With the premiere of its 1,000th episode, “One Piece” is one of the longest-running shonen series, or a genre of Japanese manga and anime aimed towards a younger male audience. The franchise surrounds the journey of Monkey D. Luffy as he embarks to find the “one piece”, which first aired 22 years ago. Eiichiro Oda, creator of One Piece, crossed the 1,000th chapter border with the manga literary series but to see it happen with the anime is an incredible milestone for the show.

Toei Animation and the team at Shueisha went all out for the episode including a remade version of the first opening of One Piece “We Are”. The progression of the crew throughout the years was made apparent with the opening and a feeling of nostalgia was made. Additionally, an announcement was made for reaching such a milestone, which teased the release of a new film called “One Piece Film: Red”. The movie will give more insight to one of the most mysterious figures in all of One Piece: Shanks. Fans are psyched to see where Oda will take the film and if he is even going to make the movie cannon for the sake of the story.

“I love how each of the Straw Hats got a spotlight for the episode and the animation was incredible. This episode is seriously one of the most monumental episodes in anime history,” senior Justin Pujol said.

Appreciation for the Japanese hit show can be seen across the world. France gave fans the opportunity to watch episode 1,000 in cinemas and many other countries around the world promoted the episode with large billboards or posters. Japan has made it its mission to promote the episode’s release as much as possible, as this feat only comes around once in a lifetime.

“Seeing Luffy come so far in his journey to becoming the Pirate King is one of the reasons why One Piece is a cut above the rest. I started watching One Piece back in March and I am so glad to have started this series,” senior Daniel Michel said.

“Crashing Crunchyroll”, a website with the largest collection of anime to watch aided in bringing so much hype for a singular episode. They made a point to show viewers that the evolution of the characters and development of the story is why the episode is monumental. “One Piece” stands at the top of the manga world being the top-selling manga series of all time and with the release of this episode, its popularity will only continue to accumulate.