One Piece Film: Gold is the latest film for Eiichiro Oda’s juggernaut Shonen Jump franchise. More than usual, however, Gold has generated a pretty significant amount of buzz, and made a hefty chunk of change upon its Japanese release. Perhaps that’s why an English dub is already being produced, mere months after the original Japanese release.
Here is the first look at Gold‘s English dub, which retains all the core cast members from Funimation’s ongoing dub.
Gold follows Monkey D. Luffy and the rest of the intrepid pirates of the Merry-Go as they stumble upon a remote island country. This nation is supposedly a totally hidden sanctuary, free from influence by the World Government or the Marines. As it turns out, the nation’s leader, Gild Tesero, has an apparently bottomless stash of riches that he uses to bribe governing bodies and pirates alike. However, he’s hatching a plan to use his dosh to shake up the societal power structure. Presumably, our lovable band of pirates will put the kibosh on this ambition and save the day, as per usual.
Gold has seen a theatrical release in a number of countries already. Its United States release is set for this coming January, with a Canadian release running those same dates (10 through 17) and using the dub. Chinese and Australian releases are also planned, although those don’t have solid release dates quite yet.
As a lapsed fan of the series, this movie looks like it has a lot going for it. I’ve always enjoyed the dynamic of One Piece‘s central cast, and that’s what drew me to the series for a long while. Considering the movies are generally standalone affairs, and that reception for Gold has seemed to be uniformly positive, I have a feeling I’ll end up checking this out next January.
