Among the many talents that have benefited from Toei’s renewed dedication to One Piece’s anime adaptation, there are none more spectacular or consistent than director Megumi Ishitani. Having first directed the final episode of Dragon Ball Super, she has since made an indelible mark on One Piece, affirming her talent through directing what is likely the series’ all-time greatest episode during its Wano arc. That episode revealed the absurd range of her aesthetic genius, the eye for storyboarding and cinematic embellishments that make every work she creates feel not just like an episode, but an event. That episode also embodied her unique talent for drawing diverse dramatic threads into one cohesive, thematically resonant whole – to basically synthesize One Piece’s appeal down to its purest essence, the yearning for connection and quest for liberation that are the story’s most poignant and central themes.

Since then, the production team has wisely decided that though she can construct stunning individual episodes, such spectacles are nonetheless a waste of her particular talents. Alongside trusted animation director Keisuke Mori, she has since moved on to One Piece-adjacent projects that capitalize on that unique ability to spin disparate narratives into an emotional whole, and to craft entire personal narratives in the margins of larger worlds. She was responsible for the most fully realized of Film Red’s tie-in music videos, and has also directed One Piece’s two most recent openings, where that talent for unifying drama through visual parallels and aesthetic holism can naturally flourish. Both the conclusion of Wano and introduction of Egghead feel more meaningful, more resonant and intentional, through the way she is able to draw every character and conflict into one collective cry of yearning.

But even these works of montage and synthesis haven’t fully exploited her abilities. Openings lend themselves to spectacle, but Ishitani is clearly just as confident, and perhaps even more comfortable, exploring the smaller side of human drama, the individual actors who are simply trying to live and thrive within One Piece’s grand stage. Ishitani managed to make Yamato feel like a tiny part of a grand tradition in her last television episode, and then crafted an entire personal drama for her Film Red piece. Now tasked with creating a special episode that sums up twenty-five years of One Piece drama, she again strives for a personal touch, asking “what do the Straw Hats mean to the ordinary people of their world? Isn’t there just as much vitality, just as much poignancy in the lives of those on the periphery of greatness, as there is in the exploits of their larger-than-life heroes?”

The answer is an obvious, emphatic “yes.” Fan Letter explores the margins of One Piece’s drama, centering primarily on a young girl who dreams of achieving the same greatness as her hero Nami, as well as a navy officer whose dreams are still haunted by the war that ended One Piece’s first half. In their ordinary human struggles, Ishitani finds just as much passion and yearning as those of the titanic Straw Hats, demonstrating the same lesson embodied by so much of Naoko Yamada’s work: that the impact of drama is not a question of its external scale, but of its creator’s sensitivity to human emotion, their ability to make visceral and universal the challenges undergirding each human life.

The short opens with a clear statement of purpose, describing the grand tumult of One Piece’s drama and then assuring us that “even in such times, the majority of people do not aspire to be pirates, and do not pursue the One Piece.” It is not the fact that Nami is a history-making pirate that inspires Fan Letter’s heroine; it’s the fact that she does all that as a mundane human, with no preposterous physical strength or magical devil fruit powers. Similarly, it is not Luffy’s strength that makes such an impact on the Marineford soldier; it is how he, by demonstrating that a thousand small acts can irreparably change our destiny, gave this soldier the hope that he too can make a tiny yet consequential change in the lives of others.

The pair of them naturally demonstrate how One Piece’s themes still resonate even at the ground level. It’s a common thread across Ishitani’s work; her perspective is never aligned with Luffy himself, but with the people in the crowd, gazing up in awe at the lights of Onigashima or the Pirate King’s ascent. Despite that sense of distance, the same themes hold true for both; our Nami fan is swiftly instructed that “people can’t live alone,” an echo of One Piece’s anthemic “ain’t no one born into this world to be alone.” Through such a direct parallel, Ishitani emphasizes from the start how One Piece in all forms isn’t about acquiring power, but about seeking freedom and family, goals that possess a universality beyond the usual shonen paradigm. Indeed, the very anonymity of these characters emphasize their embodiment of that theme – they are never referred to by name, only as the “daughter of the wholesaler” or “son of the greengrocer,” emphasizing both their universality as avatars and the fact that our lives are defined not by the titles we claim, but by the people we share them with.

