On June 6, the official One Piece website released another special interview to commemorate the upcoming theatrical release of One Piece Film: Gold. Unlike the interviews featured in previous weeks, however, this interview did not feature any of the Straw Hat voice actors. Instead, we are shared thoughts and comments from Hiroaki Miyamoto and Tsutomu Kuroiwa, the director and screenwriter respectively for One Piece Film: Gold.

–This time on “Usopp’s ‘This is Real! GOLD'”, we have former director for the One Piece anime, Hiroaki Miyamoto, as well as screenwriter of Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (『謎解きはディナーの後で』) and LIAR GAME, Tsutomu Kuroiwa. We look forward to asking them lots of questions about some behind-the-scenes anecdotes for One Piece Film: Gold, and how they feel about One Piece in general! It’s a pleasure to have you both today!

Miyamoto & Kuroiwa: Thanks for having us.

–To start things off, please share with us how you felt when you were assigned director and screenwriter for the film.

Miyamoto: I was very happy when I heard it was set in stone. In fact, what originally made me join Toei Animation was my passion to create films. And to be assigned director for a big title like One Piece was a dream come true. But at the same time, the pressure that came with it was just as intense. Also, while I had experience directing the One Piece anime for 6 years, I felt that I had to approach things differently with the film a few times.

Kuroiwa: Was this your first time directing a film?

Miyamoto: Yes. For One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, I was an assistant director. My job was to support the director.

Kuroiwa: Was it a hard job?

Miyamoto: Indeed it was. *laughs*

Kuroiwa: Please tell me about it in detail next time. *laughs* As for me, I love One Piece and have always been reading it, so when I received the offer to write a film for it I couldn’t find a reason not to. But mentally, I was just like Miyamoto and felt both happy and under pressure. After all, this content represents Japan! As a film, it’s a given that it would have to be a box office hit. Additionally, we’ll have a worldwide audience, so I felt that we had to make something that would show them how amazing Japanese animation is. But most of all, I was very excited that I’d get to do something big.

–This was Kuroiwa’s first time writing a script for an animation. Why did you decide to offer the job to him?

Miyamoto: I didn’t want this movie to be a simple anime for kids, so I decided to ask Kuroiwa who’s had successful experience with live-action dramas. It’s exactly because he had no experience with animation that I thought he’d bring some fresh ideas to the table. The previous film, One Piece Film: Z written by Osamu Suzuki, is of a very quality, so I aimed to surpass it this time. As I’d expected, his unconventional approaches were very fresh.

Kuroiwa: Since it was my first time writing for an animation, I was moved by its freedom first and foremost. I was free to break anything and even create a ship that’s 10 kilometers long. *laughs* It was fun.

Miyamoto: You can’t pull those off with live-actions, huh.

–Is there a particular scene that you put a lot of effort and care into? Or a scene that you absolutely want everyone to see?

Miyamoto: All of it! Or so I’d like to say, but if I must pick, I want everyone to watch the opening. It’s the scene where Luffy arrives at the port while the villain, Tesoro, is singing. Incorporating songs into animations is rather difficult, but I wanted to tackle this challenge and had it worked in during the writing stages. And in order to make it interesting, we tried all sorts of approaches. We made full use of CGs and we faced some severe difficulties with the music, but we ultimately ended up with a very cool song. So I strongly wish that everyone would watch that scene.

Kuroiwa: I don’t mean to copy but I’d say the opening as well. From a storytelling perspective, I believe it serves as a very straightforward introduction. It starts out with an entertainment show, and there’s a casino where tons of celebrities gather. When the Straw Hats visit this place, I believe the audience will be able to share the same excitement, and it would make me very happy if they’d enjoy the experience. One Piece is a piece of work that constantly offers its viewers excitement, so I wrote One Piece Film: Gold with the intention of emphasizing it more than in any of its preceding films. Also, this may be atypical of One Piece but I’ve prepared a twist toward the end, so I hope viewers will be able to enjoy the experience.

–We’ve heard that the staff traveled to Las Vegas to gather references for the casino scenes. How did it affect the film?

Kuroiwa: I wasn’t able to go, but I’ve heard that it was amazing.

