It wasn’t long ago that a One Piece movie would be little more than some quirky little side adventure with no real consequence or merit. For the most part, they fell in line with other animated films based on long-running shonen properties. The scale was often cut, the plot short, and the battles fast and often unmemorable. However, with One Piece, as the years have gone on, the films have become more and more ambitious.

Not only is series author Eiichiro Oda now often involved in developing the story, but they’re often also considered canon entries in the story, with there even being ties into the main narrative. Also like the series itself, they’ve been rapidly growing in overall scope as time has gone on. I mean, just have a look at this piece of art from the author that promoted One Piece: Film Z a few years back, which shows off the images of every named member of the Marines.

Well, it looks like the next film is going to up the ante just again. According to official One Piece columnist One Piece Podcast correspondent Greg Werner, the official site for the film teases unprecedented scale.

The new movie page promises that it will be a movie on an unprecedented scale. I wonder if that's a hint…

— Greg (@ochimusha108) August 25, 2018

Every inch of me is both excited and incredibly concerned. Without a doubt, one of the best things about One Piece is its scale. After starting off as a series about a lone pirate, it very quickly became about one pirate crew’s rise to fame in a world ruled by a mammoth government, full of both honorable civil servants and dishonorable ladder-climbing fiends.

For them to capture that essence is quite ambitious…but can it be done in a feature film without being stretched too thin? I have my doubts, but as always I will remain ambitiously optimistic.

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SOURCE: One Piece Movie Site (via Greg Werner)