One Piece Film: Red

Goro Taniguchi took the director's chair for the picture, working from a screenplay by Tsutomu Kuroiwa, and the project was unveiled to mark the anime's Episode 1000. Eiichiro Oda oversaw the production as general producer. Pirates, Marines, and devoted fans stream in from across the globe to catch Uta performing for a live audience for the very first time.

Two identities drive the story. One is the beloved diva who vows to usher in an era of pure happiness. The other is an Emperor's daughter whose buried history with the Red Hair Pirates powers a scheme that could seal most of humanity inside a dream from which no one wakes.

The concert begins and Uta reunites with her childhood friend Luffy, yet before long she rounds on the crew, announcing that her audience will remain at the show forever. Through her power, the Uta Uta no Mi, every listener is drawn into a mirror realm known as Uta World. To hold them there for good, she keeps swallowing dangerous wake-shrooms, staving off the sleep that would collapse the illusion.

Taking refuge with Gordon, the island's onetime ruler, Luffy and a band of pirates learn that Uta is convinced Shanks deserted her and razed Elegia twelve years back. As a Marine assault descends and the Five Elders grow frantic over an old buried menace, Uta calls forth the forbidden song Tot Musica, a demon shaped from human dread that binds the two worlds together.

Gordon then lays bare the truth Uta long buried: the entity she summoned with her own voice was what leveled Elegia, and Shanks shouldered the blame to protect her. With Usopp and Yasopp bridging the realms via Observation Haki, the pirates and Marines batter Tot Musica's limbs at once while Luffy and Shanks deliver their final strikes in the same instant, and a Gear 5 Luffy helps break the demon apart. Restoring everyone's souls with one last song, Uta then dies in her father's embrace. Her crew bears her away from Elegia aboard their ship, and the island is left standing.

The movie became the top earner in the franchise's film history, climbing past 15 billion yen and toppling the previous mark set by Film: Z within only ten days, placing it among the highest-grossing Japanese releases ever made.

It stands as the first feature to count Jinbe among the Straw Hats. Director Goro Taniguchi had earlier made the 1998 OVA that introduced the pirate Ganzack, and that story's antagonist even turns up here in a brief cameo. Uta was conceived partly because Oda had wearied of drawing legendary old men and wanted to develop a leading female character instead.