About

Awooga Luffy refers to a scene from episode 1071 of the anime series One Piece in which Monkey D Luffy's eyes and tongue pop out of his body akin to an "awooga" meme during a fight. In early August 2023, a still image of Luffy popping his eyes out of his head gained virality as a reaction, often being combined with the slang word gyat, while it was speculated that the scene might be a reference a prevalent Brazilian meme known as Marcelo Me Empresta 100 Reais.

Origin

On August 5th, 2023, episode 1071 of the anime adaptation of the One Piece anime series premiered in the United States.^[1] In the episode, Luffy, in his Gear 5 form, battles the character Kaidou in his dragon form. At one point during the fight, Luffy is being attacked by Kaido's fire, which he deflects in a series of goofy-looking moves, at one point comically popping his eyes and screaming, "What?!" (scene shown below).

Possible Reference to a Brazilian Meme

On August 5th, 2023, X^[2] user @Lazulilaska made a tweet in which they speculated that the scene might be a reference to a viral Brazilian video known as "Marcelo Me Empresta 100 Reais" in which a man also screams "O Que?" while his eyes pop out of his sockets thanks to a visual effect (post shown below, left; video shown below, right). The post gained over 2,000 reposts and 11,000 likes in one week.

Spread

Following the premiere of the episode, both a still image and the scene of Luffy popping his eyes and tongue achieved viral spread online. On August 6th, 2023, TikTok^[3][4] users @xlerate_ and @xlufffyy posted a mashup and a caption meme using the scene which received over 1.6 million views and 327,000 likes and 1.2 million views and 271,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, left and right).

Also on August 6th, X^[5] user @RoyReadsManga posted a still image of Luffy popping his eyes, with the tweet gaining over 1,100 reposts and 17,500 likes in two weeks. In the thread, several users posted captioned versions of the image, with a version captioned "gyaaaaaaaaaaat" posted^[6] by user @Sean09711499 achieving notable popularity as a reaction image in the following weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References