Among the many many skills which have benefited from Toei’s renewed dedication to One Piece’s anime adaptation, there are none extra spectacular or constant than director Megumi Ishitani. Having first directed the ultimate episode of Dragon Ball Tremendous, she has since made an indelible mark on One Piece, affirming her expertise by means of directing what is probably going the sequence’ all-time best episode throughout its Wano arc. That episode revealed the absurd vary of her aesthetic genius, the attention for storyboarding and cinematic gildings that make each work she creates really feel not similar to an episode, however an occasion. That episode additionally embodied her distinctive expertise for drawing various dramatic threads into one cohesive, thematically resonant complete – to principally synthesize One Piece’s attraction all the way down to its purest essence, the craving for connection and quest for liberation which might be the story’s most poignant and central themes.
Since then, the manufacturing crew has properly determined that although she will be able to assemble beautiful particular person episodes, such spectacles are nonetheless a waste of her explicit skills. Alongside trusted animation director Keisuke Mori, she has since moved on to One Piece-adjacent initiatives that capitalize on that distinctive potential to spin disparate narratives into an emotional complete, and to craft complete private narratives within the margins of bigger worlds. She was accountable for essentially the most totally realized of Movie Purple’s tie-in music movies, and has additionally directed One Piece’s two most up-to-date openings, the place that expertise for unifying drama by means of visible parallels and aesthetic holism can naturally flourish. Each the conclusion of Wano and introduction of Egghead really feel extra significant, extra resonant and intentional, by means of the best way she is in a position to attract each character and battle into one collective cry of craving.
However even these works of montage and synthesis haven’t totally exploited her skills. Openings lend themselves to spectacle, however Ishitani is clearly simply as assured, and maybe even extra comfy, exploring the smaller aspect of human drama, the person actors who’re merely attempting to dwell and thrive inside One Piece’s grand stage. Ishitani managed to make Yamato really feel like a tiny a part of a grand custom in her final tv episode, after which crafted a complete private drama for her Movie Purple piece. Now tasked with making a particular episode that sums up twenty-five years of One Piece drama, she once more strives for a private contact, asking “what do the Straw Hats imply to the abnormal folks of their world? Isn’t there simply as a lot vitality, simply as a lot poignancy within the lives of these on the periphery of greatness, as there’s within the exploits of their larger-than-life heroes?”
The reply is an apparent, emphatic “sure.” Fan Letter explores the margins of One Piece’s drama, centering totally on a younger lady who desires of attaining the identical greatness as her hero Nami, in addition to a navy officer whose desires are nonetheless haunted by the battle that ended One Piece’s first half. Of their abnormal human struggles, Ishitani finds simply as a lot ardour and craving as these of the titanic Straw Hats, demonstrating the identical lesson embodied by a lot of Naoko Yamada’s work: that the influence of drama just isn’t a query of its exterior scale, however of its creator’s sensitivity to human emotion, their potential to make visceral and common the challenges undergirding every human life.
The quick opens with a transparent assertion of goal, describing the grand tumult of One Piece’s drama after which assuring us that “even in such occasions, the vast majority of folks don’t aspire to be pirates, and don’t pursue the One Piece.” It isn’t the truth that Nami is a history-making pirate that conjures up Fan Letter’s heroine; it’s the truth that she does all that as a secular human, with no preposterous bodily power or magical satan fruit powers. Equally, it’s not Luffy’s power that makes such an influence on the Marineford soldier; it’s how he, by demonstrating {that a} thousand small acts can irreparably change our future, gave this soldier the hope that he can also make a tiny but consequential change within the lives of others.
The pair of them naturally exhibit how One Piece’s themes nonetheless resonate even on the floor stage. It’s a typical thread throughout Ishitani’s work; her perspective isn’t aligned with Luffy himself, however with the folks within the crowd, gazing up in awe on the lights of Onigashima or the Pirate King’s ascent. Regardless of that sense of distance, the identical themes maintain true for each; our Nami fan is swiftly instructed that “folks can’t dwell alone,” an echo of One Piece’s anthemic “ain’t nobody born into this world to be alone.” Via such a direct parallel, Ishitani emphasizes from the beginning how One Piece in all varieties isn’t about buying energy, however about searching for freedom and household, targets that possess a universality past the same old shonen paradigm. Certainly, the very anonymity of those characters emphasize their embodiment of that theme – they’re by no means referred to by identify, solely because the “daughter of the wholesaler” or “son of the greengrocer,” emphasizing each their universality as avatars and the truth that our lives are outlined not by the titles we declare, however by the folks we share them with.
