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THE PERFECT 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF ONE PIECE! One Piece Fan Letter Review

For the 25th year of the One Piece anime, Megumi Ishitani directs a heartfelt fan letter to how One Piece affects one fan and all fans, to all fans.

one piece fan letter girl
ONE PIECE © 1997 by Eiichiro Oda/SHUEISHA Inc.

“Nami-san, you are my hope. In a world where power is everything, even if I get hurt and trampled on, I still want to struggle, run, and live as freely as I can.” (Nami fangirl)

What a way to celebrate 25 years of the One Piece anime!

As the One Piece anime will be going on hiatus until April 2025, we are given one fitting farewell from the anime’s most illustrious episode director, Megumi Ishitani and animation director, Masami Mori, one of the most influential animators of the One Piece anime.

The combination of their work produced a stunning cinematic short film in the TV format, utilizing a lot of

Adaptation

One Piece: Fan Letter is an adaptation of the “One Piece novel: Straw Hat Stories” by Tomohito Ohsaki

However, instead of the different parts of the novel happening in one film, it is as if the entire novel was adapted into a singular flowing story.

The hikikimori boy who was inspired to change his life was replaced by a fan girl who copies Nami, even down to her East Blue attire.

Every single story takes place in Sabaody Archipelago during the Return to Sabaody Arc instead of different places.

Fans praise the iconic duo of Ishitani and Mori (or Soty) due to their frequent collaborations in terms of animating Ishitani’s storyboard and directorial vision.

Marineford Changed Everything

crocodile mihawk one piece

The film begins incredibly strong with a rendering of Marineford in Ishitani-Soty fashion.

We see Boa Hancock, Gecko Moria, Doflamingo, the Pacifistas, Whitebeard, Oars Jr., the admirals and everyone involved, all looking so well-animated and fluid in their different poses.

But this is all from the grounded perspective of a Marine, who saw everything.

Fans praise the short film for bringing us a perspective on how the “hype, grandiose” Paramount War is absolutely terrifying to the average person, as shown with the struggle for the older brother to get out of Oars Jr.’s leg or to avoid certain death from the Pacifista blasts and the clash between Mihawk and Crocodile, and even then, the trauma stays with him as it could be why he still has not been promoted.

The short film has two protagonists, the fan girl and the humble Marine, whose stories present differing emotional experiences.

In a way, this story is also a meta-commentary on how the end of the pre-timeskip made One Piece “bigger”, as the story of Luffy became a sensation through the “puzzle” of their adventures that so happened to center around the Paramount War and how the horror of that War was felt by everyone.

For the brothers, Marineford was everything and for the girl who did not even see the War, it was only through 3D2Y (a plan she recognized) that Nami could be reached.

Just like what Marineford did for the Straw Hats, One Piece anime’s global recognition allowed those who could not buy the manga to witness the beautiful storytelling of One Piece unfold in their own spaces.

The Nami Story: The Look Back of One Piece

nami fangirl

At the center of the narrative is the story of a girl who sees herself in Nami.

Altering the male hikikimori who is attracted to Nami’s beauty and human strength to overcome anxiety, we see a similar story but fashioned almost as if it came from Ishitani’s own life.

The fan girl imitates Nami in orange hairdo and her East Blue clothing but in a way, her life is similar in its “lack of purpose”.

What makes the girl’s life story tie to the idea of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s “Look Back” is the tributary nature of both works, a dedication for the hard work and artistry through fiction.

For a brief summary, Look Back is the story of two girls, Fujino and Kyomoto, who work together as mangaka but then Kyomoto loses her life in a tragedy, which Fujino blames herself for as she encouraged Kyomoto’s dream. After a period of mourning and quitting drawing, Fujino continues

Along with parallels to Nami’s life as Arlong’s abused mapmaker, we see the story’s full context, both the story of the girl and Ishitani herself, as a “fan letter” to everything Nami, who represents One Piece, means to her.

What makes the shot a bit more “Look Back-esuqe” lies in the intent: the girl and Fujino “look back” at where and why they started the journey.

In spite of Nami’s experience with Arlong, Nami looks back to her dream that she promised Bell’mere, the passion awakened by from love.

Fujino’s grief and sense of worth, Nami’s abusive environment, the fan girl’s loneliness.

The fan girl “looks back” at all those days where she mustered the courage to finally write that letter

Just as fans do, to see what changed when they found One Piece, when they found the passion for art and the love for life.

Luffy Story: A Love Even Beyond Bonds

older marine one piece

The Luffy story is also significantly altered not so much by changing the actual story but the dynamic of the two brothers.

Although differing in hair color, there is no direct confirmation that these Marines, the sons of a Sabaody grocer, are not related by blood but novel readers can interpret that way.

The most startling difference is that the roles are reversed: the younger brother is overconfident, carefree and an officer while the older brother is left out and falling behind in the ranks.

For much of the short film, both in the Paramount War and in the Sabaody story, the older brother is belittled and unfairly treated and he does still feel this way through the amazing match cuts where we go backwards to various points of the older brother’s life being called “clumsy”.

But it is this common insult that launches him back to the time he saved his younger brother in the Paramount War.

A piece of “background detail” that works so effectively was the missing leg of Oars Jr. that also causes the ice in the arena to trap his younger brother as well.

