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One Piece Cheers Japan's Samurai Blue Ahead of FIFA World Cup

At midnight on Monday, the One Piece franchise posted a collaboration video with the Japan national football team, popularly known as Samurai Blue. The video features several memorable scenes from the One Piece manga series with images of the Samurai Blue across the years. The video ends with an illustration of One Piece's lead Monkey D. Luffy sporting the Samurai Blue uniform and carrying a soccer ball ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026. Luffy's iconic straw hat is also colored blue to match the uniform.

The One Piece franchise teased the collaboration video 24 hours earlier, with an image of a hand grabbing Luffy's iconic straw hat (except in blue) along with the date and time “2026.06.01 00:00.”

One Piece revealed the earlier Samurai Blue collaboration illustration on the cover of the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine last week.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 will take place between June 11 and July 19 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The sporting event will see 48 national soccer teams participating in the Group stage with the top 32 teams reaching the knockout stage. The United States is set to face Paraguay on June 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Japan will face the Netherlands on June 14 at 4:00 p.m. ET at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington Texas. The FIFA World Cup 2026 finals will then be on July 19 at 3:00 p.m. at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Sources: One Piece's Instagram account account, One Piece's YouTube channel