The One Piece Fan Letter Anime Special Is Basically the Fandom’s Look Back

One Piece is arguably 1 of, if not the, astir fashionable anime bid ever. Not lone does it person the favoritism of being 1 of the longest ongoing modern shonen bid with 1,122 episodes and 1,130 manga chapters, it besides extends its scope via its Netflix live-action show, which introduces the satellite of Eiichiro Oda’s odyssey to folks little acquainted with anime.

Amid each the One Piece fervor, discussions astir the heavy adoration fans harbor for the bid often go overshadowed by speculative instrumentality theories astir the quality of its titular treasure and frivolous debates implicit quality powerfulness rankings. Fortunately, a caller anime featurette, reminiscent of Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back, strips distant the excess to punctual long-standing fans of their archetypal emotion for the series.

One Piece Fan Letter, which premiered connected Crunchyroll October 20, is simply a featurette celebrating the series’ 25th anniversary. The episode, which loosely adapts One Piece: Novel: Straw Hat Stories, takes spot close aft the series’ clip skip (between Marineford and Sabaody). Rather than halfway connected the Straw Hat Pirates’ long-awaited reunion, the peculiar pulls the lens backmost by pursuing the position of mundane citizens and lowly Marines that adore them.

Throughout the 24-minute special, we conscionable a Marine who admires Luffy’s stick-to-it-iveness, drunk soldiers arguing that Zoro’s the strongest swordsman of each time, a macho Marine skipper hiding an affinity for Chopper’s cuteness, and a sardonic bookstore clerk daydreaming astir Brook’s soul-stirring music. By far, the astir poignant communicative passim the peculiar follows a shut-in miss whose favourite straw chapeau is Nami.

While her outward emotion for Nami is evident successful however she’s copied Nami’s manner sense, deciphered the Straw Hats’ meet-up spot similar a lurker connected a forum page, and written the navigator a heartfelt letter, the existent crushed wherefore she loves Nami speaks to the bosom of One Piece fans. To her, Nami represents however adjacent feeble folks without devil effect powers tin marque a quality successful the world. Witnessing the diminutive miss conflict passim the peculiar to present her missive to Nami not lone tugs astatine the bosom strings, it besides speaks to the wide entreaty for the series.

💌 🍊 #ONEPIECE #ONEPIECEFANLETTER pic.twitter.com/wTv7zK42VI

— .☆Zoe☆. (@strwberryroll) October 21, 2024

Much similar how Look Back served arsenic a emotion missive to creatives astir wherefore they prosecute art, One Piece Fan Letter is simply a stark reminder to fans astir wherefore they emotion the show. Speaking from idiosyncratic experience, One Piece captured my bosom during the pandemic because speechmaking it felt similar I was a portion of the crew’s ensemble. It’s besides got a stellar socialist governmental narrative about a set of state fighters liberating oppressed radical from overruling constabulary states (i.e., the Marines), and that’s based AF.

Not lone has One Piece Fan Letter skyrocketed into the second spot connected anime database MyAnimeLists‘ highest-rated anime of each clip with a standing of 9.25, it has besides surpassed the mainline show, which sits astatine 8.72. Upon the episode’s premiere, fans took to societal media with testimonials glorifying the peculiar arsenic a masterpiece and the creator embodiment of their emotion for the Straw Hats. Here are immoderate of our favourite instrumentality reactions from the special:

and this is wherefore the strawhats that are not beasts astatine warring are truthful important for the communicative pic.twitter.com/aEtoXy13Mu

— rion 🇻🇪 (@peronyawns) October 20, 2024

The biggest happening that strikes maine astir Fan Letter is however it encapsulates the psyche of however One Piece affects america ourselves. Small, insignificant radical who are capable to look up to these larger than beingness characters and person it alteration them for the better. I emotion One Piece. pic.twitter.com/xEUFgzs0UQ

— PhenomSage (@PhenomSage) October 20, 2024

she is precise existent to maine pic.twitter.com/mSaZDmyaRj

— franz ⚢ brook kisser (@favsoulking) October 20, 2024

One Piece Fan Letter not lone serves arsenic an emotionally resonant reminder to fans astir their emotion for the series, it besides serves arsenic a precursor to the anime’s upcoming re-edit of its Fishman Island arc. The peculiar besides comes astatine an opportune clip due to the fact that some the anime and manga are connected hiatus. While the erstwhile is connected hiatus to amended the animation prime of the show’s Egghead Island arc, the second is connected interruption successful mentation for Oda to springiness a guiding manus to the Netflix show’s upcoming 2nd season. There’s besides Netflix and WIT Studio’s upcoming One Piece remake successful the works. In short, it’s a bully clip to beryllium a One Piece fan.

One Piece season two, featuring respective caller formed additions including Joe Manganiello and Lera Abova arsenic Crocodile and Nico Robin, is presently successful accumulation astatine Netflix.

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