One Piece Art Brings the Anime’s OG Style to Wano Country

One Piece recently celebrated the one-thousandth episode of its anime adaptation, re-uniting the Straw Hat Pirates to battle against the forces of Wano Country, including Kaido and his Beast Pirates, and one piece of artwork has taken the original style of the early days of the Toei Animation series and applied it to this modern era. With the War For Wano battle still taking place in both the anime and the manga, one fan decided to create art that harkens back to the early days of the anime and imagine what the Straw Hats’ modern aesthetic would look like. 

One Piece’s anime has been running for decades now, first premiering in Japan in 1999 and starting the adaptation that would follow Monkey D. Luffy assembling his crew of swashbucklers to aid him in becoming the King of the Pirates. Since the beginning, Toei Animation has been helming the series, though the art and style of the television show has changed dramatically since its earlier days, with the forward trajectory of technology and how it applied to the field of anime. With Eiichiro Oda going on record that he is aiming to end the series within the next five years, we wouldn’t expect another thousand episodes to air for the Shonen franchise, but we’ve seen crazier things happen. 

A Reddit User shared this artwork from Tanmoy1 that imagines Roronoa Zoro and Luffy in their Wano attire, which gave them a far more samurai aesthetic, but with the angle that it had used the art style of the introductory episodes of the One Piece anime that debuted over twenty years ago:

(OC) Wano in the og anime style in celebration of that new opening
byu/ghostjim2 inOnePiece

While the victors of the War For Wano have yet to be revealed, the latest arc has given each of the Straw Hats their own unique battles to deal with. As Luffy struggles against the overwhelming force of Kaido, Sanji is fighting against the Beast Pirate Queen, while Zoro is set to battle King in turn. While we aren’t sure if all the Straw Hats will be making it out of this arc alive, it’s clear that the War for Wano will change the world of the Grand Line forever. 

What do you think of this trip to One Piece’s past? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Grand Line.