One Piece’s New Opening Features Clever Dragon Ball Super Callback

One Piece stands as one of anime’s most famous series, but it does not exist on its own. The shonen title stays fresh thanks to its tight competition with rivals like Dragon Ball Super, but there is little bad blood between the series. After all, Toei Animation oversees both series, and One Piece seems to have nodded at its most popular rival.

Recently, One Piece set off on a new adventure as its latest arc began at last. The highly anticipated Wano arc started in full over the weekend, and it brought along a new opening. However, as one fan has pointed out online, the new opening has a very curious start.

As you can see below, a fan known as kmrryuki showed off the the start of the Wano arc and how it compares to the last opening Dragon Ball Super enjoyed.

It is hard to overlook the similarities between the two opening. Dragon Ball Super starts off with a shot of a Dragon Ball, the iconic relic which gave the series its name. One Piece lives up to that with a shot of the Straw Hat which has become Luffy’s most identifying feature.

As the series continues, Goku is seen in a close up shot before he flips backwards to join all of his Universe 7 comrades. And what does One Piece do? It goes a similar route by having Luffy flip backwards to join his Straw Hat crew under the cherry blossom trees of Wano.

These comparative clips might be short, but that does not mean they lack substance. Fans were quick to point out how closely they connected, but it isn’t simple coincidence; Fans are pretty sure they know why these openings start off the same. Both of the clips were partially overseen by Tatsuya Nagamine. The director oversaw Dragon Ball Super‘s TV anime before moving to One Piece for the Wano arc. There is little doubt the animator decided to pay homage to his last big gig with this opening, and fans made sure to pick apart the reference as soon as they could.

So, did you catch this little comparison between the two openings? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese-language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super: Broly is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.