As Nepal’s famed Singha Durbar palace went up in flames last week, protesters determined to rattle the government hung a manga flag showing a skull wearing a straw hat against the building’s ornate golden gates.
The juxtaposition of the cartoon flag with the historic complex now home to government buildings may have seemed bizarre, but for the Gen Z protesters that filled the streets of Nepal, ousting the country’s prime minister and sparking two days of deadly social unrest, the gesture was packed with meaning.
The flag comes from the wildly popular 1997 Japanese manga One Piece by Eciichiro Oda, which tells the swashbuckling story of the charming pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy and his misfit “Straw Hat” crew. Together, they set sail under a Jolly Roger flag that wears Luffy’s quintessential straw hat and his trademark beaming smile.
To One Piece fans, the flag symbolizes Luffy’s quest to chase his dreams, liberate oppressed people, and fight the autocratic World Government. He’s fearless and determined – with a few tricks up his sleeve to thwart opponents, including the enviable ability to evade capture with a rubber body that stretches, bounces and bends.
But in the real world, the One Piece flag that adorns Luffy’s ship has transcended borders and languages to become a rallying cry and symbol for youth-led protest movements.
In Asia, the flag gained popularity as a tool of political expression and defiance during protests in Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal, and has also popped up on the streets of Paris.
Bikhyat Khatri, who helped organize the Nepal protests, said the flag “symbolizes aggression and determination to push anything that comes in its way.”
“A lot of youths in Nepal love anime,” Khatri explained. “We wanted the movement to feel like a Gen Z movement, so the slogans and symbols used during the protest were linked with things that Gen Z youths could relate to.”
Protesters wave flags in front of the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Regional Police headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia on August 29. – Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images
Pop culture symbols elevate protest messages
Luffy first appeared in the popular manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump in July 1997. At the time, the character was 17 and owed his bendy superpowers to eating a mythical fruit.
One Piece has since broken the world record for the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author, according to Guinness World Records.
More than 500 million copies have been printed worldwide. The long-running series has inspired an anime television series, podcasts and fan sites. In 2023, it was adapted into a Netflix series.
Andrea Horbinski, a manga and anime expert who holds a PhD in modern Japanese history, said she was not surprised to see the One Piece flag adopted by a political cause.
Luffy, the series’ protagonist, is a cheerful character who smiles through adversity.
“You can’t help but root for him,” Horbinski said.
A protester carries Indonesia’s national flag and a pirate flag from the Japanese anime One Piece during a protest in front of the governor’s residence in Surabaya on August 29. – Juni Kriswanto/AFP/Getty Images
No challenge is too daunting for the young man with an ambition to be Pirate King, if only he can find the One Piece treasure.
“Luffy, he is very determined. He has this quest. He and his crew have certainly gone through setbacks, but they’ve continued pursuing it,” Horbinski added. “That’s what people are responding to and thinking about when they are bringing the flag to these kinds of protests.”
Nuurrianti Jalli, a professor of media and communications at Oklahoma State University, said these symbols are effective in protests because they “can help elevate what the people are trying to say without having to say it word for word.”
Through the internet and social media, these symbols can spill across borders to galvanize other young people who share similar concerns.
“They’re not speaking the same language, but they understand what the story is about,” Jalli said.
Real and digital worlds merge
Characters and symbols from popular culture are often adopted by protesters to convey a shared cause or value system.
Pepe the Frog, the right-wing online meme, was adopted by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in 2019, while a three-fingered salute from the Hunger Games movie series is used by young pro-democracy protesters in Thailand and opponents of the 2021 military coup in Myanmar as a symbol of resistance.
The One Piece Jolly Roger Flag is a useful symbol because it can be easily adapted from protest to protest and infused with new meanings more specific to the time and place, said Natalie Pang, professor in the department of communications and new media at the National University of Singapore.
Gen Z demonstrators protest government corruption in Kathmandu, Nepal, on September 8. – Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto/Getty Images
In Nepal, protesters displayed slogans such as “Gen Z won’t be silent,” “Your luxury our misery!” and “Nepo Babies” alongside the flag in reference to anger over politicians’ children displaying their lavish lifestyles on social media.
“As a visual symbol, it is gaining a lot of traction because it is in a way, quite effective for people to rally around it to say, ‘I stand for these symbols, these values as well,’” Pang said.
“It is not just rallying people around the values, but also potentially mobilizing them to join in those protests.”
Through social media, there is a blending of the real world and the digital world, she added.
“We are seeing a kind of remixing, a kind of diffusing of both political cultures of expression together with popular culture of consumption.”
Protesters hold torches during the “Block Everything” protest movement that called for a shutdown of France on September 10 at Republique Square in Paris, France. – Ibrahim Ezzat/Anadolu/Getty Images
Lightning rod
In Indonesia, the One Piece flag became a lightning rod after residents chose to display it ahead of the August Independence Day celebrations.
Government officials accused the protesters of attempting to divide the country and likened flying the flag to treason.
These comments, as well as local media reports about authorities seizing the flags and ordering murals removed, prompted Amnesty International to issue a statement calling on the Indonesian government to “stop repressing freedom of expression.”
As he put the finishing touches on his spraypainted mural of the Straw Hat Jolly Roger, Indonesian artist Kemas Muhammad Firdaus told Reuters news agency the manga drawing was “a symbol of warning for the government, so they have to look at their people.”
“Many Indonesians are hoisting the One Piece flag because they want the government to listen to them,” Firdaus told Reuters, as he held his own Jolly Roger flag.
“At the end of the day, people are hoping that the government will fix the ongoing problems.”
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