Next One Piece Movie Announced, Will Focus on Shanks and New Female Character

A new One Piece animated movie is in the works, which will focus on the chief of the Red Hair Pirates.

As reported by Shonen Jump News - Unofficial, the new movie will be titled One Piece Red, and will be released in Japan on Aug. 6, 2022. The film will be supervised by One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda himself and will be canon to the series' storyline. While Red Hair Shanks appears to be the main character of the new movie, Oda revealed in a statement that the film was originally born from his desire to add a new female character to the series. ""I am tired of drawing legendary old grandpas in movies! I want to draw a new little female character! That's the character I want to make now! And that's how it started," Oda said. The new movie will be directed by Goro Taniguchi, an anime industry veteran who previously worked on multiple entries of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise and Code Geass. According to Oda, Taniguchi "was the first-ever person in the world to animate Luffy." A release date outside of Japan has not yet been announced, but given One Piece's massive international popularity, it's safe to assume that the movie will be released in other territories shortly after its Japanese premiere.

Red-Haired Shanks is the chief of the Red Hair Pirate crew and is one of the Four Emperors of the New World, a title given to the four most powerful pirate captains who reside over the second half of the Grand Line. Shanks is notable for being the person who inspired series protagonist Monkey D. Luffy to become a pirate and seek out the treasure known as One Piece. The laid-back pirate captain also gave Luffy his iconic straw hat.

Oda's One Piece began its 24 year voyage in 1998, when it first premiered in the pages of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump. The pirate epic has since become the best-selling manga series of all time, with almost half-a-billion copies in circulation worldwide. The series has experienced a number of landmark achievements in 2021: the manga published both its 1000th chapter and its 100th collected volume earlier this year. The anime series, which originally debuted in 1999, will soon air its highly anticipated 1000th episode on Nov. 20. Netflix also revealed the cast for its live-action reboot of the series, which is being produced by Netflix and Tomorrow Pictures, who also produced the new live-action reimagining of Cowboy Bebop. Oda will serve as the executive producer for the new show.

Source: Twitter