In collaboration with Shueisha Inc. and Toei Animation Co., Ltd., Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. held “ONE PIECE DAY ’23,” a two-day event that brought together all aspects of ONE PIECE including manga, anime, movies, music, games, and merchandise for ONE PIECE fans from across the world, attracting attendees to the in-person festivities at Tokyo Big Sight.

Over two million fans joined the live stream with simultaneous English interpretation and were enthralled by the latest developments unfolding on the main stage in real-time.

The main entrance of the event looked like this:

The archived live streams of the main stage for Friday, July 21 “DAY 1” and Saturday, July 22 “DAY
2″ can be viewed at the following URLs until Friday, October 20 (JST):

On the first day of the streaming, One Piece Film Red, the latest blockbuster movie of the series was played as part of the “Let’s go! ONE PIECE FILM RED Special Cheer Screening”.

The movie was released in Japan on Aug. 6, 2022, and has since grossed over 31.9 billion yen worldwide.

Several Cast members such as Kaori Nazuka (Uta), Seiya, and Soshina from Shimofuri Myojo (Jellyfish Pirates) took the stage as special guests to demonstrate to the audience how to best enjoy the cheer session with Chopper’s help.

The audience was excited by Nazuka’s opening line: “My music will set you free, then we’ll all live happily together in peace!” Nazuka was thrilled to reunite with Shimofuri Myojo for the first time since filming.

The screening was a great success among the enthusiastic fans gathered at the venue.

On the second day of the event anime cast of the anime series graced the audience with their presence. The cast included Mayumi Tanaka (Monkey D. Luffy), Kazuya Nakai (Roronoa Zoro), Akemi Okamura (Nami), Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp), and Hiroaki Hirata (Sanji) and began with a surprise announcement of the world premiere trailer for the Netflix live-action series “ONE PIECE.”

When the cast, all of whom dubbed the live-action version, were asked what they thought about the series, Tanaka said “It’s really interesting! It’s very fun! I think you’ll be surprised!”

At the end of the session, Tanaka read a message directly from the creator of ONE PIECE, Eiichiro Oda:
“There are no compromises on this show!” “All the efforts by the actors, the building of the world and
the costumes, presenting things in a way that can only be done in live-action, the dialogue, and the
entire process of so many people putting their heads together was a festivity in and of itself.”

The live-action series will be released worldwide beginning Thursday, Aug. 31 exclusively on Netflix.

Here’s what Oda-sensei had to say about the live-action series:

There was also an entire section kept for holding an exhibition based on the live-action series:

The event also had several sections one of which was the “Behind the Scenes of Land of Wano” corner delved deeply into the production of the anime’s Land of Wano Arc, which is now approaching its climax, with comments from the production team about the hidden stories from the show’s creation.

When the discussion came to the long-awaited GEAR5 debut scene, a portion of the GEAR5 episode was screened in advance, to ONE PIECE DAY attendees and streaming audience members.

In addition, a series of surprising announcements were made, including never-before-released information on games and goods.

In the last major segment of the ONE PIECE DAY main stage program, Maki Otsuki made a grand entrance, as was fitting to close out the day. She performed “Memories,” the original ending theme of the anime followed by “RUN!RUN!RUN!.”

Otsuki announced that the ending theme song would be revived 17 years after being removed in 2006 when the program moved to the morning time slot.

A video message was played from Chilli Beans., the three-member female band that performs the song. The audience was delighted by the song and a part of the ending animation with the comment “I used to watch ONE PIECE from when I was a little girl so having this opportunity to sing the ending music is such a delight.” from Moto, the band’s vocalist.

The memorable return date will be Aug. 6, when GEAR5 will appear on the air. The audience’s excitement was further heightened when it was announced that SEKAI NO OWARI would be performing the main theme song.

The final song of ONE PIECE DAY’ 23 was “We Are! for the new world.” The two-day event came to a close with Otsuki leading the song with a shout of “We are!” with the attendees and other guests singing along enthusiastically.

Overview of the new ending theme song
Artist: Chilli Beans.
Song Title: Raise
Broadcast start date: Sunday, Aug. 6

Overview of the new main theme song
Artist: SEKAI NO OWARI
Title: TBD
Broadcast start date: TBD

About ONE PIECE DAY:
An event that brings together all the beloved contents of “ONE PIECE,” including manga, anime,
movies, music, games and merchandise, for “ONE PIECE” fans from all over the world. “ONE PIECE
DAY,” an event held in 2022 to coincide with “ONE PIECE DAY,” which falls on July 22, will this year
be held at and live-streamed from Tokyo Big Sight on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22 JST.
● Dates (JST)
○ Day One (Evening): Friday, July 21, 2023/Doors open at 4:00 p.m./Event runs from
5:00-8:00 p.m.
○ Day Two: Saturday, July 22, 2023/Event runs from 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
(doors will close at 5:00 p.m.)
● Venue: Tokyo Big Sight (Halls 3 and 4, South Exhibition Hall 4F, 3-11-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo
135-0063, Japan)
● Official website: https://onepiece-day.com/

Source: Press Release