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One Piece Gets New Anime Film in Summer 2016
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The end of the One Piece – Episode of Sabo: Bond of Three Brothers – A Miraculous Reunion and an Inherited Will! (One Piece Episode of Sabo ~3-Kyōdai no Kizuna Kiseki no Saikai to Uketsugareru Ishi~) special announced on Saturday that One Piece will be getting a new anime film in summer 2016. The film will be the 13th in the franchise.
Crunchyroll and FUNimation Entertainment will both stream the special outside of Japan. Funimation will stream the special in the United States starting on Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. EDT.
Crunchyroll will make the special available in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America, although it has not yet revealed when it will begin to stream the special.
The special revisits the childhood past of the three sworn brothers Luffy, Ace, and Sabo, when they all dreamed of becoming pirates. In addition, it will depict how Sabo originally came into the kingdom of Dressrosa (which was not depicted in Eiichiro Oda's original manga or the television anime), as well as his reunion with Luffy from his point of view.
The most recent film in the One Piece franchise, One Piece Film Z, opened in Japan in December 2012. Funimation released the film in North America in September 2014.
A One Piece film opened every year in Japan between 2000-2009. Since then, aside from One Piece Film Z and the 30-minute One Piece 3D: Mugiwara Chase film in 2011, Fuji TV has aired numerous long specials, such as One Piece Episode of Luffy: Hand Island no Bōken, One Piece Episode of Nami: Kōkaishi no Namida to Nakama no Kizuna, One Piece Episode of Merry: Mō Hitori no Nakama no Monogatari, and One Piece "3D2Y" Ace no Shi wo Koete! Luffy Nakama to no Chikai.
Update: The official website for the film lists the voice cast for the nine members of the Straw Hat Crew, and also states that original manga creator Eiichiro Oda will comment on the film in this year's 40th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, which will ship on August 31.
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