One Piece: Stampede Reveals Main Crew

Now that work on One Piece‘s big 20th Anniversary film, One Piece: Stampede, has wrapped as of August and is inching closer to its big premiere in Japan, more details about the production of the film are starting to come to light. It’s been pretty mysterious considering much of the production side focus has been on how the Wano Country arc was being developed for the anime series, but it’s now clear that many of the staff from the anime series have been tandemly working on the film.

According to a report from @YonkouProd on Twitter, One Piece: Stampede director Takashi Otsuka revealed that Masato Mitsuka and Ryota Nakamura are serving on the film as assistant directors. Along with this, Otsuka reportedly revealed that Masayuki Sato, Masayuki Takagi, Kumi Nakajou, Yuya Takahashi, Ryo Onishi, Akihiro Ota, Naoki Tate, and Midori Matsuda will be serving as supervisors and animators for the film.

Dedicated fans of the franchise will recognize many of these names as Midori Matsuda works on the Wano Country arc as the character designer, animators like Yuya Takahashi (who fans are probably more familiar with his work on the Dragon Ball Super series) and Naoki Tate are also big names that are great to see as part of the staff for the film.

One Piece: Stampede is currently scheduled to hit theaters August 9th in Japan. There is currently no word on its release to other territories as of this writing, but Fuji TV officially describes the film as such, “The world’s greatest exposition of the pirates, by the pirates, for the pirates – the Pirates Festival. Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hat Crew receive an invitation from its host Buena Festa who is known as the Master of Festivities. They arrive to find a venue packed with glamorous pavilions and many pirates including the ones from the Worst Generation. The place is electric.”

The trailers for the film have teased quite a fantastic looking return for many of the franchise’s fan favorite allies and enemies, and by the looks of the staff there is definitely going to be some fun sequences for fans to get their eyes on. There are new characters coming to the film along with all the returning cameos too, and include Tsutomu Isobe as Douglas Bullet, Yusuke Santamaria as Buena Festa, Rino Sashihara as Ann, Ryota Yamasato as Donald Moderate, and Chinese fashion model and singer Ron Monroe, YouTuber group Fischer’s, and Naoto Takenaka in currently unconfirmed roles.