are just both so precious oh my god 😭. They are so different but they have very similar narrative functions in how they inspire the people around them to embrace silliness and childlike joy.

But also I love the way they move their powers are fun and they love using them. They are constantly using it's ungrained in the way they move Aang loves airbending he's never not jumping around with it and Luffy loves being rubber

Which makes their differences all the more exciting and seeing how that same scale of personality

they both deal with inherited will Aang more literally and directly that Luffy (as of yet) and they interact with that differently. Aang's inherited will is a weight on his shoulders a burden he has to bear while Luffy's is a pleasant surprise to those around, and the source of his desire for freedom. And this comes through in how they interact with the ultimate version of their powers the literal embodiment of these inherited wills. The avatar state and gear 5

The avatar state for Aang represents a destiny he is still to young to bear, it is unpredictable, overwhelming, uncontrollable, it is something to be feared and worried about, it represents a loss of control for him and he struggles to reconcile that kind of destructive power with himself and his values. It scares him, and That’s why it remains lost to him for much of the series till he makes it his own.

Meanwhile for Luffy Gear 5 represents freedom, he is literally being freed from the constraints of reality. It is the culmination of everything he’s ever been. It’s everything we love about luffy turned up to a 100. Gear 5 is silly, goofy, cartoonish, unserious, fun loving, filled with laughter, insanely power and lowkey a little scary. Even tho Luffy is technically transforming into another person (or god) but god it is still him it is everything that has ever embodied him. And Luffy loves to be in it he has so much because as he said it’s him at his freest.

Aang and Luffy have very different character philosophies, priorities and move through the world differently. Aang is very much concern about the people in the general sense while Luffy is very much focused on helping his friends which then spirals to helping the general population, it just so happens that he is very good at making friends

But at their core they are just both fun loving little boys refusing to let their tragedies define them as they and their rag tag group of walking disasters rove the world like criminals, freeing the people from oppression.

As someone that loves ATLA and is recently getting back into the fandom and has also been spending alot of time in the One Piece fandom as off late

Luffy and Aang have a very similar energy that I enjoy. They are just both so precious oh my god 😭. They are so different but they have very similar narrative functions in how they inspire the people around them to embrace silliness and childlike joy.

But also I love the way they move their powers are fun and they love using them. They are constantly using it's ungrained in the way they move Aang loves airbending he's never not jumping around with it and Luffy loves being rubber

Which makes their differences all the more exciting and seeing how that same scale of personality

they both deal with inherited will Aang more literally and directly that Luffy (as of yet) and they interact with that differently. Aang's inherited will is a weight on his shoulders a burden he has to bear while Luffy's is a pleasant surprise to those around, and the source of his desire for freedom. And this comes through in how they interact with the ultimate version of their powers the literal embodiment of these inherited wills. The avatar state and gear 5

The avatar state for Aang represents a destiny he is still to young to bear, it is unpredictable, overwhelming, uncontrollable, it is something to be feared and worried about, it represents a loss of control for him and he struggles to reconcile that kind of destructive power with himself and his values. It scares him, and That’s why it remains lost to him for much of the series till he makes it his own.

Meanwhile for Luffy Gear 5 represents freedom, he is literally being freed from the constraints of reality. It is the culmination of everything he’s ever been. It’s everything we love about luffy turned up to a 100. Gear 5 is silly, goofy, cartoonish, unserious, fun loving, filled with laughter, insanely power and lowkey a little scary. Even tho Luffy is technically transforming into another person (or god) but god it is still him it is everything that has ever embodied him. And Luffy loves to be in it he has so much because as he said it’s him at his freest.

Aang and Luffy have very different character philosophies, priorities and move through the world differently. Aang is very much concern about the people in the general sense while Luffy is very much focused on helping his friends which then spirals to helping the general population, it just so happens that he is very good at making friends

But at their core they are just both fun loving little boys refusing to let their tragedies define them as they and their rag tag group of walking disasters rove the world like criminals, freeing the people from oppression.

I feel like we don't discuss Nami's relationship with gender enough. Her entire character is so deeply informed by being a girl in a male-dominated pirate world and it's so interesting and so worth talking about.

The background creepiness of Bad pirate crews, which are most of them, how they tend to not have any female crew members at all, how they beckon any pretty young woman around to come play with them and join them. It's real bad. It's also like, a totally 2 dimensional portrayal of evil that is reserved for the most background of background characters.

However I think their ubiquity says a lot about how piracy is meant to be perceived by the public in One Piece, and is one of the strongest indicators of how prevalent misogyny is in-world.

It's very normal in One Piece for regular island inhabitants to have never met a Different class of pirate in their life. There's no reason for them to withhold judgement that maybe these pirates won't be like every crew that attacked before, and to wait and judge them by their actions. I mean frankly that would be irrationally weak self-preservation.

There are people who live peacefully under the flags of Yonkos who protect them, and feel loyalty and gratitude to them for it, but that seems to only be thing with very big name pirates. The East Blue, being the weakest and least populated, has no such plethora of powerful people and resulting turf wars.

