'One Piece' Director Teases Luffy's Big Fight With Katakuri

One Piece is gearing up for Sanji and Pudding's wedding in the anime, and the staff of the series is just as excited to push further through the Whole Cake Island arc. They are especially excited to get to a fan-favorite part of the arc, Luffy's big fight with Charlotte Katakuri.

The fight was one of the biggest events of the Whole Cake Island arc, and sets up a big turning point the manga is still experiencing, so the director of the anime is approaching the battle with the goal of making it as cool as possible.

In an interview published in the One Piece mail magazine released in Japan, director of the series Mr. Fukusawa commented on the upcoming fight that he's looking forward to the anime version of it because "the fight embodied the masculine spirits" of its two warriors and "also show[s] Luffy's growth."

When Charlotte Katakuri shows up in the One Piece anime, he will be voiced by Tomokazu Sugita. Sugita's most known by anime fans for his long-running voice role in Gintama as Gintoki Sakata, but has had major roles in many fans' favorites like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Why should you be excited for Katakuri? Katakuri is the second son and third child of the Charlotte Family, and is one of the Three Sweet Commanders (along with Smoothie and Cracker). Most know for his One Billion Belly bounty, he is extremely strong and can even use his haki to look a few seconds into the future and predict the actions of his opponents. His Devil Fruit power is even comprable to Luffy's as his Mochi Mochi fruit allows his body to absorb all sorts of attacks and put his opponents in sticky predicaments. He plays a big role in the later parts of the Whole Cake Island arc.

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.

Eiichiro Oda also revealed some upcoming news for One Piece's future at Jump Festa 2018. Not only will the manga see Wano sooner rather than later, the next villain of the series is "one of the legends which lurks in the One Piece world. The greatest enemy ever for Straw Hats will hinder their way...Can you believe Marineford Summit War will look 'cute' compared to that?"

The new live-action One Piece series also got some new information as it was revealed that the series will portray the Straw Hats' adventures from the very beginning, and will take place in the East Blue.

One Piece is currently in the middle of the "Whole Cake Island" arc and is now streaming on Crunchyroll and FunimationNOW.

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