The related TV series has had more episodes than I can actually count. And I can’t really count past sixteen, what lies beyond that (in age, especially) is none of my concern. One Piece loosely competes with The Young and The Restless for the title of Best Soap Opera ever. Well, since these things tend to be imortal, the producers have opened a new website for the 8th One Piece animated movie, entitled Episodo obu Arabasuta (Episode of Alabasta, for lazy people not learning Japanese with their imouto-chans), and it is bound for release on March 3, 2007. The story takes place, according to certain internet loud voices, during the Alabasta arc of the TV Series (beats me, I haven’t seen any piece of One Piece yet). Toei Animation, the big bad-ass guru of young anime girls, lets us know that viewers all over the world will shed rivers of tears upon watching this. Heh. If it ain’t Air, Kanon or Saikano, no rivers of tears from my behalf, no sir. ANS also has some insight about the staff breaking their backs to put this on the screen:

Original story by Eiichiro Oda, Director: Takahiro Imamura. Production by the 2007 One Piece Production Committee composed of Toei Animation, Shueisha, Fuji Television, and Bandai.