Straw Hat Pirates

This crew sails under Monkey D. Luffy and originates from the East Blue. Several names attach to the band: besides the Straw Hat Pirates, fans and the world alike call them the Mugiwara Pirates and, in short form, the Straw Hats, with a further label being the Straw Hat Crew. Smoker was the first to hang the moniker on them back in Arabasta. Inside one year of Luffy launching his career, they had run the first stretch of the Grand Line, pulling in dangerous foes and steadfast allies both, and Luffy along with his swordsman Roronoa Zoro were each marked as Super Rookies whose bounties topped one hundred million. A total defeat after the Celestial Dragon incident saw Bartholomew Kuma scatter them, which led Luffy to have everyone train apart for two years. Regrouped and headed into the New World, they became founders of a coalition called Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance, took a leading part in bringing down the Emperors Kaidou and Big Mom, and afterward saw Luffy recognized as an Emperor himself.

For all its small size, the crew commands enormous power and promise. Kuzan warned at their first meeting that they would one day pose a serious danger to the World Government, and events proved him right. Time and again they have brought down outfits run by Warlords and Emperors, from Baroque Works and the Donquixote Pirates through to the Beasts Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates. Places others deemed unassailable have fallen to them: they broke into Enies Lobby and crushed CP9, slipped into Big Mom's Totto Land, and stormed Onigashima within the sealed nation of Wano. Such campaigns rattled the Five Elders, and in the Egghead Incident a crew of only ten stood their ground against every one of the five Elders, plus a Navy Admiral, the Seraphim, agents of CP0, and the largest Buster Call yet, getting away with Vegapunk thanks to help from Kuma, Jewelry Bonney, and the Giant Warrior Pirates. They also hold close ties to their Straw Hat Grand Fleet, an arrangement that puts over 5,600 subordinates at Luffy's call whenever the need arises.

Ten make up the present crew, a count well below most, which fits the ten shipmates Luffy aimed for when he first left home. The roster is strikingly mixed, counting a fish-man, a Devil-Fruit-empowered animal with human intellect, and eight humans, their ages running from teenage Chopper up to ninety-year-old Brook. Their backgrounds stretch from ordinary islanders and laborers to bounty hunters, royalty, and veteran pirates, with Jinbe once among the Seven Warlords and Nami, Robin, and Franky each having opposed the crew before joining. Filling out that varied lineup are Nico Robin, Sanji, Usopp, and Nami, together with the cyborg shipwright Franky and the revived musician Brook. Nefertari Vivi traveled with them from Reverse Mountain as far as Arabasta before leaving. They first sailed the Going Merry, later moving to the Thousand Sunny, which Franky and Iceburg built in the Post-Enies Lobby Arc.