Through the establishment of this mundane human scale, the relatively awe-inspiring nature of the Straw Hats’ own trials comes through all the more clearly. The sheer enormity of the war in Marineford couldn’t truly be captured from Luffy’s side; it was mostly just a haze of battle, obscured by Luffy’s panicked pursuit of his brother Ace. Here on the ground floor, the titanic consequences of an ice shelf cracking or giant falling to the earth are made viscerally apparent, each shift in this battle of the gods raining terrible consequences upon the ordinary soldiers below. And it is precisely from this vantage that the universality of Luffy crying out for his brother becomes apparent – how his words inspire all around him, both on and beyond the screen.

This admittedly isn’t just a result of Ishitani’s talents, and frankly wouldn’t be possible with most shonen manga. One Piece is unique in how it embraces a vast array of conflict styles, stretching beyond the usual “our guys need to get stronger than the other guys” to explore society, prejudice, and the construction of history on both a micro and macro level. His worlds feel genuinely alive and lived-in in a way most of his peers can’t begin to match, and that vitality is directly harnessed for this special’s unique aims. Given how richly Oda has already furnished the Sabaody Archipelago, and how fully he articulates how the Straw Hats appear from the sidelines, Ishitani merely had to adorn Oda’s scaffolding with her own characters and singular aesthetic voice.

Ishitani’s continuing collaboration with Keisuke Mori also shouldn’t be discounted. Mori’s fluid, playful approach to character art works naturally with Ishitani’s visually frenetic yet character-focused storytelling, as well as her employment of montage and collage in her storyboarding. Mori’s rounded characters maintain clarity of identity in spite of their wild character acting distortions; there is an “essence” to them that remains, much like how Ishitani hews to a clean thematic throughline in spite of her many playful digressions.

But that thematic holism, that clarity of purpose within this special, is all Ishitani. Her contributions to One Piece are infused with the essence of how we in the audience have come to love One Piece, the earnest awe at being a small part of something so grand, yet so close and comforting. Having learned from the Straw Hats’ lessons, she is as Luffy herself, offering a reassuring grin before bounding off to conquer the world. She is whatever Straw Hat inspires you to seek your own adventure.

One by one, the errant puzzle pieces of these characters’ decisions come together in fluid array, presenting Fan Letter’s heroine with one precise moment, one chance to change the world. “If I survive, will I be able to make an impact on someone’s life someday?” our Marineford soldier wonders, cataloging the quirks of fate that led him to the chance to save his own brother. The fact that our lives are changed by such vagaries of fortune is a source of encouragement – it means that we too could provide such small changes, ostensibly minor actions that nonetheless have a grand, essential effect on the lives of others.

We can’t all be King of the Pirates, but all of us can change our destiny, make this world a brighter place for those close to us, hold tight to our loved ones and provide others the freedom to dream. “Nami is precious to me because she makes me think I can have adventures too,” our heroine confides, revealing the spark that guides us all, the hope of making our own tiny changes that such grand works as One Piece can inspire. One Piece is beautiful, but Ishitani already knows that; her contributions instead spin the camera around, declaring firmly that we are beautiful, as well.

It is likely that Ishitani is growing too large for One Piece; that she will follow the path of former Toei all-stars like Rie Matsumoto, rising to the top of their in-house teams before vaulting off into a hopefully brighter future. I can only hope that the world continues to offer suitable canvases for her majestic dramas, and that soon her name will stand proudly alongside the greatest film directors of the medium’s history. Until that day comes, I’m thankful she’s still bringing our collective dreams of One Piece to life.

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