Via the institution of this mundane human scale, the comparatively awe-inspiring nature of the Straw Hats’ personal trials comes by means of all of the extra clearly. The sheer enormity of the battle in Marineford couldn’t really be captured from Luffy’s aspect; it was largely only a haze of battle, obscured by Luffy’s panicked pursuit of his brother Ace. Right here on the bottom ground, the titanic penalties of an ice shelf cracking or big falling to the earth are made viscerally obvious, every shift on this battle of the gods raining horrible penalties upon the abnormal troopers beneath. And it’s exactly from this vantage that the universality of Luffy crying out for his brother turns into obvious – how his phrases encourage throughout him, each on and past the display.
This admittedly isn’t only a results of Ishitani’s skills, and admittedly wouldn’t be attainable with most shonen manga. One Piece is exclusive in the way it embraces an enormous array of battle types, stretching past the same old “our guys have to get stronger than the opposite guys” to discover society, prejudice, and the development of historical past on each a micro and macro stage. His worlds really feel genuinely alive and lived-in in a approach most of his friends can’t start to match, and that vitality is instantly harnessed for this particular’s distinctive goals. Given how richly Oda has already furnished the Sabaody Archipelago, and the way totally he articulates how the Straw Hats seem from the sidelines, Ishitani merely needed to adorn Oda’s scaffolding along with her personal characters and singular aesthetic voice.
Ishitani’s persevering with collaboration with Keisuke Mori additionally shouldn’t be discounted. Mori’s fluid, playful strategy to character artwork works naturally with Ishitani’s visually frenetic but character-focused storytelling, in addition to her employment of montage and collage in her storyboarding. Mori’s rounded characters preserve readability of identification regardless of their wild character appearing distortions; there’s an “essence” to them that continues to be, very like how Ishitani hews to a clear thematic throughline regardless of her many playful digressions.
However that thematic holism, that readability of goal inside this particular, is all Ishitani. Her contributions to One Piece are infused with the essence of how we within the viewers have come to like One Piece, the earnest awe at being a small a part of one thing so grand, but so shut and comforting. Having realized from the Straw Hats’ classes, she is as Luffy herself, providing a reassuring grin earlier than bounding off to overcome the world. She is no matter Straw Hat conjures up you to hunt your personal journey.
One after the other, the errant puzzle items of those characters’ choices come collectively in fluid array, presenting Fan Letter’s heroine with one exact second, one likelihood to vary the world. “If I survive, will I be capable of make an influence on somebody’s life sometime?” our Marineford soldier wonders, cataloging the quirks of destiny that led him to the possibility to avoid wasting his personal brother. The truth that our lives are modified by such vagaries of fortune is a supply of encouragement – it implies that we too may present such small modifications, ostensibly minor actions that nonetheless have a grand, important impact on the lives of others.
We are able to’t all be King of the Pirates, however all of us can change our future, make this world a brighter place for these near us, maintain tight to our family members and supply others the liberty to dream. “Nami is valuable to me as a result of she makes me assume I can have adventures too,” our heroine confides, revealing the spark that guides us all, the hope of constructing our personal tiny modifications that such grand works as One Piece can encourage. One Piece is gorgeous, however Ishitani already is aware of that; her contributions as an alternative spin the digicam round, declaring firmly that we are lovely, as nicely.
It’s possible that Ishitani is rising too massive for One Piece; that she’s going to comply with the trail of former Toei all-stars like Rie Matsumoto, rising to the highest of their in-house groups earlier than vaulting off right into a hopefully brighter future. I can solely hope that the world continues to supply appropriate canvases for her majestic dramas, and that quickly her identify will stand proudly alongside the best movie administrators of the medium’s historical past. Till that day comes, I’m grateful she’s nonetheless bringing our collective desires of One Piece to life.
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