So. Nami. Is very clearly implied to have never met any Different pirates before. I'm thinking about what that means. About how every group of pirates she stole from were creepy, dangerous men. How she started going out stealing when she was still a young child. How she didn't have a mother anymore to guide her or comfort her. How Arlong would grab her chin inappropriately, talk about her as a "human female", as property, and god knows what else.

How all the men in Arlong's crew treated her patronizingly, pretending they're all friends, teasing her and playing at respect when really not a single one of them ever stuck up for her or hesitated to accuse her of betrayal. Who were always ready to kill her if she refused to cooperate. Who grabbed her and intimidated her when they felt like it.

That's what she had to come back to after a close call with stealing from other predatory men, instead of the relief of home there was a dark, cramped room filled with endless hours of misery and isolation and blood. Where any one of her captors could barge in and demand new maps, work faster, where did you go, you took too long again this time. Endless threats and incursions.

I'm thinking about that her fight scene in Alabasta, where she tumbles and rips off her cape and uses it to catch her enemy's spikes, before leaping to her feet and running out the back door, all in one moment. How it makes her enemy reconsider her and think, "so the girl's not a total novice at fighting after all." What that implies about her experiences as a young thief. The times she wasn't fast or clever enough and had to fight and claw her way out. Why she always carried a staff and a knife. Why she was the only one before Chopper who had any medical knowledge or experience.

You know she was stitching herself up. And the weapons, how do you think she learned to use those? If any of the Arlong Pirates helped her it wasn't out of kindness and it wasn't gentle.

Then I think about Nojiko, and Bellemere's memory, and the only softness in a hard life. How easily Nami connects to every young woman experiencing hardship that she meets. How completely she dismisses the struggles of men unless they mean something to her and are going through something terrible. The way that Nami only has sympathy for women and children is easily noticeable in-text, but it's also something confirmed in those words by the author. And it's clearly because of the life she lived, the men who had all the power and only abused it, who saw her as nothing but a girl to take advantage of, without anyone aside from her sister clearly knowing and caring about any of it.

Nami clearly isn't bitter, she doesn't think the world owes her recompense, on the contrary she knows she is far from the only person in the world to suffer the things she has suffered. She is endlessly reaching out and kind, but only to those that she isn't sure would get help without her. Certainly, before Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro, no man ever reached out a hand to her without an ulterior motive.

I think when she sees a girl in trouble, a girl biting her lip to hold in a scream of grief, a girl running in the woods away from a monster, a girl captured by pirates, she sees someone who no one is coming for. Who no one will stick up for. A person without allies in world against her. Whether it's actually true in this case or not, she runs straight for that girl anyways every single time.

No one does queer representation quite like One Piece.

Allow me to explain in great detail.

I’m going to talk about the queer rep in Impel Down, and you’d best buckle up cause it’s rant time.

Impel Down is one of my favorite arcs because I love the story line, it’s downright hilarious, and Luffy’s struggle to rescue Ace is incredibly compelling.

But there is another reason why I love Impel Down so much, and that’s the queer rep that utterly knocked me off my feet.

Now, I’ve come to accept that queer representation in anime (not touching on any other media in this rant) is generally nonexistent or extremely rare… if you’re watching anything other than a BL.

On the rare occasion that we do find some LGBT rep it is usually extremely subtle, and shown exclusively in convoluted subtext and minuscule details that are easily overlooked. While this representation is so incredibly meaningful to everyone who’s able to pick it out, the subtly makes it all the more easy for homophobes to argue that it was never in the first place.

Keeping all this in mind, I finally picked up One Piece several months ago after refusing to watch it for a long-assed time (It was too long and I thought the art style was weird. Dear god have I eaten my words.) I’d heard on social media that One Piece was big on trans representation, but I wasn’t prepared at ALL for what I’d find in that department.

I had NOT expected to find One Piece’s treasure trove of LGBT characters in Impel Down of all pleases, and the shock factor made it so much better.

The arc had already been chaotic as fucking hell by the time Luffy reunited with Bon Clay, and their reunion made me tear up. Like dude!

I hadn’t been particularly attached to Bon Clay before but THIS ^ was it. This scene right here, he wormed his way into my heart istfg.

Can we appreciate this scene please?! The sparkles in the background?? The leg lifting?! The REUNION HUG?!?! I love this so dearly not just because it’s fucking ADORABLE but because of what it *says.*

Bon Clay is an outwardly queer character, and Luffy absolutely adores him. Those two are best friends and we treat queer people with respect and they are good people. We can be friends with them and allies with them and they aren’t something to shy away from just because they’re different.

Be fucking for real. The representation is so positive, and it never ceases to blow me away.

If you thought that this representation was enough YOU WERE WRONG because this BARELY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE.

Iva. Emperio Ivankov. The Queen of the Queers. He is a gender fluid ICON and a literal drag queen. His special attack is a wink that blows shit up. His Devil Fruit ability is quite literally hormone therapy.

Do I need to say more?

