The Straw Hat Pirates (Mugiwara Kaizoku-dan?), sometimes referred to as the Luffy Pirates (Rufi Kaizoku-dan?) or the Straw Hat Crew (Mugiwara Ichimi?), are the main focus and protagonists of the anime and manga series One Piece, by Eiichiro Oda.

They all have at least one talent in which they are virtually perfect, and several (especially the captain and first mate) have astonishingly inhuman strength. As outlaws, they all have bounties on their heads, and are wanted by the World Government. Some of their bounties (including the captain’s) are remarkably high.

An important trait shared by the Straw Hats is that they each have a dream to fulfill, and they refuse to die before achieving their dreams. The World Government and the Navy consider them one of the most dangerous pirate crews in the One Piece world, due to their spectacular evasion of the near unavoidable Buster Call on Enies Lobby.

Each member of the Straw Hats has a dream they want to achieve. These dreams are their reasons for joining Luffy’s crew, and essentially the driving force behind their lives. Each Straw Hat’s dream was inspired by tragedies (often deaths) in their childhoods that involved at least one person they idolized and cared for deeply.

Some, like Chopper, Nami, Franky, and Usopp are fulfilling their dreams by accumulating knowledge and/or achieving a certain task while sailing the Grand Line. Others, like Robin, Zoro, Luffy, and Sanji are searching for a person/place/thing that can only be found on the Grand Line. Whatever the reason, each of the Straw Hats’ dreams involves traveling the Grand Line, and each Straw Hat member refuses to die before achieving his or her dream.

All the current Straw Hats have bounties over their heads with a total bounty of “667,000,050″ Belli

In the beginning of the manga, Luffy claimed that he wanted at least 10 people to join his crew before entering the Grand Line. This was changed after Usopp told Luffy that after “the chef” joined them, they would rescue Nami and go to the Grand Line. Although this is long past the expiring date, it can still serve as evidence that there will be 10 or more Straw Hats at some point of the manga. Luffy also claimed in the beginning of the manga, that he will gather a crew strong enough to surpass his childhood hero Red-Haired Shanks.

Usually when he asks someone to join, Luffy is turned down completely. Later on the person in question will join anyway (mostly happens after Luffy defeats the main villain of the current arc). The major exceptions to this rule are Usopp, who was thrilled to be asked to join and accepted immediately, and Nico Robin, who invited herself into the crew and had to convince the others to let her stay.

Luffy doesn’t seem to mind if someone he wants to recruit has a profession or not, asking anyone who is interesting or allowing anyone who wants to join to become a crew member. He allows Usopp to join, and later on names him the team’s sniper, and considered Vivi a member even though she has no profession. He also offered Gaimon the chance to join his crew (which Gaimon tearfully turned down) when Gaimon had no apparent usefulness to the crew.

Luffy has recently offered a skeleton named Brook to join the crew when they go into the Florian Triangle. Brook eventually declined joining after initially accepting. Despite this, the people who eventually become Straw Hat members all have their unique above-average fighting abilities and at least one talent in which they are virtually perfect in.

Though most adventures in One Piece are random, there seems to be a ‘process’ for recruitment. First, a situation arises where someone new is needed. The crew comes across someone who fulfills the criteria (i.e. Chopper the doctor, Nami the navigator). Luffy offers the person a position, and is usually turned down initially.

Meanwhile, a situation arises in which, some way or another, Luffy ends up battling a ‘boss’ character, and the would-be crewmate battles an underling (i.e. Luffy vs Don Krieg after Sanji battles Gin and Pearl), during which their back story and dreams are revealed, thus convincing them to join the Straw Hat Crew. This process also fooled many fans into thinking Vivi would become a permanent crew member.

The crew members who did not follow this process are Nami, Robin, and Franky. Nami’s official recruitment was when Luffy, Zoro, Usopp and Sanji defeated Arlong and his pirates. Before that, she’d only been traveling with the Straw Hats and pretending to be a loyal crew member so she could find a chance to steal their treasure in order to save her village. Robin was the first to invite herself onto the crew, but only did so because she had nowhere else to go.

It wasn’t until later that she began to enjoy being with the Straw Hats, and only after the battles with CP9 that it was confirmed that she’d stay as a permanent member. Franky was a major ally of the Straw Hats in the battles of Enies Lobby, but it wasn’t suggested by other characters that he actually join the crew until after the fights were over.

If a Straw Hat crew member leaves the crew without Luffy’s permission, Luffy becomes adamant in getting them back. So far only Robin, Nami, and Usopp have tried to leave the crew, but all eventually came back and rejoined.

It should also be noted that Usopp was the only one to willingly leave while Robin and Nami were blackmailed into doing so. Usopp was also the only crew member to have Luffy’s permission to leave, though that permission came quite bitterly after a harsh fight between the two; he was allowed back after a tearful apology to the Straw Hats.

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