As part of the on-going celebration surrounding One Piece's upcoming 1000th episode, the 2009 Strong World movie will be released to theaters in the United States for two nights only.
The new release was announced via the Crunchyroll official YouTube channel and is being distributed by Fathom Events. Strong World is the tenth animated movie in the One Piece franchise, and is generally regarded among fans as one of the better theatrical features in the series. The film was original released in 2009 and is set in between the Thriller Bark Arc and the Sabaody Archipelago Arc. The story of the movie sees the Straw Hat Pirates returning to East Blue after they hear that area is in trouble. Upon arriving, they are greeted by a flying pirate ship and the power-hungry Devil Fruit user, Shiki the Golden Lion. Strong World is notable because the story for the movie was written by series creator Eiichiro Oda himself. The movie was directed by Munehisa Sakai, who previously worked on a number of extremely popular anime franchises, including Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon Crystal and Yuri!!! On Ice. The English dub of the movie will be screened on Oct. 7, while the original Japanese version with English subtitles will be available on Oct. 9. Tickets can be preordered through Fathom Events.
"We are thrilled to bring ‘One Piece Film: Strong World’ for the first time ever to U.S. theaters in celebration of One Piece’s 1,000th series episode," said Toei Animation president and CEO Masayuki Endo. "One Piece fans across the United States can now experience this original film by creator Eiichiro Oda as it was meant to be – on the big screen!," Endo said.
"The One Piece franchise has been such a staple within the anime community, we can’t think of a better way to celebrate 1000 episodes than bringing One Piece Film: Strong World to the big screen for the first time." Fathom Events CEO Ray Nutt said. "We look forward to continuing our long-standing partnership with Toei Animation and to bring unique events to anime fans nationwide."
The re-release of the movie isn't the only way that the series' highly anticipated 1000th episode is being celebrated: the official One Piece Twitter account recently put out a call for fans to send in short video messages about their favorite moment for the series. The videos must be 15 seconds or less, and smaller than 50MB, and will presumably be used as part of the celebrations surrounding the anime's big milestone.
2021 has been a banner year for the One Piece franchise, with Eiichiro Oda's long-running manga publishing its 1000th chapter earlier in the year. The manga also released its 100th collected volume in September, which sold over a million copies in under a week and helped the franchise secure a new all-time sales record.
New episodes of One Piece are available for streaming on Funimation. The 1000th episode of the show is currently scheduled to air on Nov. 14.
Source: Fathom Events, YouTube