Just then, the Pacifistas blast around, signaling his death if he moves forward but then Luffy’s voice reverberates the whole scene, proclaiming that he is Ace’s brother.

The rifle the brother has falls off, which evokes the time the younger brother did try to help his older brother overcome his clumsiness, this time more meaningful than insultingly.

The sling snapping off signals that he can no longer hesitate and so he runs into the fray.

The brother reflects on how everything that has happened has changed his life, from the Great Pirate Era to Luffy’s voice, and he wonders if he, a small, insignificant piece, could do the same for someone else.

And here, we see the brother place his own invisible puzzle pieces, just in time as he hears of Luffy’s arrival.

Although we do not see his focus at the end, he was part of the journey, like the princesses and peoples Luffy and his friends save along the way.

One encounter was all that was needed, such that even the Nami fangirl helped the older brother by just being her passionate self.

Not only was the older brother moved but he also moved in his own terms as he brings his puzzle pieces to the Nami fangirl.

Zoro’s Story and Fandom Powerscaling

Intercut throughout the film are scenes of the post-timeskip involving Zoro’s story about the best swordsman.

However, Ishitani makes the brilliant move of expanding the narrative into the actual powerscaling discourse of the real-life One Piece fandom.

It is no longer Mihawk vs Zoro or Ryuma and Shanks but they even involve Vista, which is a show of

But things get crazy when they bring up Franky and even Buggy in the picture. Buggy gets powerscaled, like in real life.

We also have questions such as:

  • Is Whitebeard a swordsman if he only wields a naginata? Which is funny because the Murakumogiri is one of the 12 Supreme Grade Blades.
  • Is Akainu the strongest Marine?

This is an excellent example of meta commentary as it shows that Toei staff are quite aware of fan behavior, down to the ludicrous takes people have.

And through Zoro and Sanji, One Piece smacks and kicks them respectively back to their place.

Usopp, Soul King Girl, Benevolent King, and Detours

The episode had so many moving parts and yet within their context,  they all have their own life in this span of 24 minutes.

The girl meets Usopp on her way to reach Grove 42 but at this time, her letter gets mixed up inside the younger brother Marine’s bag.

Some would be surprise with how the girl failed to recognize Usopp, except that in spite of Usopp’s long nose, everyone only knew him as Sogeking (heck, even Luffy only knew his wanter poster as Sogeking’s) but the detour ended up helping her in one way: build her confidence.

We meet the bookstore clerk from the Franky story but here she is a Soul King fan who does not get the appeal of Franky in his magazine, which is an interesting choice.

However, even without any focus, she builds the narrative as she is just like the Nami fangirl chasing after her dream.

The Straw Hat reunion gathered so many people together and, without realizing it, Oda and One Piece moving forward allowed many others to find their own dreams.

The Little Girl Who Saved One Piece

Midway, the girl runs into the older brother and the two stories converge here.

With the key to the back door left by the bookstore clerk, we see one piece of an invisible puzzle and it leads to a fun chase that abruptly ends as she is stopped by the spoiled Marine, who treats the common folk around him as mere pebbles.

spoiled marine puts down girl

While he is the stereotypical Marine that is common in One Piece, Ishitani makes sure that he has a story too as the other Marines look down on him due to his privilege and the man tries to prove himself the way he knows how: by stepping on others.

He represents the despair, the fate that puts people like the fan girl down and back to their isolated corners.

But in this point, when she sees her puzzle piece fall among many others, she sinks until she “looks back” at her room, those days of working up the courage to go out.

Until she spots the younger brother’s bag holding her letter.

The encounter with him would lead the fan girl to her destination.

One of the beauties of One Piece is how it is such a perfect harmony of immense personal drive and the way people and encounters build upon each other, all perceived from a personal place.

The younger brother held the key to the weapon to kill the Straw Hats but that was also the key to help the fan girl stop the weapon and she would not have made it here without the Soul King fan’s key and backdoor or her intervention with the kids to stop the spoiled Marine.

The little girl barely knew the Soul King fanatic and the two kids who got in the Marine’s way, or the Benevolent King who tried to stop her but all of them helped her forward in their own way.

Because everyone has a dream and it is our birthright to keep pursuing it.

So we struggle to grasp our own puzzle pieces and fit them in the mosaic of the world.

The Benevolent King even got to fulfill his dream because as he was living his own life, torn by the choice between launching a nuke on the Straw Hats and admiring Chopper, everyone else did the same but all the puzzle pieces, the “One Piece” of a puzzle, everyone had, came together all at once as a complete puzzle, just “One Piece”.

Even if she could not reach Nami or give her the fan letter, what mattered was that she could see the Straw Hats set sail, to fulfill their dream, to reach their One Piece.

torn letter

All she had to do was tear up her envelope, make everyone look and ride the moment.

The One Piece is a real treasure but the lesson is not that “the real treasure is the friends we made” but that the real treasure is only possible, to make, to earn, or to reach, because everyone else is also gunning for it with the same drive as you are.

The One Piece might be the treasure itself or a chance of a lifetime to see your hero live her life, setting sail to the New World.

And what a way to end the short film with “We Go – Straw Hat Version” as we hear the post-timeskip opening sung by the crew that started it all.

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