One Piece 'Episode of East Blue' Special's Visual Unveiled

The official website of the One Piece franchise revealed a visual on Monday for the One Piece Episode of East Blue: Luffy to 4-nin no Nakama no Daibōken (Luffy and His 4 Crewmates' Big Adventure) two-hour television special. The visual features Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji.



The special will air on August 26 at 9:00 p.m. The special will be a completely new work, featuring reanimated scenes from the beginning of the series through when the crew enters the Grand Line.

The special is commemorating the manga's 20th anniversary, and will also feature anime versions of the original manga's chapter cover stories as part of the special's ending credits. The staff haven't yet clarified which cover story or stories will be animated. Additionally, the anime will feature a special 20th anniversary commemoration version of the original opening theme song "We Are!".

Takashi Otsuka is directing the special, and Tomohiro Nakayama is writing the script. Masayuki Sato is the character designer and chief animation director.

The previous One Piece anime special, One Piece: Heart of Gold, aired in July 2016. The special tied into last year's One Piece Film Gold movie.

One Piece has had previous "Episode of" specials, such as: One Piece Episode of Luffy: Hand Island no Bōken (2012), One Piece Episode of Nami: Kōkaishi no Namida to Nakama no Kizuna (2012), One Piece Episode of Merry: Mō Hitori no Nakama no Monogatari (2013), and One Piece Episode of Sabo (2015).