New One Piece Arc Honored By Devilman Crybaby Animator With Sketch

If you have not heard, One Piece is ready to reclaim its top spot in the anime world. Titles like [...]

By Megan Peters

If you have not heard, One Piece is ready to reclaim its top spot in the anime world. Titles like Attack on Titan and Mob Psycho 100 drew a bit of attention away from the shonen this year, but Monkey D. Luffy will not stand being ignored. This is why One Piece just embarked on its long-awaited Wano arc, and it seems to be a success out of the gate.

Oh, and to celebrate? It turns out an animator on Devilman Crybaby is here to promote the anime.

Recently, Takashi Kojima posted artwork he drew to celebrate the release of One Piece's new arc. The sketch, which was posted on Reddit, shows Luffy in all his samurai glory and is looking rather buff.

Wano Illustration by animator Takashi Kojima (Devilman Crybaby) from r/OnePiece

Standing on a rock in the ocean, Luffy looks plenty sassy rocking a half-worn yukata. The hero has a sword in hand which would make even Zoro jealous, and the background is plenty gorgeous. Not only does the artwork lean on traditional Japanese imagery, but it shows off a quieter side of Wano which Luffy will surely disturb once he arrives.

This sketch shows how much the artwork for One Piece has changed with the Wano arc, and fans can tell it is not insubstantial. The arrival of director Tatsuya Nagamine of Dragon Ball Super: Broly fame hugely influenced how this new story would look. And as you can see thanks to Kojima, Luffy is looking beefier and more dangerous than ever before.

So, how excited are you to see this new One Piece arc? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and 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 over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.

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