THATS RIGHT, I FUCKING DONT

Now, this is One Piece we’re talking about, so naturally characters are going to be wildly exaggerated but ARE YOU KIDDING

IVA’S ABILITY IS HORMONE THERAPY. HE CHANGES PEOPLE’S GENDER AS AN ATTACK. HIS POWER WORKS THROUGH SYRINGE NEEDLES THAT POP OUT FROM UNDER HIS ACRYLIC NAILS.

I love Iva so fucking much words cannot describe 😭

Oda didn’t just say “look, I made a queer character” he really said “fuck it, nuclear option it is.” It is literally impossible to ignore the fact that Iva is LGBT, and One Piece’s queer rep is SO IN YOUR FACE, especially in Impel Down. It’s impossible to ignore, which is the stark opposite from the usual business with “implied” queer characters in anime.

Implied? HAH.

There is a kingdom of gay people living INSIDE THE WALLS of the biggest prison in the world. They are led by a gender fluid drag queen and run a strip club bar in the middle of a fucking prison, where they drag new gays through the cracks in the walls to join them.

Dude.

I love One Piece so much.

All joking aside, the introduction of Iva and his kingdom of gays drove me to tears. Like deadass. The representation literally drove me to tears, I was sobbing.

Why? Because it was so positive.

Do you know how meaningful that is?

It made me fucking cry, man.

Iva’s speech introducing his gay kingdom, like goddamn. I can’t even remember exactly what he said because I was crying the whole time.

“We’re here and we’re queer.” That’s a quote from fucking One Piece, dude. I can’t, I can’t.

It wasn’t just the introduction of Iva’s kingdom or the LITERAL LESBIAN COUPLE SITTING AT THE BAR, it was the way the sense of community was presented.

We’re called the LGBTQ Community and I don’t know if Oda’s a member or not but HOT damn if he doesn’t know what it means to be a part of it.

I’m talking about the Luffy situation. He fought the Warden and got his ass handed to him. He was poisoned to all hell and about to die at 17 but Bon picked him up and carried him to Iva’s Kingdom. He’s wanted to meet Iva his whole life but by the time he did he was more worried about Luffy’s condition than anything else.

And then we find out that Luffy had insisted that Bon get medical treatment before he did. What a guy. When Iva got Luffy, he said that it was a lost cause to try and overcome the poison. But he was willing to give it a try anyway.

Let’s discuss.

Iva injected Luffy with hormones to help him beat the poison. Luffy underwent hormone therapy. (I will cling to this tidbit of information forever, YOU CANT TAKE IT FROM ME.) When Bon woke up, he demanded to see Luffy.

Iva warned him about what he would find, but brought Bon to Luffy at his request. When Bon found Luffy, he found his friend chained up and screaming in excruciating pain. We didn’t see Luffy in full at all during this time, but when Bon looked through the door he was horrified.

He got defensive. He started yelling at Iva, saying that the person inside that room was not the Luffy he knew.

Iva was firm, and told Bon that Luffy was going through a tough challenge, and he would be different afterwards, but he was still the same Luffy.

Do you see it? Can you read between the lines? This exchange made me sob all over again. Why? I urge you to think about it, to see the underlying message here.

Bon broke down into tears, realizing that Luffy was fighting for his life. He apologized and took back his harsh words.

Then he spent hours outside Luffy’s cell, screaming till his throat was raw and cheering him on. He couldn’t do anything to help Luffy, Luffy was fighting this battle on his own. But he could be there for him.

I ask you again, do you see it?

As the hours passed, others in Iva’s kingdom trickled out to see what Bon was doing. They told him to stop screaming, that it was useless. They mocked him, told him he was being a fool.

Then Iva stood up for him, and told them to see Bon for what he was doing. He couldn’t help Luffy, but he could cheer him on. He could be there for him.

Within moments, the entire kingdom was outside Luffy’s cell. Cheering him on. Encouraging him. Supporting him. They didn’t know who he was but they saw him fighting and immediately backed him up.

It isn’t just representation, merely the presence of a queer character or even an entire kingdom of gays that makes it meaningful. It’s how those characters are shown, how they behave.

Oda could have thrown in a queer character here and there and left it at that, but he went out of his way to show the incredible support system that this community provided. They jumped to Luffy’s aid. They were so supportive and cheered him on until he beat the poison. They fought alongside him… and you know what else?

When Luffy woke up, he accepted them in a heartbeat. He didn’t question anything, just saw a bunch of people and thought “huh. New friends!”

Oda’s representation is exaggerated as much as it is painstakingly accurate in nature and positive to a tee. Obviously it isn’t perfect. Iva and the squad were still mocked, called “freaks” and “weirdos.”

But it’s about Luffy. How Luffy behaves. How Luffy reacts. Even in the face of how the rest of society views Iva and his kingdom, Luffy sees them as friends and allies and doesn’t give a singular shit if they’re gay or not.

Luffy accepts everyone, and he doesn’t draw the line at queer people. The aroace king himself. You heard it here, Luffy is the ultimate ally.

Of course I’m not even scraping the surface on this topic and Oda’s representation is in no way perfect, but Impel Down remains the greatest example of queer rep that I’ve seen this far.

You gotta give credit where credit is due ✨