With the gradual return of in-person events around the world, this summer is set for a lot of exciting announcements everywhere from the realm of fandom and conventions to live music. In an enjoyable twist, there has been a recent announcement that the two will converge at one of America’s biggest anime conventions: legendary Japanese-American DJ and record producer Steve Aoki has recently been announced for an upcoming performance at Anime Expo in Los Angeles on Saturday, July 2. To make things even more interesting, his concert is intended to highlight the music and style of one of this season’s hottest anime premieres.
This week, the organizers of Anime Expo—the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation—announced that Steve Aoki would be attending the convention for an exclusive show based around the music of the iconic anime One Piece and its upcoming film, One Piece Film: Red. The concert is very closely tied to the film, and the extent to which Aoki’s musical performance will directly connect to the One Piece soundtrack is still under wraps. Since the event is heavily announced as a partnership between Aoki and Toei Animation itself, there’s strong reason to believe that the music of the anime may be an inspiration for the concert.
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Although details on the event are still forthcoming, it’s already known that there will be a strong link between Aoki’s performance to Anime Expo and to One Piece in particular. Pass-holders for the 2022 edition of AX are also set for an early chance at getting Aoki’s upcoming clothing collaboration, “DIM MAK x ONE PIECE,” which takes explicit artistic influence from the Wano arc of the One Piece manga and anime.
With the high-level collaboration found at the event, Toei is definitely pulling out all the stops to build hype for One Piece Film: Red. Red is set to be the fifteenth feature film in the One Piece franchise, which is independent of the 1000+ episode, 20-season spanning shonen epic. In addition to pulling in some of the highest ratings on [adult swim]’s Toonami block with its current serialization of the Fishman Island arc, the big marker of 1000 episodes crossed last November and the imminent passing of 1050 manga volumes all point to the fact that the Pirate fantasy-comedy continues to be nothing short of a titan in the anime world.
Since the new film’s announcement in November 2021, plot details have indicated that the movie is set to focus on a new female character, Uta, who has secret connections to Red-Haired Shanks and performs as a musical diva. Perhaps it’s fitting that the movie featuring this musical new character is promoted with the help of one of the biggest names in Japanese-American music. The release date for One Piece Film: Red is slated for August 6, 2022.