Monkey D. Luffy

Monkey D. Luffy, also known as Straw Hat Luffy, is the main protagonist of the manga and anime series  written by Eiichirō Oda. He is the Pirate Captain the infamous Straw Hat Pirates with a life long dream of finding the treasure One Piece and becoming king of the pirates.

Character description
When Eiichiro Oda created Luffy as a character, he strove for a "manliness" similar to that of Goku from the Dragon Ball series. Oda has stated that he named his main character "Luffy" because he felt that the name strongly suited him. When he later learned about the sailing term, "luffing", Oda was delighted by the coincidence. In order to please his readers, Oda added rubberization to Luffy for a comic affect and tries to make the character straightforward.

In the Japanese version of the One Piece anime, Luffy was voiced by Mayumi Tanaka. Tanaka said jokingly that she regrets providing Luffy's voice because she is a mother in real life and Luffy is much younger. She also says that she "strives for reality" in scenes where Luffy speaks when he is eating or touching his nose. In the Funimation's English dub, Luffy is voiced by Colleen Clinkenbeard.

Luffy is portrayed as a carefree, happy-go-lucky character with great ambition and a huge appetite. Caring and generally good hearted, he is not as dimwitted as many believe him to be and often demonstrates more understanding than the other characters expect. Luffy is willing to risk his life to become Pirate King and to protect his crew despite knowing the dangers ahead of him. He never puts his crew or himself at risk out of incompetence. Luffy is rarely concerned about the consequence of his actions, doing what he feels best even if it leads to retaliation by a powerful force.

Luffy is the son of the Revolutionary Army's commander, Monkey D. Dragon, the grandson of the famed Marine, Monkey D. Garp, and the adopted brother of the late "Fire Fist" Portgas D. Ace and the revolutionary Sabo. His lifelong dream is to become the Pirate King by finding the legendary treasure left behind by the previous Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. As a child, he accidentally ate the Gum-Gum Fruit, causing him to become a rubber boy.

In Super Smash Flash 2
In Super Smash Flash 2, Luffy was confirmed to be a playable character during the Day 4 livestream at Super Smash Con 2016. He was revealed due to the numerous fan requests over the years. His sprites are edited from the GBA One Piece Game, and from the One Piece: Gigant Battle series, while certain animations are custom made, with his appearance based on the second part of One Piece. Luffy is the only one of the 4 manga and anime characters whose sprite was not based on their appearance in Jump Ultimate Stars. His moveset consists mainly of Gum-Gum techniques such as Gum-Gum Rocket or the Gum-Gum Balloon.

Assist Trophy rumor
On October 17, 2010, SSF2 Developer, Ramsey Dr. Geno Kaid posted a fake screenshot of Luffy using his Gum-Gum Munch-Munch against, leading fans to assume that he would appear as an Assist Trophy in the SSF2 demo 0.7 (which he did not appear in.) The screenshot, while fake, actually used coded data to feature rendered sprites of Luffy in-game.

Controversy
During the livestream of APEX 2014, many fans disputed in chat about Luffy being in the game. Many also argued that there were other characters they would pick over him. Another user posted a fake image they had found on the wiki, which caused many others to believe he was "leaked". The slots were revealed to be and. It would ultimately be revealed that the developers had no plans to add Luffy or any other anime character into SSF2 ' s roster, citing the backlash already present from, , and 's presence as playable characters.

Trivia

 * Luffy's Japanese voice actor is Mayumi Tanaka, who also voices Pit from the Kid Icarus series and Krillin from the Dragon Ball series. However, Tanaka's voice is not used for either character in Super Smash Flash 2, as they instead use clips from their English dub voice actors (Anthony Del Rio and Sonny Strait, respectively).
 * Luffy is the one of four fighters in Super Smash Flash 2 to be voiced in Japanese, the others being, , and.