One Year Later, The One Piece Episode That Rewrote Shonen’s Playbook

I want to revisit One Piece Fan Letter now that we have a little distance from it. A year later, it still feels like a love note to the fandom that somehow also turned into one of the best-looking pieces of animation the franchise has ever had. Yes, I mean ever.

What it is, and why it mattered right away

One Piece Fan Letter dropped on October 20, 2024 as part of the anime's 25th anniversary. Instead of a big theatrical release or a celebratory event, Toei put out a special episode. That alone was a nice switch-up. It loosely adapts the novel Straw Hat Stories by Tomohito Ohsaki, but the episode tweaks things to fit the format and keep the focus clean: how regular people see the Straw Hat Pirates.

It landed not just as a story, but as a thank-you. You could feel the gratitude from both the studio side and the mangaka side. Director Megumi Ishitani, her team, and Toei Animation showed up like they had something to prove, and honestly, they did. The effort is all over the screen.

Toei's long road to this point

Toei has been steering One Piece since 1999. Those early seasons? Fun, but rough. Outdated animation, uneven polish. Over time they upgraded the look, even went back and put out remastered versions of older seasons. Since the East Blue days, the glow-up has been real, and in recent years they have delivered some genuinely top-tier episodes. Fan Letter still sits apart from all of that. It is its own thing.

The animation flex

Fan Letter is vibrant, weird in a good way, and nothing like the standard One Piece house style. The art feels alive. The action is staged to highlight the monsters of this world at full power, but it never loses the humanity of the people watching them. The perspective shift to everyday civilians reframes the Straw Hats in a way the main series rarely pauses to do. And yes, it looks outrageous. As in, even now in 2025, it outclasses most series trying to compete.

Critics and fans were all-in. The numbers back it up:

• IMDb: 9.2/10
• Letterboxd: 4.6/5
• MyAnimeList: 9.03/10

Canon or not? The emotional hit is the point

There has been some back-and-forth on whether it is canon. Most fans treat it as such. Either way, the impact was immediate in the broader shonen community. It is one of those specials that makes people cry on rewatch, not because it is cheap about it, but because it knows exactly where One Piece's heart actually lives.

The episode opens with the Straw Hats' voice actors singing We Are!, which already stamps it as special. But the masterstroke is focusing on nameless characters. A rookie Marine shaking during the Summit War. A kid who idolizes a Straw Hat. People who do not have Devil Fruits or Haki or any fighting chops at all, just lives that still get shaped by these pirates. That is very Oda: side characters that make the world feel lived-in. Watching these civilians draw courage from the Straw Hats ends up more satisfying than a lot of full arcs.

One thread stuck with fans in particular: Nami's admirer. The way her story builds to that letter — and the simple hope she will actually get it into the navigator's hands — is painfully human. A year later, people are still rooting for her to deliver.

Why this special still matters a year later

Fan Letter showed how to do a fan celebration without empty fanservice: take a step back, change the angle, and say thank you with craft. It also reminded everyone how far Toei has come since 1999, and then casually cleared that bar. You do not need to be told you are appreciated when an episode this carefully made exists; you can feel it.

Where to watch

One Piece Fan Letter is streaming on Crunchyroll.