One Piece director teases “groundbreaking” Gear 5 episode
He’s kicking things into high Gear.
Fans of the One Piece manga have been hungrily waiting to see when director Tatsuya Nagamine would finally begin to tackle each of Luffy’s power-up Gears sprinkled throughout the manga into the ever-sprawling anime.
Finally, Toei Animation made an announcement during One Piece Day this year that the wait was over: Luffy’s Gear 5 form would be adapted to screen, and it would be coming very soon.
This is a huge revelation for the series, as Luffy’s upgrade to Gear 5 in the manga fundamentally shifts the power dynamic of the entire team, and changes the series moving forward in Eiichiro Oda’s original manga.
When Gear 5 was revealed in the manga just a year prior, fans took to Twitter to voice how much they loved this new evolution of the character, with one user saying “I love it! Gear Five basically turns Luffy into a cartoon character with all the wacky shenanigans that come with it!”
During a special video message broadcast over One Piece Day’s 2023 weekend, director Tatsuya Nagamine teased just how the team would be tackling such a ground-breaking change.
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Speaking to fans, Nagamine hyped up how the episode has been such a mammoth undertaking for everyone involved, so much so they had to recruit globally: “Many people gathered from around the world to work on Gear 5. Four different languages were used in one meeting. Everyone loves One Piece so much.”
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It’s clear that Nagamine is hoping to redefine what we can expect from the One Piece anime, and that he’s pushing everything to its limit, including voice star Mayumi Tanaka. “Our goal is to push boundaries with groundbreaking voice acting. I thought it would be difficult to do the laughing parts, so I tried to cut down on the laughter a little. But Ms Mayumi Tanaka went above and beyond and gave us an amazing Gear 5 laugh. The final result exceeded our expectations.”
The anime’s adaptation of Gear 5 is sure to be one of the most epic moments in the history of the show’s run, and that’s down to Nagamine’s dedication to faithfully adapting Oda’s work, but knowing when to push even further beyond: “We tried to do it just like in the manga … but our dream began to broaden. The animators were all very enthusiastic about it. I’m really thankful for it.”
You can catch One Piece on Crunchyroll. Sign up to Crunchyroll from $7.99 per month with a 14-day free trial.
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