Miyamoto: It was! I believed that if we’re going to make a huge casino ourselves, then we have to go look at the real thing, but once there it was over ten times amazing than I’d imagined. I was overwhelmed by how the entire city was committed to entertaining its visitors. The quality of their shows were top-notch that I was worried that One Piece Film: Gold stood no chance against Las Vegas, so I brainstormed hard to come up with ways to entertain the audience. After refining the images in my head and incorporating a variety of things, we ended up with what is now the film’s opening scene.

–This talk has certainly raised our expectations for the opening scene. Previously, Chō, the voice actor of Brook, mentioned how he looked forward to hearing Yamaji sing as Tesoro. Were Yamaji’s singing skills also taken into consideration when you decided to cast him as Tesoro?

Miyamoto: Yes. We needed someone with powerful vocals to give the opening’s show scene the impact it deserved. I believed Yamaji had the right voice to begin with, and after learning that he performs in musicals, we decided to cast him. He kept Tesoro’s unique traits as he sang and made the character stand out tremendously, and I believe it helped shape the opening into something much better.

–Tesoro and Carina are considered as key characters in this film. What were your impressions of their voice actors, Yamaji and Mitsushima?

Miyamoto: Yamaji voiced Señor Pink in the anime, which gave him a reserved and cool image. But Tesoro, I wouldn’t say he’s cool per se but he’s constantly glittery. And in the latter half of the film, his emotions heat up and he’ll have a clash with Luffy. During the dubbing, Yamaji’s energy and tension reached an unprecedented level, and Mayumi countered him with just as much energy, that the both of them were completely exhausted and wobbly afterward. *laughs*

Kuroiwa: Sounds like they really did finish fighting a battle.

Miyamoto: Most definitely. They had an intense battle throughout the dubbing process. I had no intention of backing down either, so I constantly kept pressing them to raise the bar. They both gave their acting their all, so I think it turned into a fantastic scene. As for Carina, she’s a difficult character to act out, so I believe Mitsushima may have struggled in the beginning. She began to improve as she acted and through several exchanges. Once she got a good grasp of Carina’s character, her lines really struck a chord…it was surreal to witness. She truly is a genius.

–Carina and Nami’s past is considered one of the highlights of the film. We haven’t seen much “girls’ friendship” in previous One Piece films. Why did you decide to explore this in One Piece Film: Gold?

Kuroiwa: What I consider important elements of One Piece are excitement – as mentioned before – emotion, and humor. Of course, I tried to include them all in this film. However, giving the Straw Hats enough spotlight while simultaneously building up a bond with an original character from scratch, and wrapping it up with an emotional ending would require more than two hours to pull off. But if a character already has some history with one of the Straw Hats, I thought it would enable me to come up with a story that would pull some heartstrings. And that’s how Carina and Nami’s story came to be.

–We heard that the screenplay this time is a masterpiece that took over two years to develop. Was it decided from the beginning that it would be a casino story?

Miyamoto: It was a completely different story at first.

Kuroiwa: As we held more discussions, the producer team suggested the casino idea…

Miyamoto: We were discussing how we wanted to make this a fun place, but as we were debating where all nine Straw Hats could go wild, we ended up agreeing on a casino. One Piece also hasn’t touched much on the spy genre, or have the entire crew work together to steal something, so when we gave that approach a try while creating the plot, it ended up feeling more promising than expected… That’s pretty much how we came up with the direction we wanted to take.

Kuroiwa: We then continued to hold more discussions and added ideas. We started with a plot that was seven pages long and gradually fattened it up into a script.

Miyamoto: We probably revised it 30 or so times. Thank you so much.

–You clearly spent a long time creating this script, but was there anything in particular that made you struggle?

Kuroiwa: I didn’t feel myself struggling much, but I did find it a little difficult to…think of ways to make the enemies strong, as well as how to make Luffy act in fun ways. The main character, Luffy, is a rather difficult character… He’s lively, but he’s not one to voluntarily start talking about something. I probably did struggle trying to portray his emotional transitions – like starting with a situation that Luffy was enjoying and figuring out the steps needed to build up his anger towards the enemies.

–Mr. Kuroiwa, you have also written the script for One Piece: Heart of Gold, the TV special that will premiere on July 16 as a prequel to the film. Was there anything you struggled with in creating a completely new story that still retained relevance to the film?

Kuroiwa: I’ve had experience with this from creating live-action films, so writing a new story toward a goal that’s already been decided wasn’t a difficult task. However, if the summer TV special isn’t interesting it will obviously sour expectations for the movie, so my goal was to create something the viewers would enjoy.

