Jump Festa, Shueisha’s annual fan event was held this weekend at Tokyo’s Makuhari Messe Exhibit Hall. This year’s event had an area dedicated to the upcoming One Piece 20th anniversary featuring artwork from various manga covers as well as the wall-sized version of the anniversary spread.

On Sunday, the “Super Stage Event” gave fans a chance to see the Straw Hat voice actors in person. The event opened with a live reenactment of a dramatic scene from the current arc. Various pages from the manga were displayed on the screen as the actors read their dialogues aloud. The group then went on to discuss their favorite “door paintings” which are the images that appear at the beginning of each chapter.

Although One Piece author Eiichiro Oda was not present, he did share a message with the crowd that contained some exciting announcements. The biggest of these announcements is that 2017 will see the continuation of the Whole Cake Island Arc, the Reverie and the Wano Arc. Three very large events in one year!

It was also announced that a new One Piece Magazine will be launching in the near future. The magazine will contain a novel telling the previously unheard story of “a certain flame-flame fruit user”. Whether that refers to Ace, Sabo or former owner from the past is yet unknown.

Lastly, the critically acclaimed One Piece Kabuki will be returning in 2017. The kabuki which focuses on the events during the Marineford Arc, will be playing from October 6 through November 25 at the Shimbashi Playhouse in Tokyo.

Last year, at Jump Festa 2016, it was announced that we would see Sanji’s “comeback” and that the manga would be revealing Sanji’s origin story. One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda had also said back at Jump Festa 2014 that he would not be appearing in any One Piece Super Stage Events in the future, and he has subsequently ignored his own resolution during a brief surprise guest appearance in Jump Festa’s 2015 One Piece Super Stage Event and again in 2016 and 2017’s One Piece Super Stage Event through a letter.

We will be posting a special Jump Festa themed episode soon, check back for it!