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Eiichiro Oda Requested One Piece Film Red To Give "Important Role to a Female Character"

Toei Animation producer Shinji Shimizu revealed at Toei's 2022 film lineup press conference on Thursday that One Piece manga creator Eiichiro Oda had two very specific requests for the upcoming One Piece Film Red anime film: bring in a director who isn't necessarily involved in the TV series, and give "an important role to a female character."

Shimizu said that they were able to fulfill both requests. Having interacted with Code Geass director Gorō Taniguchi before, he reached out to the director. It turned out that he was an old friend of Oda's and immediately accepted the job. Shimizu said that although there aren't many occasions when a director from outside Toei Animation works in the studio, he relishes the result. "I feel like we've got a good chemical change happening," he said.

As for the request to give a female character an important role, Shimizu stated that it was difficult to write the script while taking that into account. He expressed his gratitude to screenwriter Tsutomu Kuroiwa for "putting it all together." Finally, he stated that Oda is just as, if not even more heavily involved in One Piece Film Red than he was in One Piece Film Strong World, which he wrote the story for.

Gorō Taniguchi (Code Geass, One Piece: Defeat The Pirate Ganzak! (special)) will direct One Piece Film Red. Tsutomu Kuroiwa (One Piece Film Gold, One Piece: Heart of Gold, GANTZ:O, live-action Black Butler) is writing the screenplay, and One Piece manga creator Eiichiro Oda himself is serving as executive producer. The film will open in Japan on August 6, 2022.

One Piece Stampede, the 14th and most recent film in the franchise, opened in Japan in August 2019, and earned more than 10 billion yen (about US$93 million) at the box office worldwide. Funimation premiered the film in cinemas in the the United States and Canada in October 2019. The film celebrated the anime's 20th anniversary.

Source: Comic Natalie