As we all know by now – and if this is how you’re finding out, I’m sorry – the One Piece anime is taking a substantial break from its weekly episodes covering the manga. Instead they will show us a newly animated version of the Fishman Island arc as well as a special based on a One Piece novel. Hopefully this gives the manga the time to build up some chapters so that the anime doesn’t have to move at a snail’s pace once it gets back on track. Part of me also hopes they manage to give the animators some rest during this time, but I’m not too hopeful. But we’re not here to talk about all of this today, I want to instead take a quick moment to talk about the special that came out yesterday: Fan Letter.
We’re all familiar with Koby’s heroic actions at Marineford where he was starting to realize that war might not be good for the people involved in it. He was a relatively weak figure standing up to the powerful Akainu and ultimately being saved by the heroic pirate Shanks. What we haven’t really seen too much of in One Piece is the lives of those impacted by the pirates. Fan Letter solves this “problem” beautifully.
We follow the lives of four people who live on Sabaody archipelago. Two brothers who are part of the navy and served during the Marineford war, a navy official who is a big fan of Chopper and finally a young girl who doesn’t like pirates but admires Nami for being a normal young woman who is able to go on adventures with these incredibly powerful people. She wants to deliver a fan letter to Nami as she’s figured out Luffy’s secret code about when the crew comes back together. Amidst the chaos we follow her as she tries to deliver the letter and sneak a peek at the dangerous pirate crew before they leave. She unknowingly gets some help from Usopp on her journey and you’ll have to watch the episode itself to see how it ends.
What I want to focus on are the two brothers. Both of them have very different personalities. The younger brother has a sense of duty and honor, he’s hardworking and very straightforward. The older brother is much more laidback. It’s not that he’s uncaring and doesn’t do his work at all, but he’s much less bothered by the stress of it all and prefers to slack off when he can. Work smart, not hard is his motto and we do see some examples of him being smart with replacing his brother’s gun strap because the standard issue ones are bad and he wouldn’t want his brother to be in trouble if it breaks. We’re shown these little moments where they do care about each other even though the younger brother claims he doesn’t care as much.
When we get to the flashback during the Marineford war we see these simple navy officers with a gun and nothing else to protect themselves stuck in the crossfire of absolute monsters like Mihawk, Whitebeard, Luffy and Akainu. What can a normal soldier do in that case? Well, we’ve seen the shots of pirates wiping out entire battalions with a single sword strike, so there’s really not much they can do. They know this as well and when the older brother gets his leg stuck under some of Aokiji’s ice, the younger brother’s instinct is to run. He hesitates and his older brother yells at him to run to safety where you’re half expecting him to ask for help instead. The younger brother probably would have run away if not for Luffy flashing by during the chaos yelling that he won’t abandon Ace because he’s his brother. So the younger brother finds his resolve and as we can see in the current day, manages to get his brother out safely. Ever since then he’s been a fan of Luffy for indirectly saving his brother.
It’s such a beautiful little episode that perfectly brings the different storybeats together. It’s animated in that new One Piece style that feels one step removed from chaotic but because of that incredibly alive and active. I still think that Toei heard the announcement of a One Piece remake and took that as a personal attack. The entire anime has been on a completely different level lately, looking better than 99% of seasonal anime. But all of this shows us a different side of the One Piece world that you really shouldn’t miss out on. So if you figured this would just be an unimportant side story that you could skip, I highly advise you still check it out. It’s wonderful and hearing some of the older music come back literally put tears in my eyes. I’m super excited for what’s to come in the next few weeks and I appreciate you all being here and reading this post!
Opal Kaharis 