The voice of a legendary character in the ONE PIECE universe was finally heard in this week’s episode with, of all things, Joy Boy being realized. As a special treat for decades-long ONE PIECE fans, the mysterious character’s voice is played by the first-ever voice actor for Luffy – Urara Takano. Takano went to X (formerly Twitter) to celebrate her return to the franchise, saying, “these 27 years have felt like an eternity – almost as long as 800 or 900 years…” Urara Takano originally played Luffy in the One Piece: Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack! short anime film that was screened at the 1998 Jump Super Anime Tour. At the time, the ONE PIECE manga had only been running for around a year and the anime series we know was still a year and a half away. In the story of ONE PIECE, Luffy and Joy Boy, who was a character of the past, share the same Devil Fruit and straw hat motif. RELATED: ONE PIECE Anime Casts Kenjiro Tsuda as Figarland Shamrock The ONE PIECE anime, which just celebrated its 26th anniversary , is currently streaming on Crunchyroll in both sub and dub formats, along with a selection of ONE PIECE theatrical movies. The series will be taking a break from January to March 2026 ahead of the Elbaph Arc and moving to a seasonal format with 26 episodes per year. Source: Urara Takano on X (formerly Twitter)
