Luffy Vs Hercules I find that the character Monkey D. Luffy from the anime “One Piece” is very comparable to Hercules from Greek mythology. Many of Luffy’s Characteristics seem very similar to Hercules. As well as, some of the events that happen in “One Piece”, are very close to some of the things that Hercules did. This makes me believe that Monkey D. Luffy uses an archetype of Hercules for his character personality and that anime pulls from many different cultures.
Anime in general, seems to draw from Greek mythology. Another example in “One Piece” is a place called “Amazon Lily”, an island made up of only women. There are also many characters from “One Piece” that have similarities to people in Greek mythology. Examples being, Eneru, who called himself a god and could control lightning. Boa Hancock known as the snake princess can petrify people resembling Medusa. Along with Whitebeard being like Poseidon just to name a few. However, my main focus will be on the similarities between Monkey D. Luffy and Hercules.
First of all, “One Piece”, is a Japanese Animation or anime for short. It is adapted from the Manga of the same name that is written and created by Eiichiro Oda. The anime is produced by “Toei Animation” and its genre is action-adventure, comedy-drama. The anime first aired in Japan in 1999 and is still ongoing. In America it was dubbed into English by two companies, the first being “4Kids” in 2004 and the second being “Funimation” in 2007. The “Funimation” dub is the more popular of the two due to the fact that the “4Kids” version was highly censored and was never actually finished. The target audience is teenagers to young adults, and seems to have a basic idea as to never give up and do anything to help a friend in need. The main plot of the show starts with a pirate named Gol D. Roger known as “Gold Roger”, who had attained everything the world has to offer. At his execution Roger said “You want my treasure? You can have it. I left everything I gathered in one place. Now you just have to find it.” This treasure became know as the One Piece and it lured men to the “Grand Line” in search of it. The shows focus is set twenty two years after Rogers’s execution on the adventures of pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy. Luffy and his crewmates, who he picks up on the way, to find the One Piece and to become the “King of the Pirates.” Luffy is a young man whose body gains the property of rubber after eating a Devil Fruit. His small crew of pirates are known simply as the “Straw Hat Pirates” after Luffy’s iconic straw hat that he always wears.
To start off with the comparison, Luffy is incredibly strong, much like Hercules. Most of the time the gap between Luffy’s power and his opponents is massive. However sometimes there is someone who can match his power. Every opponent that Luffy fights always loses, even if not the first time they fight. Luffy can kick the roof off a building and can even push two buildings apart. This shows how Luffy is strong just as Hercules is.
Just like Hercules, Luffy also has a noticeable lack of intelligence. In both cases to offset their strength. Where one Hercules became too hot that he pulled his bow out and threatens to shoot the sun, Luffy also gets mad at inanimate objects for getting in his way or for other things completely ridicules. Where as, Hercules, accidently kills people. Luffy sometimes doesn’t think before he does things as well. He doesn’t have much common sense and says things that don’t make sense. One of Luffy’s best quotes is “I refuse your refusal”. He also thought that a bird, that was part of a ventriloquist act, was really talking and got mad at the bird. However, both Luffy and Hercules have their brighter moments. Once Hercules tricked Atlas with the apples, as well as boarded up one entrance to a cave to trap a lion, and redirected a river to clean up land. Luffy also finds interesting ways of getting out of difficult situations. He comes up with cleaver attacks
