As Nepal’s famed Singha Durbar palace went up in flames last week, protesters determined to rattle the government hung a manga flag showing a skull wearing a straw hat against the building’s ornate golden gates.

The juxtaposition of the cartoon flag with the historic complex now home to government buildings may have seemed bizarre, but for the Gen Z protesters that filled the streets of Nepal , ousting the country’s prime minister and sparking two days of deadly social unrest, the gesture was packed with meaning.

The flag comes from the wildly popular 1997 Japanese manga One Piece by Eciichiro Oda, which tells the swashbuckling story of the charming pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy and his misfit “Straw Hat” crew. Together, they set sail under a Jolly Roger flag that wears Luffy’s quinte

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