After a quarter-century of existence, the global triumph of Monkey D Luffy – a fresh-faced and rubber-bodied pirate captain – had seemed almost complete. The One Piece manga series, of which he is the freedom-fighting hero, had become the bestselling of all time, with more than 500m copies bought. The anime was a similar hit, with viewers immersing themselves in over a thousand episodes following his struggle against the World Government, a corrupt and tyrannical oligarchy.

Yet Luffy has now found a new lease of life as inspiration to protesters in a wave of youthful unrest across continents. His crew’s flag – a skull and crossbones crowned with his jaunty straw hat – has appeared from Morocco to Madagascar in recent........

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