Bandai Namco in collaboration with Shueisha, Inc. and Toei Animation, held the 2024 One Piece Day! They have provided a recap of the events in case you couldn’t attend it live!
Below is what occurred during this special event!
Day 1: Exhibition Area – Open Stage
©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
The first Open Stage that took place on Saturday, August 10th welcomed Ryusei Ikuta, a Fujitelevision announcer as a presenter and announced the results of Anime “ONE PIECE” Best Scenes Poll -Top 100 Scenes Production Crews Find Memorable-. All 100 scenes were reflected with the Production Crews, with Shu Watabe, an actor, and Momoka Ito from AKB48 19th generation trainee as guests.
The top 30th scenes were announced. The 3rd place was from Episode 37, “Luffy Rises! Result of the Broken Promise!”, the scene where Luffy does his best to respond to Nami’s tearful plea. The 2nd place was from Episode 706, “Advance, Law! The Kindhearted Man’s Final Fight! “, where Corazon grins to Law, “Hey, Law!! I love you!!” A glorious 1st place was given to Episode 312, “Thank you, Merry! Snow Falls Over the Parting Sea!”, where Going Merry, burns to the brim, and thanks its crew for their support, “You always treated me well. Thank you.
Many fans shed tears while watching tragic but touching scenes on screen. As the crowd was all in agreement that scene was the most memorable, Nagamine, one of the creators commented,
There are main characters saying “Thank you” to broken robots or machines, but in ONE PIECE, it’s the opposite; Going Merry is the one saying, “You always treated me well. Thank you, which makes it even more memorable.
He also mentioned,
I’m being honest, but the staff who worked on the drawing for this scene cried. They worked during the night, and when you return for work in the morning, their tear stains can be seen on their work.” as he recalled in the production of this fabulous, memorable scene.
©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
One Piece Bounty Rush
At the Open Stage, ONE PIECE BOUNTY RUSH The 2nd Extreme Treasure Festival Tournament -Finalstook place at 3:30 PM(JST). The event was held with Yuka Kuramochi as the MC, Yusuke Hiraiwa as the Live Commentator, and Bounty Rush’s Chief Producer, TanaP, and many extreme battles took place. At the final match, two finalists, Team Otomodachi and Team Ambivalent fought for their Champion title.
Team Otomodachi won the first battle and took the lead. However, the last year’s champion, Team Ambivalent, took hold of Team Otomodachi, and won the second and the third battle, making a close call to checkmate. In the final fourth battle, both sides refused to budge, however, after a fierce struggle, Team Ambivalent won once again. Team Ambivalent was given a championship shield, and they all shared their moment of victory with a smile.
After the final battle, a memorable promotional video celebrating over 150 million downloads was played. To celebrate this, a livestream will take place on 8/19 (Mon) 8 PM (JST).
One Piece Grand Arena in Roblox!
It was announced that a new game, ONE PIECE GRAND ARENA is scheduled to be released in the world’s most popular virtual platform, Roblox.
The game is currently scheduled to be released in winter of 2024.
To stay up to date, check out the official Discord: https://discord.gg/HNvRaStvDb
Iñaki Godoy Comments on the 2nd Netflix One Piece Season
As a perk of this event, the latest ONE PIECE information was released from the News Corner. A special surprise video comment was announced from the Netflix TV Series, “ONE PIECE”, and it made the crowd excited for its Season 2.
Iñaki Godoy, who plays Luffy, showed up on screen and gave a video message from the filming location, Cape Town. Godoy had been practicing Japanese while filming and presented in the video. He expressed his passionate feelings towards fans and mentioned, “When I’m done filming, I’ll go to Japan and talk in Japanese with all of you guys! Let’s go to the Grandline!!!!” in Japanese.
Day 1: LIVE Area
©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
Fabulous four artists, GRe4N BOYZ, Mori Calliope, Maki Otsuki, and Hiroshi Kitadani gathered at the LIVE Area, ‘ONE PIECE DAY’24 SPECIAL LIVE’. Around 6,000 attendees were filled with excitement. The first to perform was GRe4N BOYZ.
As the opening video was presented, loud clapping occurred, and the performance started with ONE PIECE’s theme park, “Tokyo ONE PIECE Tower”’s official music, “PHANTOM -Yakusoku-“. The opening act was a success, as they said, “Let’s enjoy ONE PIECE DAYʼ24 until the end!”
Mori Calliope appeared next, performing the comics volume 106’s official theme song, “Future Island.” She also performed a cover of “Hikari e” as a special tribute and allured the crowd with her special performance.
Maki Otsuki performed both her popular, classic, and new ending themes. After singing “RUN! RUN! RUN!” as her first song, the crowd was filled with extreme joy.
Hiroshi Kitadani appeared last and performed his four opening themes. As he appeared on stage, all the fans stood up. He showed an enthusiastic performance, as the crowd cheered.
TERU from GLAY was a Surprise Guest!
©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
For the encore, a “surprise” guest, TERU, vocalist of the rock band GLAY appeared. With their biggest event “GLAY EXPO” taking place last year commemorating their 30th anniversary, Eiichiro Oda presented them with illustrations drawn for them, resulting for his surprise appearance at the live.
TERU sang “HOWEVER” in solo. “ONE PIECE” fans were overjoyed with this unforgettable moment. Hiroshi Kitadani and GRe4N BOYZ also joined for the second time singing “We Are! For the New World”, making this a special moment just for this event.
