Star of pirate anime/manga franchise would be breaking the law in Japan.

One Piece debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump back in 1997, and it’s spent much of the time since as the most popular manga not just in the anthology, but in all of Japan. Over the years that status has won One Piece a spot on the magazine’s cover multiple times, and so no one was really surprised to hear that series star Luffy was going to be on the front of the latest WSJ issue.

But when fans saw the cover itself, there was one thing that raised eyebrows.

Appearing with Luffy on the cover of Weekly Shonen Jump Volume 19 are fellow pirates Gol D. Roger and Kozuki Oden. The three boisterous buccaneers look to be sharing a laugh and a drink as they clunk wooden mugs of what appears to be beer, ale, or some kind of grog together.

The thing is, though, Luffy is underage. Since One Piece’s mid-narrative time skip he’s been 19 years old, which makes him below the legal drinking age of 20 in Japan.

Because of that, the new Weekly Shonen Jump cover has been raising some eyebrows among Twitter users in Japan, who’ve reacted with:

“Luffy shouldn’t be able to drink.”
“Luffy is underage, but it looks like he’s boozing it up.”
“On the high seas, water in barrels will turn bad, but alcohol will keep, so if you don’t drink it you’ll die.”
“I think I remember [series creator Eiichiro Oda] saying in a Q and A corner that Luffy can drink, but he doesn’t like to very much and it makes him sleepy.”

Other commenters came to Luffy’s defense by pointing out that even in the series itself he’s said that he doesn’t like alcohol, and so that frothy, pale gold-colored beverage might be something other than beer. Others speculated that perhaps in the world Luffy lives in the drinking age is lower than it is in Japan,

From a legal standpoint, Luffy, Roger, and Oden all spend plenty of time out on the sea, so perhaps they’re toasting each other in international waters where drinking ages are nonexistent. Also, as long-time One Piece fans will have quickly noticed, it actually shouldn’t even be possible for the three characters sharing the cover to be sharing a round of cold ones, so maybe this entire meeting between the once and future Pirate Kings is taking place entirely within Luffy’s imagination.

Sources: Twitter, Hachima Kiko
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