The anime of One Piece celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The team is celebrating this with a very special episode. It has been received so well by fans that they are breaking into tears of joy in droves.
What is this special about? Instead of a new episode of Luffy’s adventures in One Piece, the production team showcased the special One Piece Fan Letter. It revisits the events from the Marineford arc and the reunion of the Straw Hat crew – but this time from the perspective of other people.
- This time, One Piece Fan Letter focuses not on Luffy and his friends, but on ordinary citizens who are influenced by the actions of the Straw Hat crew.
- In the special episode, we see a girl who takes Nami as her role model and writes her a fan letter.
- A marine soldier manages to save his brother on the battlefield from a deadly attack thanks to Luffy.
- A high-ranking marine officer is a big fan of Chopper and even has a hidden photo collection in the drawer of his desk.
- The Straw Hats themselves only appear briefly in a few scenes. We experience in the end how they successfully sail away from the Sabaody Archipelago – thanks to the help of their admirers.
There are more individuals in the special episode, each idolizing a different member of the Straw Hat crew. For example, a bookstore employee is a huge fan of Brook and is disappointed that she couldn’t get a ticket for his last concert.
Through all these stories, viewers can identify with the characters shown. That’s why the episode is so well received online that it nearly catches up with Frieren, the current best anime.
You can see the first impressions of the special episode here:
One Piece Fan Letter ranks second among the best animes
How is the special received? Shortly after its release, One Piece Fan Letter lands at number 2 among the best animes on MyAnimeList. This is one of the largest ranking sites for animes. The ranking may change in the coming weeks as only about 17,000 people have rated it so far. For comparison: Frieren, the current anime at number 1, has about 924,000 ratings.
However, the rating of 9.26/10 points already indicates how fans assess the episode. For user SenEto99, the episode was better than anything he saw during the Wano Kuni or Egghead arcs. He has already watched the episode 5 times:
There are numerous reactions online that echo this sentiment. X user K__Oussama reportedly cried during the episode and is speechless about it. Also, MarianneDHobbit shared on X that she cried as well.
For X user Zoro186890, the episode is particularly interesting because it shows the true face of war during the Marineford arc. The episode depicts the bloody and brutal consequences of the battle, where even a marine soldier crouches in mourning next to his deceased comrade.
Another special highlight is that the ending of the episode features a well-known opening from One Piece – sung by the voice actors. Furthermore, not only the Straw Hats make an appearance, but also side characters like Perona – a character who is shown far too rarely in the anime.
