Beloved One Piece Director Debuts New Project Next Week!

Megumi Ishitani is one of, if not, the most beloved episode directors of the One Piece anime, making her debut in 2022 with the spectacular episode 957 for the Wano Act 2 break, showing a synopsis of the political situation and plot developments going on outside the Wano Country Arc. 

However, after her storyboarding credits for Episode 1072 and her direction of Opening 25: “The Peak” and Opening 26: “UUUUUS!”, she has not directed any One Piece episode since.

That is until on October 3, 2024, it was announced that Ishitani would release a short film titled “One Piece: Fan Letter”, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the One Piece anime, which first aired on October 20, 1999

The special project, "ONE PIECE FAN LETTER," directed by Megumi Ishitani, is set to premiere on October 20th, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the One Piece anime. pic.twitter.com/1RqHuPXfu2

— Pew (@pewpiece) October 3, 2024

The first trailer shows a sketch version of the episode events, where the main character, a hikikimori (shut-in) girl, who collects wanted posters of beautiful pirate ladies and eventually writes a fan letter to Nami of the Straw Hat Pirates, with the trailer ending on the girl seeing the wanted posters of the Straw Hat Pirates as she has heard that the Straw Hats will reunite after the 2-year timeskip.

ONE PIECE FAN LETTER Film Synopsis:

A young shut-in from Sabaody with an obsession for female pirates falls in love with her idol, Nami. When she hears of the Straw Hats returning at the Archipelago after 2 years, she hopes to catch a glimpse of the woman that changed her life. pic.twitter.com/WyvsZPzwnz

— Artur – Library of Ohara (@newworldartur) October 3, 2024

After Episode 1122 on October 13, 2024, the next episode preview reveals that the One Piece: Fan Letter Nami Story is set to be the next episode.

The preview is a fully colored and animated version of the October 3 preview.

The One Piece: Fan Letter short film will be 30 minutes long with Megumi Ishitani as director and storyboarder and Keisuke Mori as animation director.

After the short film, the One Piece Fishman Island Special Edited Version will be released to take the place of the main anime while it is on break until April 2025.

One Piece: Fan Letter will cover the Nami section of “One Piece novel Straw Hat Stories” by Tomohito Ohsaki released on November 2, 2017.

Three of these stories (Luffy, Sanji, and Robin) were published in the first three One Piece Magazines volumes released in 2017.

This might indicate that there will be more adaptations of the rest of the 208-paged novel.

Source: Twitter

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