Monkey D Luffy’s Bounty at 300,000,000 Berries

There's an exact moment when Luffy stops being a criminal and becomes a political problem, and it's easy to date: the moment Sogeking put a bullet through the World Government's flag at Enies Lobby, on his captain's orders.

Nobody does that. Pirates raid ships, extort islands, kill Marines — all of it is crime, and the Government knows how to price crime. Burning its flag in front of its own agents belongs to a different category. It's a formal declaration of war, issued by a handful of pirates against the institution administering most of the known world.

The rest of the day didn't help. CP9 was taken apart, Rob Lucci put out of commission, Nico Robin pulled out of an extradition the Government had wanted handled quietly, and the crew walked out of a Buster Call alive — which had not been listed among the available outcomes.

Hence 300 million, a clean tripling, and entry into a category that didn't yet have a name. Two years later at Sabaody Archipelago, eleven rookies were sitting above a hundred million and the press christened them Supernovas. Luffy ranked second. Eustass Kid was fifteen million ahead of him, a gap that would irritate both parties for a long time.

The bounty had one last consequence, closer to home. It brought a vice admiral to Water Seven who hadn't come to arrest anyone: his grandfather.