After singing, Hiroshi Kitadani commented, “It was great being able to say “We Are!” with all of you!” TERU also mentioned gratitude, “Everyone, thank you so much!!”, closing the first day of ONE PIECE DAY’24
Day 2: Exhibition Area – Open Stage
In the coverage of creating THE ONE PIECE, brand new information was released since the announcement of its creation in “Jump Festa 2024” last December. This will be a new anime series starting the adventure from the origin, “East Blue Saga”. This is scheduled to be streamed on Netflix, and many more. The anime is currently being developed by WIT STUDIO. This production company has created many great hits in anime such as “SPY×FAMILY” and “Attack on Titan.” WIT STUDIO announced their main production staff working on this project and the behind-the-scenes video was released.
The Director, Koizuka commented,
“All staff are excited to be able to recreate ONE PIECE. I will be sure to make ONE PIECE an anime enjoyed by both people who’ve already seen it and those who are new to it. Please stay tuned!” With his comment, fans grew their expectations of the project.
One Piece DVD Sets World Record
The Open Stage on the 2nd day had many fans eyeing the surprise announcement of the anime ONE PIECE making a Guinness World Record of, “Most DVDs released of a serial anime TV program”. This was due to the TV show ONE PIECE releasing its 300th volume of DVDs, resulting in a Guinness World Record. A surprise certification ceremony was held before the Radio Broadcast “MUGIWARA Space” Live Recording, and Mayumi Tanaka, a voice actor of Luffy, received the certificate from Guinness Worlds Records.
MUGIWARA Space live Recording
TV anime ONE PIECE made its 25th anniversary in October 2024, as a special content of “Anime ONE PIECE 25th anniversary and Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. 70th anniversary Radio, Mugiwara Space”, recorded live in front of many fans at the Open Stage. “Mugiwara Space” is broadcast from Nippon Broadcasting every Sunday from 1 AM-1:30 AM and this specific recording will be broadcast on August 11th and 18th. The stage had nine Straw Hat Pirates and seven Vegapunk voice actors, resulting in a gathering of 16 voice actors. It was truly a precious moment for all the fans! Kazuya Nakai (Zoro) commented on this on-stage recording, “I was expecting this radio recording to be difficult because there are so many people today, and because it’s confusing when we’re recording even between two of us! But it was so fun!” Hirano (Lilith) commented, “Time went by so quickly, so I’d love if we would be invited as guests in the usual radio recording in the future.: and ended the stage in an immense success.
Day 2: LIVE Area
©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
The 2nd day of LIVE Area had Ado, BE:FIRST, Maki Otsuki, and Hiroshi Kitadani, the four artists performed. Day 2 had approximately 6,000 people, filling the venue with joy. The first to appear and perform was Ado, now famous worldwide for a singing role in the movie, “ONE PIECE FILM RED” two years ago, as “The Diva”, Uta. The performance started with Uta appearing on screen, as she enthusiastically shouted at the crowd, “We’re going to hype up the stage much, much more than yesterday!” Then, Ado hit the spotlight, performing her first song “Backlight”. This had the whole audience in heat. The last performance was the theme song of the movie, “NEW GENESIS”, which brought the crowd to its peak and led them to recall FILM RED.
BE:FIRST performed next and sang “Set Sail”, a collaboration song with ONE PIECE CARD as their first song. They then sang their hybrid hip-hop dance number, “Boom Boom Back” and the crowd went wild. For their last song, “Mainstream”, they performed their perfect songs and dances and grasped everyone’s heart. After their performance, they announced that BE:FIRST would be singing the new ending theme song to ONE PIECE.
Maki Otsuki, who appeared next, sang her first ending theme for ONE PIECE, which was 25 years ago, “memories”, and three more songs including “Dear sunrise”, the ending theme to “Egghead”.
Hiroshi Kitadani appeared last, and said, “I’ll sing with all of my heart! Forget about anything you have tomorrow and let’s all go home with dry, sore throats! This is the last song, “We Are!”. Fans all stood up and had their hands up, filled with joy.
The Straw Hat Pirates Sing Bikusuno Sake
The wonderful finale was made with a surprise appearance of the Straw Hat Pirates’ voice actors: Mayumi Tanaka (Monkey D. Luffy), Kazuya Nakai (Roronoa Zoro), Akemi Okamura (Nami)/Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp), Hiroaki Hirata (Sanji), Ikue Mtani (Chopper), Yuriko Yamaguchi (Nico Robin), Cho (Brook), and Katsuhisa HNki (Jinbe)as they appeared on stage.
They sang “BINKUSUNO SAKE” along with Maki Otsuki and Hiroshi Kitadani.
The audience poured voices of surprise and joy. Cho (Brook) shouted, “There’s only this song to a pirate! “BIKUSUNO SAKE”!! Yohohoho!!”, then Hiroshi Kitadani and Maki Otsuki joined them to sing, “BINKUSUNO SAKE”. The crowd all clapped to cheer them on.
After the performance, Mayumi Tanaka (Luffy) suggested, “One of our friends didn’t make it today, so can we all do Franky’s “SUPER!”?”. The voice actors, performers on stage, and the audience all shouted, “SUPER!”. Finally, Tanaka shouted, “All of you who came today are my friends!”
The grand celebration for all ONE PIECE fans, ONE PIECE DAY’24, which took two days in a row, made its closure.
Source: Press Release
