One Piece Animator Calls For Firings As Grand Line Controversy Rages

One Piece has been riding high recently, thanks to the anime making a comeback and the final saga throwing major curveballs at fans across all its mediums. However, all does not appear to be well in the world of the Grand Line. Toei Animation animators took a few months off from the Future Island Arc to work on a remastered version of the Fishman Island Arc but one animator isn’t thrilled with some of their co-workers. In a surprising new social media post, which has since been deleted, animator Sota Shigetsugu has expressed some serious dissatisfaction with the sound team that adds new layers to Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates.

In a now-erased X post, Shigetsugu shared his wild ask to Toei Animation regarding One Piece’s sound team, believing that their work has been “unprofessional” so far. Sota’s post read, “I think Toei should urgently dismiss the sound team of One Piece. That’s not the work of professionals.” In a previous post, Sota stated the following about the anime sounds, “The sound in One Piece is devastatingly bad, so I hope something is done about it as soon as possible… This episode was really sad because of the difference between the overwhelming animation and the terrible sound.” While Shigetsugu hasn’t gone into specifics, the now deleted post has thrown a grenade into the One Piece fan community and their take on the anime adaptation’s sounds.

[RELATED: One Piece Animator Settles a Huge Luffy vs. Kizaru Debate]

The Works of Sota Shigetsugu

Sota himself hasn’t just worked on the main One Piece series but One Piece Film Red as well, showing his animation chops within the Grand Line. On top of Luffy and his crew’s adventures, Shigetsugu has also worked on major anime including Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, Chainsaw Man, and Kaiju No. 8. As of the writing of this article, Sota is still a part of the One Piece animation team though it will be interesting to if an apology is issued or if the anime sound team responds.

Legendary animator Vincent Chansard recently shared some One Piece thoughts, though said posts weren’t to disparage a creative team. Chansard discussed the recent battle between Luffy and the admiral Kizaru, breaking down the Straw Hat Captain’s approach to the fight itself, “At a certain point, Kizaru figures out he’s not going to win head-on if Luffy just dodges everything, so he tries another approach, kind of like Luffy vs Enel in Skypiea. At this point in the story, Luffy isn’t really trying to beat Kizaru; he’s just stalling him. He’s dodging, teasing, keeping things light, only pulling out a named attack once Kiki actually manages to land a hit. He literally, at several points in the fight, held Kizaru in his palm.”

Want to follow this Grand Line controversy? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates on One Piece and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

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