One Piece Celebrates Its 29th Anniversary With a Thousand Sunny Puppet Short

What was announced

The official One Piece account marked the series' 29th anniversary on July 22, 2026, sharing a new commemorative visual of Monkey D. Luffy in his Gear 5 form and releasing a short marionette film titled "A Lazy Day in Thousand Sunny." The anniversary artwork, stamped "Thank You" and dated 2026.7.22, went up alongside the short as the day's centerpiece. Rather than a formal reveal, the account framed the day as a message of thanks to the fanbase that has followed the Straw Hats for nearly three decades.

One Piece Day

July 22 is the date Eiichiro Oda's manga first ran in Weekly Shonen Jump back in 1997, and the day is now formally recognized in Japan as One Piece Day. That makes 2026 the 29th anniversary of a property that grew from a weekly manga serial into one of the longest running and most widely watched anime franchises in the world. The occasion has become a fixture on the calendar for fans, who typically expect commemorative art, merchandise, and video content to arrive around the date, and this year's celebration keeps to that pattern with a bright new key visual and a bespoke short.

A Lazy Day in Thousand Sunny

The new short, posted to the official One Piece YouTube channel, is a comedic puppet piece that imagines the Straw Hat crew's everyday downtime aboard their ship. Rendered with marionettes rather than conventional animation, it leans into the crew's slapstick chemistry as an ordinary lazy day gives way to an unexpected commotion on the Sunny. Puppet versions of Luffy, Sanji and Chopper feature prominently, with the ship itself, the Thousand Sunny, front and center in the film's title and framing.

The puppet format is a departure from the show's usual animation, and it plays up the characters as toys rather than heroes, a tone that suits a lighthearted anniversary extra. It is a celebratory piece rather than a story update, consistent with the franchise's habit of marking the anniversary with special fan-facing content instead of plot developments.