Eiichiro Oda’s legendarily long pirate manga One Piece has been around forever, just a little bit long than a good amount of its fans have likely been alive, and ditto its anime adaptation. Last night, the anime hit episode 1000, and to celebrate the occasion, the episode brought back the very first OP from alllllll the way back in 1999 during the “East Blue” arc.
Whether you watch the opening as is or compare it to the original, two things are clear: Luffy and the Straw Hats have grown a lot and been through so much shit since they started their journey to reach the Grand Line, and Hiroshi Kitadani’s “We Are!” still fucking riiiiiiiiips. It’s pretty impressive that One Piece managed to hit this milestone and has endured for so long. Even with the 2004 FoxBox adaptation (and its still awesome rap) is a fascinating mess and the jury’s out on the upcoming Netflix adaptation, it feels like the fanbase is generally chill about the entire franchise and just happy that it exists period, so hats off to y’all. Hope you managed to catch this episode in theatres, if you felt safe.
Funimation and Toei Animation did more than redo their original opening to celebrate One Piece’s big day, they also announced a new movie. Directed by Code Geass’ Goro Taniguchi with an original story from Oda himself, One Piece Film: Red will bring the Straw Hats on a collision course with new antagonist Patrick Redfield, aka Red the Aloof. And it looks like the film will heavily involve Luffy’s pirate mentor, Shanks. The movies are said to be generally pretty good, and it should be exciting to see what wild fruit, sword, and foot-based action the movie comes up with. It’s expected to release on August 6, 2022.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.