This article contains spoilers from One Piece's Egghead arc.
Summary
- Megumi Ishitani loves all One Piece characters equally and does not play favorites.
- Fans upset about Sanji's portrayal in recent episodes should not harass staff on Twitter.
- Toei may make mistakes in handling characters, but the manga remains the main canon source for fans.
Fans couldn’t be more excited for the return of the One Piece anime, or so many people thought. Immediately after the One Piece anime returned, it got hit with endless controversy about its bad handling of a certain character. This event led to some fans harassing Megumi Ishitani, a legendary One Piece director, on Twitter.
‘They Disgrace Oda’s Work’: One Piece Fans Lash Out At Toei Animation Over Anime Adaptation
One Piece fans are unhappy with recent episodes. All due to unfaithful adaptation by Toei.
Megumi Ishitani Responds to Comments On Twitter About The Newest One Piece Episodes
Some One Piece Fans Have Been Riled Up About The Current Controversy With Sanji
The One Piece anime is big, and after a 6-month break, fans couldn’t be more excited for its return. The anime came back last weekend with not one, but two new episodes, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday.
With all that, however, a huge controversy has exploded in the One Piece fandom, and the discourse is never-ending at this point. Many One Piece fans are quite upset at Toei for their recent handling of the character of Sanji, and for a few reasons.
In the most recent two episodes, Sanji was seen showing hearty eyes towards Jewelry Bonney, who is 12. This never happened in the manga, so this is a very bad choice from Toei’s side as it paints Sanji in a bad light, although at this point, she's a 24-year-old to him. Yet, Oda specifically chose to not have him obsess over Bonney for a reason. That aside, however, the anime also made it seem like Sanji was struggling against S-Shark, and even had Nami defeat him in the end, which also never happened in the manga. And one can’t forget to mention Sanji’s erasure from one of the biggest double spreads from Egghead Island, for seemingly no reason at all. Either way, one can see why fans are upset.
But, while the concerns are certainly valid, some fans have crossed a line and started harassing staff on Twitter. Fans have, in turn, gone to Megumi Ishitani’s Twitter page, and started asking her questions. Over the last few days, Ishitani has been responding to many people’s questions. A discussion with her went as follows on Twitter:
Q: Why does Sanji have heart eyes for a Kid when Oda-sensei made sure he didn't do that? Why does Toei hate Sanji?
Megumi Ishitani: Since I am not the director of this episode, I will keep my opinion about it private. When it comes to the projects I work on, I try not to like or dislike any particular character. I love them all equally.
Asking Megumi Ishitani these kinds of questions is quite inappropriate, especially as she had zero involvement in these episodes. Some One Piece fans expected her to carry the message to Toei that fans are upset, which is also very inappropriate to ask of her.
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Megumi Ishitani clearly states that she doesn’t play favorites with characters, and that she loves them all equally. In other words, she wouldn’t purposefully try to ruin a certain character for an agenda.
Either way, this entire controversy, while focused on Sanji, is nothing new for Toei, and isn’t really specific to Sanji’s character. It can happen with any character, and even happened with Zoro in Wano when Toei revealed ahead of time that he had Conqueror’s Haki, ruining his big moment in the anime. A lot of fans also harassed Ty Yong-ce over not being interested in sword fights, which is bizarre.
This is most certainly the case with the vast majority of the One Piece anime staff. Of course, scriptwriters and Episode Directors can make mistakes as their understanding of One Piece characters and the rules might be flawed sometimes, but there is no purposeful mistreatment. With all that in mind, fans should not harass anyone working on One Piece episodes, or even anyone with an opinion in general. At the end of the day, the anime is an adaptation. There will always be changes. The manga is the main canon source and nothing can take that away from the fans.
- Release Date
- October 20, 1999
- Network
- Fuji TV
- Directors
- Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
Cast
-
Mayumi TanakaMonkey D. Luffy (voice) -
Kazuya NakaiRoronoa Zoro (voice)
WHERE TO WATCH
- Studio
- Toei Animation
- Creator
- Eiichiro Oda
- Streaming Service(s)
- Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu, Pluto TV
