'One Piece' Fan-Reel Brings Luffy v Katakuri Battle To Life

One Piece's anime is still working up to Pudding and Sanji's ill-fated wedding, but fans are really waiting for what comes after the nuptials. Monkey D. Luffy will only come against Charlotte Katakuri once the wedding goes south, and fans are eager to see the pair's first clash.

So, one artist decided to give fans a taste of how the battle could go.

Over on Youtube, the channel Gag Gagovich shared its take on Luffy and Katakuri's fight in the Mirro-World. The reel, which was made using FlipaClip, may be a rough depiction of the battle but it captures the fighters' intensity with shocking clarity.

The clip, which can be found above, starts with Luffy and Katakuri staring down each other. They begin attacking with a volley of hits, but Katakuri's mochi proves stronger than Luffy anticipated. The Straw Hat pirate gets overwhelmed by his opponent, and things only get worse when Luffy tries using an Elephant Gun on Katakuri. Big Mom's son counters with a fortified mochi punch of his own, leaving the clip to end on a tense stalemate.

It will be a while before One Piece's anime reaches this part of the manga, but fans are eager to see Toei Animation take a stab at it. Luffy and Katakuri's fight takes place after Sanji's wedding with Pudding falls apart, and the baddie hides out on the Thousand Sunny to ambush the Straw Hats. Luffy knows the man is too strong to fight around others, so he forces Katakuri into the Mirro-World and traps them their for a fight.

The duo's fight is a brutal one as Katakuri shows Luffy why he is out of the Straw Hat's league, but that may not always be the case. After all, there are few fighters as scrappy as Luffy, and he cannot become the Pirate King unless he beats Katakuri. That will give the hero all kinds of motivation.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with 430 million copies sold worldwide.

Are you ready for the anime to get to Luffy and Katakuri's big battle? Hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to let me know and talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!