One Piece Director, Producer Reflect on Heart-Wrenching Bonney and Kuma Episodes

Toei Animation pulled out all the stops when it came to its special One Piece panel at New York Comic Con 2025. Not only were there guest appearances by Ian Sinclair and Madeleine Morris, the English voices of Brook and Lilith respectively, but there were also special appearances by Ryūta Koike, the producer for the One Piece anime, and current series directors, Wataru Matsumi. Like usual, Ian Sinclair's overwhelmingly positive presence set the tone for the entire panel as he assisted the panel's host in asking questions to the other three guests. He mentioned that it's an honor to be part of the franchise for over a decade at this point, and that he was a fan of the series before he was cast as the skeleton musician.

Emotions were running high throughout the entire panel as Koike and Matsumi answered a couple of questions about the Egghead arc. Without spoiling too much for those who aren't up to date, this arc has a strong emotional throughline revolving around the characters KUMA and Bonney. In fact, I would be remiss not to say that KUMA's story and eventual fate in the series are among the most tragic elements of the entire franchise. There was a lot of talk specifically about episodes 1136 and 1137, which went into the details of KUMA's backstory. Matsumi was the episode director for episode 1137, while Yasunori Koyama was the director for episode 1136. Koike spoke on behalf of Koyama, who wasn't present at the panel, to answer questions regarding their overall approach to elevating the emotional impact of the material as best they could.

The backstory was planned to take up the second half of episode 1136, as the director wanted to ensure that the audience could spend as much time with KUMA as possible. The idea was to showcase him as a character that people could casually see themselves wanting to chat with. What also helped mitigate the emotional impact of this episode was the style and presentation, which were noticeably different from the rest of the series. The idea was to emulate a retro aesthetic, with the animation resembling traditional cel animation, while the screen's graininess mimics a vintage camera lens view. Koike explained that Koyama even drew on his own memories of his father when directing the relationship between KUMA and Bonney.

Episode 1137 brings us back to the present as Bonney is in a dire situation, but the buildup of KUMA's backstory pays off as he ignores his Prime Directive to be a mindless robot and instead protects his daughter at the 11th hour. The two parts come full circle, with the episode ending on this arc's opening theme by GRe4N BOYZ, who, according to Matsumi, were huge fans of the show themselves. Apparently, the group re-recorded the song specifically for that ending credit sequence. You could genuinely tell there was so much compassion for the material, and I am currently getting misty-eyed just remembering it.

Morris' comments rounded this sentimental theme as she shared her experience with One Piece. She had been part of the franchise for a while, working on sound design and background characters, with Lilith as her first major character. She talked about how kind everyone had been on the show and tried her best to match the energy of the Japanese performance. The more she worked on the series, the more it felt like being a part of a family. She and Sinclair were given special, one-of-a-kind illustrations of their characters by the show's crew as a celebration of their work.

I'm very curious how these episodes will sound in English, as it was also revealed at this panel that more English dub episodes are slated to come out soon. We also got a little sneak peek at some of the outfits our characters will be wearing in the upcoming arc, showing that the animation teams are doing their best to do justice to future episodes of the series. The panel ended with a nice little sneak peek of a future episode where Luffy has to eat a stinky pile of meat given to him by one of his giant friends to regain his strength after being burnt out from using Gear 5—a nice comedic note to end in an otherwise emotionally enriching panel.