The official Twitter account of Eiichiro Oda’s long-running One Piece series just shared some good news: the newest film in the franchise, One Piece Stampede, has earned over $1 million in ticket sales! This is despite the fact that the movie screened only in select US and Canada theaters, and that it screened for just one week only!
To refresh your memory, the 14th film in the One Piece franchise was screened from October 24-31 by Funimation (audiences got to pick whether to watch the Japanese or English dub). On the Japanese side of things, the film opened last August 8, the franchise’s 20th anniversary. It also set records in its home country, with the film’s first day in theaters earning the largest first-day attendance record in Japan this 2019, selling 356, 052 tickets.
Most of the main cast returned for the film, such as the voice actors for Monkey D. Luffy (Mayumi Tanaka), Roronoa Zoro (Kazuya Nakai), Nami (Akemi Okamura), Usopp (Kappei Yamaguchi), Vinsmoke Sanji (Hiroaki Hirata), and Tony Tony Chopper (Ikue Ohtani).
The film’s story is described by Fuji TV 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.”
One Piece was first released in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in July 22, 1997. Written by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy who gained the ability of stretching his body like rubber after accidentally eating a Devil Fruit. Together with his band of pirates named the Straw Hat Pirates, he explores the Grand Line in search of the “One Piece”, hailed as the greatest treasure in the world and the key to become the next Pirate King. Since its publication, Oda’s magnum opus has enjoyed critical and commercial success in Japan and abroad, even setting a Guinness World Record in 2015 for “most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author”. In 1999, Toei Animation adapted his work into a TV anime and has been running ever since, enjoying great popularity as well.
Source: Crunchyroll News