By now you surely know very well the main character of One Piece: The great Monkey D. Luffy. The captain of the Straw Hat Pirates is not only one of the best characters of the Shonen genre, but also one of the biggest icons of the entire anime & manga industry. May 5th is his birthday, which prompted fans of this franchise around the world to celebrate their charismatic captain, including his actor in the Live Action version.
Iñaki Godoy and all One Piece fans are celebrating!
That’s right, a while ago Eiichiro Oda himself confirmed that Monkey D. Luffy has a birthday on May 5, which is a particularly interesting date because it’s Children’s Day in Japan. Of course, this was intentional on Oda’s part. After all, Luffy is not only young, but he has a childlike, cheerful personality that has resonated with countless fans of various ages around the world. But Luffy is also a powerful fighter and a ruthless pirate who is not afraid to turn on the authorities if it means protecting his friends or other innocent people.
Over the years, Monkey D. Luffy’s hilarious personality and heroic attitude has inspired many, many people, leading to a huge celebration today. For example, Toei Animation (Studio responsible for the One Piece anime) released this beautiful image of Luffy with a birthday cake. On the other hand, Netflix posted this video in which Iñaki Godoy, the Mexican actor who plays Luffy in the recent Live Action series, blows out the candles of a huge cake and then wishes a happy birthday to his character in Spanish. It is known that Eiichiro Oda chose Iñaki personally for his resemblance to Luffy.
On the other hand, One Piece fans celebrated Monkey D. Luffy in various ways, creating cosplays, animations, illustrations and much more. What is most curious about all this is that, even though this manga has been on the air for more than 27 years, Luffy is only 19 years old (although he started with 17, but there was a 2-year timeskip in the middle of the story). Will we see a more adult Luffy at the end of this long story? Only time will tell.
One interesting tidbit is that Luffy’s birthday video contains one of the first clues about the anticipated second season of One Piece Live Action: At the end of the video, we can notice that the candle Iñaki blew on the cake is in the shape of the number 3. This is a reference to the character Mr. 3, who possesses the ability to generate wax and who has an important role in the Little Garden arc, which in theory will be adapted soon in the Live Action version. So we wouldn’t be surprised if we receive news about it in the near future.
Happy Birthday to Monkey D. Luffy, are you celebrating the birthday of One Piece’s charismatic protagonist?
