Luffy Tattoo Meaning, Design & Ideas

Monkey D. Luffy, or Luffy for short, is the main protagonist in the anime manga series ‘One Piece’. One Piece originally was released as a manga, a Japanese comic book.

One Piece began in 1997 and a year later they took the popular series to the big screen with a 30-minute film entitled ‘Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack!’. With 88 volumes of the comic released since the 90s, they are still writing material for the manga as well as the television series which came out in 1999.

Currently, since the release of the anime in 1999, they have produced over 828 episodes and counting. The story of Monkey D. Luffy starts out as Luffy being a young man with aspirations of sailing across the East Blue Sea to find a legendary treasure called ‘one piece’. With Luffy in possession of the one-piece treasure, he will then be proclaimed the King of the Pirates. Doing this mission will not be easy, however.

Luffy then goes out to form his own gang that he can journey across the sea with to help him achieve his dream of finding the treasure. Once Luffy has a basic crew, they call themselves the ‘Straw Hat Pirates’ They set sail on an adventure, picking up and meeting new crew members and friends along the way. All together the crew consists of 9 other Straw Hat Pirates. Fans of this anime and comic have been seen sporting tattoos pertaining to the series and story.

Luffy Tattoo Designs

Monkey D. Luffy as a young boy acquired super human powers that enabled him to stretch and become as flexible as rubber. After eating the devil fruit, also known as the gum-gum fruit, Luffy was able to stretch and basically become rubber. Immune to electric shock and most blunt forces, Luffy’s biggest enemy is water. In the water, Luffy cannot swim and his strength diminishes. Which can be a problem considering he travels overseas as a pirate.

Ever since eating the gum-gum devil fruit and acquiring the power to stretch his body, Luffy has used these abilities to benefit himself. One of Luffy’s most popular attack moves is called the gum-gum pistol. The gum-gum pistol attack allows Luffy to stretch his arm out and slingshot punches at his opponents from a distance. Because this is Luffy’s signature move, graphics of him executing this attack are often tattooed. These tattoos of Luffy are much different than any other tattoo, however.

Tattoos of Luffy with his arm stretched out in a punching motion can be tattooed on the inside of the forearm. With the arm stretched out toward your hand, then using the graphic to fade into your actual arm gives a real 3D effect. This makes Luffy’s hand look huge and attached to his rubbery arms and body. A tattoo like this will always be admired by fans of the show and even by those who have never heard of the anime.

3D2Y

During the unraveling events of the anime, One Piece, the main character Monkey D. Luffy, gathers a gang of pirates to set sail and look for treasure on wild adventures. Luffy begins a sort of cult following and has members of his pirate gang, the Straw Hat Pirates, throughout the land in different regions.

Luffy needs to announce a secret meeting amongst his fellow pirates so in order to do this without giving it away to everyone, he gets 3D tattooed on his arm. This 3D stood for ‘3 Days’ as in 3 days until they all meet up in their discussed location. A change of events occurred and Luffy arranged the meeting for 2 years.

Luffy crosses out the 3D with an X and underneath he has written 2Y which stands for 2 years. Although this tattoo of Luffy’s eventually fades away, not really making it a permanent tattoo, fans of this anime have been known to get their very own 3D2Y tattoos running down their arms.

The Straw Hat Pirates are the gang of pirates that Luffy is the leader of. The name the ‘Straw Hat Pirates’ comes from the fact that they all wear a straw hat of some sort. Giving this a kind of team uniform and a way to identify each other. Tattoos of the straw hats that are worn by both Luffy and his crew are very well known throughout the world of One Piece. To a normal person, the image of a straw hat does not really mean anything to anyone.

To those who are aware of the anime, they will automatically associate the straw hat with the Straw Hat Pirates. For a more recognizable One Piece illustration, a tattoo of the Straw Hat Pirates symbol is often inked on as a cool tattoo. This image is of a cartoony skull and crossbones with a straw hat sitting on top of the skull.

ASCE

One of the more dramatic scenes within the first half of the series is when Luffy’s brother, Ace, dies. In the anime, Ace has a tattoo running down his arm spelling out ‘ASCE’ with an X marked in the middle of the S. The X running through the S was a tribute to Ace’s jolly roger, Sabo.

This tattoo in the anime has inspired fans to get the same ink as Ace. This tattoo can either be replicated exactly, or you can put your own spin on it to show further dedication to this anime. To make it a little more interesting, an image of a straw hat and the Whitebeard symbol can be placed around the lettering.

The Whitebeard symbol is another one of Aces’s tattoos. This Whitebeard symbol is of a purple skull and crossbones with the skull having a mustache. He describes this tattoo as his ‘pride and joy’, Ace has this tattoo because he was the second division commander of the Whitebeard pirate gang.

This tattoo is displayed across his entire back. Although this tattoo is stretched across Ace’s whole back, there is no need for you to do the same. Unless you want the symbol that big, many fans get this tattoo done much smaller than how Ace has his.

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