–Please tell us more about the summer TV special.

Kuroiwa: Since it had to be different from the film, the producer and I had some discussions and eventually decided to give it a “treasure hunt” theme. It’s a very straightforward adventure story about treasure hunters searching for a special metal called the Pure Gold. Tesoro, who is collecting gold from all over the world, hires a ruthless treasure hunter, Mad Treasure, to search for the Pure Gold.

–Please tell us the highlight of the summer TV special.

Kuroiwa: Since the theme is “treasure hunt,” there will be all sorts of traps and missions set on the path toward the treasure. The Straw Hats will have to cooperate with each other to conquer these obstacles, so please look forward to seeing the exquisite combinations they’ll come up with.

–Thank you very much. Back to One Piece Film: Gold, it’s been some time since Director Miyamoto last worked on One Piece prior to this film. What was it like working on-site again?

Miyamoto: Let’s see. The Straw Hats are currently separated in the anime, but everyone reunited this time thanks to this film. Mayumi, who voices Luffy, seemed to be having a great time. Even I felt like I’ve “returned to the team” after a long time.

–Who are your favorite One Piece characters?

Miyamoto: My favorite female character would be Kalifa from CP9. She left a very strong impression on me back when I was directing the Water Seven arc. I also love Tom, he had some really great quotes. When I was worried about my directing I heard him say, “Men should puff out their chests with pride and a boom over the ships they build!!!” It helped me realize that I can be more confident about what I create. In One Piece Film: Gold, my favorite character would be Rayz Max. The power behind Kin’ya Kitaōji’s voice was out of this world.

Kuroiwa: I agree. My favorite from the film is Rayz Max as well. I think he’s a character who will remain in everyone’s hearts. To tell the truth, he was originally created to be a female character, but Oda said he wanted a manly male, so we made changes to create what is now Rayz Max.

Miyamoto: That’s the amazing thing about Oda. During the writing stages of production, Max was an especially cool type of character. We never expected Oda to come up with that character design.

Kuroiwa: Exactly! But he’s still cool with his short legs. The gap between his appearance and personality is amusing. As for the original manga, my favorite character right now is Bartolomeo.

Miyamoto: He is such a great character. *laughs*

Kuroiwa: There are all kinds of characters in One Piece already, so I was impressed by this approach. A character who admires the main characters felt rather new.

–You mentioned character designs earlier. Did you tell Oda ideas beforehand when you asked him for the designs?

Miyamoto: We compiled settings and general images we had in mind before asking Oda, but Mr. Tanaka ended up becoming something else entirely… *laughs*

Kuroiwa: Oda is truly a genius. *laughs* I’m impressed that he can pull of such things that no one would ever expect.

Miyamoto: Truly. And Hamada’s voice matched perfectly, it made Mr. Tanaka into a great character.

–We heard a rumor that Mr. Tanaka was based off of Mayumi Tanaka… *laughs*

Miyamoto: I’ve never heard that before. But if Oda did base Mr. Tanaka’s designs off of Mayumi, um, that would be quite the scandal. *laughs*

–Then, was there any reasoning behind naming him Mr. Tanaka?

Miyamoto: Since there were lots of characters with cool names, we thought it would be funny if we had a Mr. Tanaka in the mix, and so it was decided.

–Thank you very much. This is our final question: What is One Piece to you?

Miyamoto: Hmm… I think of it as an ordeal. It helps force me to break past my limits, which I’ve noticed and felt strongly as we created this film. I was desperate to meet expectations and gave it my absolute all. Thanks to that, I think we were able to create something beyond what I’d imagined, so in that sense I had a lot of fun.

Kuroiwa: For me, One Piece is the pinnacle. I consider One Piece to be the greatest entertainment in Japan. Oda has been creating these pinnacle-level stories over several years, so I believed that I can perhaps write a story close to that level if it’s only two hours long, and gave this film my all.

Be sure to check out the original post on the official website for more photos and visuals from this interview! You can even send a message of encouragement to Kappei Yamaguchi by pressing the 応援メッセージを送る (send a message of encouragement) button at the bottom of the page! One Piece Film: Gold will premiere in theaters in Japan on July 23.

Special thanks to Zach for matching Tom’s quote in English!

SOURCE: One-Piece.com