The One Piece Flag: What the Straw Hat Skull Means and Why Protesters Fly It

Eiichiro Oda created *One Piece*. The publisher Shueisha's official *Weekly Shōnen Jump* page records the series beginning in 1997, in issue 34 (Shueisha).

The flag itself is simple. It is a black pirate flag with a grinning skull wearing a straw hat, and crossed bones behind it. The hat is the signature: it identifies Monkey D. Luffy and his crew. The official *One Piece.com* site describes the Straw Hat flag as the symbol of Luffy's pirate crew, and Reuters, reporting on the 2025 protests, identified it as the sign used by Luffy's character in the story (One Piece.com; Reuters).

Underneath the hat is a very old design. The skull and crossbones on black is the classic pirate flag of the real world, and if you want the history of those flags at sea, our stories on the Jolly Roger pirate flag and the skull and crossbones tell it. Oda's version takes that familiar shape and gives it a hat, and with the hat, a personality.

In *One Piece*, a Jolly Roger is a pirate crew's identifying flag. The story has no single, shared pirate flag. Each crew has its own emblem, usually designed around its captain, its beliefs, its history or its abilities. The Straw Hat flag is the crew's mark of identity and allegiance, and official franchise material treats the flags of the Straw Hats and other named crews as separate symbols (One Piece.com; Shueisha).

In that sense the flag works like a team badge, drawn as a pirate skull.

In the story, the skull is the Straw Hat Pirates' crew emblem. It is a recognizable pirate sign changed by Luffy's straw hat, and that change ties the traditional skull and crossbones to this particular crew's identity: their freedom and their resistance to oppressive power in the world of the manga (Reuters; ANTARA News).

Here the skull grins under a straw hat, and in the story it stands for a crew bound by loyalty and freedom. It joins the many meanings people have given skulls over the centuries, which our guide to skull symbolism gathers in one place.

The 2025 protest story began in Indonesia. In July and August 2025, people put up the Straw Hat flag on homes, vehicles, balconies, murals and public spaces in the weeks before Indonesia's Independence Day on 17 August. Reuters reported that Indonesian students and activists used it to criticize government policies, corruption and unemployment (Reuters).

One of the voices in that report was a mural artist, Kemas Muhammad Firdaus, who painted the Straw Hat skull in Bekasi, West Java, in August 2025. Reuters quoted him: "Many Indonesians are hoisting the 'One Piece' flag because they want the government to listen to them" (Reuters).

The government responded. On 1 August 2025, Indonesia's coordinating minister Budi Gunawan said that displaying the flag could threaten the national red-and-white flag, and he pointed to the existing rule, under Law No. 24 of 2009, against raising another flag above it, as ANTARA News reported (ANTARA News). Two weeks later, on 14 August 2025, the flag was carried during the 873rd Kamisan human-rights action outside the presidential palace in Jakarta, according to a Reuters Connect photo caption (Reuters Connect).

Flag and public-order rules differ from country to country. Anyone thinking of flying this flag, or any flag, should check the local rules with the relevant authorities first.

From Indonesia, the image moved on. During Nepal's September 2025 Gen Z protests, the Associated Press reported the flag at Singha Durbar, the government complex in Kathmandu, where it was hung on the gates (Associated Press).

In the Philippines, the flag appeared at the "Baha sa Luneta" anti-corruption rally in Manila on 21 September 2025. Philstar reported protesters waving it beside a Palestinian flag while demanding accountability over alleged corruption in flood-control projects (Philstar).

In France, Le Monde reported on 20 September 2025 that the flag had been seen among demonstrations in Paris on 18 September, alongside unions, Palestinian colors and criticism of French government policies. The paper described its presence there as limited rather than dominant (Le Monde). The Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS covered the flag's spread on 18 September 2025, and AP reported it at later protests in Peru, Morocco, Madagascar and elsewhere (EL PAÍS; Associated Press).

These were separate movements, each with its own local grievances. What they shared was a symbol that had travelled through online youth culture and was adapted wherever it landed.

The flag arrived with its meaning already attached. It is a widely recognizable image, and in their story the Straw Hats stand for freedom, resistance and loyalty against abusive authority. That made the flag an instant shorthand for young people protesting corruption, inequality, censorship, heavy-handed government and abuse of power in their own countries (Reuters; EL PAÍS).

The Associated Press reported that young protesters in several countries were driven by anger over corruption, inequality, economic insecurity and nepotism (Associated Press). The Straw Hat flag gave them a shared identity that belonged to no political party. It could signal opposition to a government's actions without being the emblem of any one group, and it was instantly recognizable in a photo shared online.

Skull lovers will want to meet one more member of the Straw Hats, because he is a walking skull. Brook is the crew's musician. Before joining Luffy, he played music with the Rumbar Pirates. After he died with his crew, the power of his Devil Fruit, the Yomi Yomi no Mi, brought him back to life, but his soul returned to his body too late, and he came back as a skeleton (One Piece.com).

He then wandered alone for 50 years before he met Luffy's crew. Brook is also a swordsman and a performer known as "Soul King" (One Piece.com; One Piece.com feature). His story ties the skull image to music, survival, memory, friendship and promises kept, which gives the crew's skull flag a skeleton who actually sails under it. For another crew of seafaring skeletons on screen, see our story on the Pirates of the Caribbean skeleton crew.

Here are quick answers about the flag and the protests.

The Straw Hat flag is the newest chapter in a very old story about skulls on flags. For the real pirate flags behind it, read our story on the Jolly Roger pirate flag and the history of the skull and crossbones. For the wider meanings people have given the skull, start with skull symbolism.