One Piece's Time Change Gets Stage Show

Four One Piece cast members made a grand entrance at AnimeJapan with a 10-minute skit about the planned time slot change - and Mayumi Tanaka went all out in her role as a father.

AnimeJapan 2025 Day 1 stage shows ended with a bang with One Piece's debut at the event. Where many stage shows at AnimeJapan feature a series cast talking about their experiences on set or playing a little game, the One Piece show went the extra mile with a 10-minute opening skit. Featuring voice actors Mayumi Tanaka (voice of Monkey D. Luffy), Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp), Kazuya Nakai (Roronoa Zoro), and Subaru Kimura (Franky), the skit follows a family dealing with the time slot change of the massively popular anime series, from Sunday mornings at 9:30 a.m. to Sunday nights at 11:15 p.m. (Japan Time). Throughout the skit, we got some iconic lines, and some lines turned lowbrow, from One Piece.

Opening with an “April 6, Morning” card, Tanaka and Yamaguchi appeared on stage as a father and mother respectively, bantering over current events. They're soon followed by Nakai playing a child asking where the Sunday paper is so he can see if his favorite show, One Piece, is on. To his surprise and with some ominous background music, Nakai exclaims, “What?! No One Piece!” The reason for Nakai's shock isn't One Piece “isn't airing” on April 6, but that he invited a friend and transfer student to watch the episode with him.

Like clockwork, the friend arrives at the Tanaka, Yamaguchi, and Nakai household. And that friend is none other than Kimura, the new voice of One Piece character. Almost as if ad-libbing a bit, Tanaka is surprised at how big Kimura is and asks what grade he's in. The ever-sharp Kimura responds, “I just joined the crew recently.” After a little banter about what grade a “crew” is, Kimura is told there's no One Piece airing that week.

Looking at a shocked Kimura, Tanaka then asks what the big deal about this one-piece dress is. Out of nowhere the opening riff of “We Are,” One Piece's first opening theme song, starts playing and Kimura and Nakai begin explaining how Luffy uses his rubber body to defeat his enemies. Tanaka and Yamaguchi are quick to respond with a lowbrow dad joke about the dad having rubber powers and he's gotten a bit rubbery down low himself.

Undeterred, Nakai demonstrates one of Luffy's iconic moves, the Gum Gum Red Hawk. One more lowbrow joke and fourth wall break later by Tanaka and Yamaguchi, Nakai demonstrates Zoro's sword technique Onigiri. And a true entertainer, Nakai takes a short moment to get into character and performs the Onigiri live.

The topic of Sanji then arises and how much of a “ladies' man” he is. Joking about how he also asks all the girls in the class out, Kimura states Sanji is a serious person. To show it off Kimura quotes the famous Sanji line as he's leaving the Baratie in episode 30, “Thank you for all the damn things!” Not satisfied with the Sanji quote, Kimura then runs off to get a bottle of cola, downs it, then proceeds to perform the iconic Franky pose.

With some more banter and one last off color joke from Tanaka, Kimura re-reads the newspaper and realizes One Piece changed its time slot from Sunday mornings at 9:30 to 11:15 at night. Not missing a beat Tanaka says, without any hesitation, “One Piece: After Dark” and asks what kind of show that is. With the final joke, the skit hard cuts to a finish with the cast exiting stage left.

Following the extended skit, the One Piece stage show continued with several announcements, including what the cast was up to during the series' extended break and the reveal of the principal cast of the forthcoming short One Piece spinoff anime series Koisuru One Piece, Ryunosuke Kanemoto (voice of Luffy Yamamoto), Ayane Sakura (Nami Koyama), and Yūichi Nakamura (UsoppNagatsugawa). The show ended with the cast and audience performing the Franky pose one last time.

The full One Piece AnimeJapan 2025 stage show is currently available on the One Piece Official YouTube Channel.