The official One Piece website has released a special interview with the voice actors for the main cast of the upcoming “3D2Y” anime special, Arata Furuta (Villain Byrnndi World) and Mayumi Tanaka (Main Character Monkey D. Luffy) with fellow voice actor Yamaguchi Kappei (Usopp)

What follows is a translation of (most of) the interview posted on the site. (Parts left out didn’t mention anything of real importance so I decided not to translate them, though I might edit this interview in the future to include the few phrases that I left out this time).

Kappei ：So I’ve heard that you’d already been reading One Piece but around what time did you start?

Furuta ：Well, I’ve been reading ever since the series started its serialization. Ma daughter who (used to) reads Jump and it started right around the time she started grade school and I’ve been reading it weekly ever since! And I also collect the volumes and have seen all the movies. There’s (even) One Piece figures lined up in out tv case (laughs)

Kappei ：And for this 2 hour special, you’ve been given the role of the new character “World” who’s from the generation before Luffy’s, one of the so-called “Great Pirates”. How was it to actually play the part?

Furuta ： I’ve been getting some voice acting roles here and there but I had this thought of simply wanting to have one in the One Piece series, if possible a villain role because I was hoping to get an earful of the Gum Gum Gatling (laughs). I just wanted to go along with Mayumi’s “Wooooooooooohhhh” with my “Woooooooooh” (laughs)

Mayumi ： It’s not that you want to be on a ship, but you just wanted to get beaten up ?(laughs)

Kappei ：After this interview’s over you’re going to be recording the fighting scene but how has the voice recording been going until now?

Furuta ：It’s been really fun! In the beginning I felt the pressure from Mayumi’s great vigor thinking “I-, I’m going to have to really do my best here…” But the winds have turned and today I’m not going to lose!! (Laughs)

Mayumi ：(When recording the special) the parts with no text aren’t always already drawn! It’s hard to convey things based on “Here he gets punched x number of times, here he gets kicked…” B.t.w. how did that special laugh go again?

How did that special laugh go?

Furuta ： Oh that was fun going “barororororo”!

Mayumi ：”One Piece” is really special on that part. For example, there was this laugh written in the script that went “gabababababa”…. And well, on the drawing he was laughing but there’s nobody who laughs like that and I laughed. After that they told me “No, no, please, do the gababababa laugh!” To which I just went “Seriously!?”

Kappei ：One Piece has a lot of unique laughs after all!

Furuta ：Barororororo! Seriously though, I’m really happy to have been given the chance to do the voice of such an important character.

Kappei ：World is a character with a pretty awesome-looking outward appearance, but what was your impression when you were told you’d be voicing this kind of character?

Furuta ：The reason I started acting was because “I wanted to become a lot of people”. As with tv series or plays, with anime you can become someone “who’s downright different from yourself” which really is a lot of fun!

Kappei ：Now that you mention it, for starters his outward appearance is completely different from yours… I guess this is what you could call “downright different”…?

Furuta ：Right, and since I like wrestling, I kept Hulk Hogan in mind when doing World’s voice.

Kappei ：Oh I see! What about his character design?

Furuta ：I thought to myself: “Wow this guy looks cool!” as well as the fact that World’s older brother “Byôjack” makes them the counterpart of the relationship between Luffy and Ace.

Mayumi ：Yes, because the “Bonds between brothers” is a theme included in the special this time. When World told Luffy that “You couldn’t save your brother”, I didn’t like him, saying things [Luffy] already knows, but then there’s also that similarly strong bond between World and Byôjack…. and in the end he’s kind of a good person after all… I thought “Hmm, ok I forgive him.”

Kappei ：And look at you, just saying that and you’re already crying!