Anime has become a phenomenon on a global scale in recent years. The almost unhealthy popularity of titles like 'Watchmen of the Night' has allowed an already many fans to expand by leaps and bounds overnight. One of the pioneers in popularizing the broadcast of anime in Spain was Televisió de Catalunya, which now also recovers one of its most iconic titles after nine long years of waiting.
The chain based in Sant Joan Despí has announced this Friday morning the return date of 'One Piece', the animated adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's manga, to its children's and youth content channel, SX3. The series will be broadcast again from its first episode starting next July 3, covering the month with the 61 episodes of the first season. As of July 31, the broadcast will add the 72 of the second season both on linear television and on its digital platforms.
These episodes will be available for viewing on the channel's website throughout the month of August, and the broadcast of the series will continue starting in September with other plot arcs of the work. Despite not having announced more details about it, the intentions of the chain will reside in exceeding its previous broadcast, which ended with 516 episodes broadcast from its premiere, on March 2, 2006, until September 14, 2014.
Nearly nine years in which the animated adaptation has doubled its number of episodes, reaching a staggering 1,065 at the time of writing these lines. A period of time in which Eiichiro Oda's original work has become the best-selling manga in history. In figures collected last April, it is estimated that the 105 volumes in this series, open since 1997, exceed 517 million copies sold around the world.
The announcement of the return of One Piece to SX3 was already anticipated by Televisió de Catalunya during 41 Comic Barcelona, with a promotional video at the end of an event that celebrated its other thousand-year-old series, 'Detective Conan'. This confirmation closes a chapter full of requests and wishes from fans of the work, whose broadcast on the then K3 helped spread and popularize 'One Piece' both in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain.
This pirate story, which will also soon have its own Netflix adaptation, tells the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy. This young man is known as the "rubber boy" for his uncanny ability to stretch any limb of his body at will. Luffy also dreams of finding the "One Piece", a mysterious treasure hidden for years by the pirate Gol D. Roger, and thus becoming the "King of the Pirates". With his goal in mind, the boy will embark on a crazy adventure that will make him a sea captain with an eclectic crew.
