The cover art for One Piece‘s latest chapter features Luffy’s Straw Hats reimagined as Super Smash Bros. fighters. The cover for the manga’s 1,028th chapter is drawn by Eiichiro Oda and dropped only days after the announcement of Kingdom Hearts‘ Sora as the finale DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Despite the manga being in its most heated arc yet, that didn’t stop the mangaka from celebrating the popular video game franchise.

One Piece was created by Eiichiro Oda and follows Luffy and his pirate crew the Straw Hats’ journey to finding the pirate treasure known as the One Piece. The manga was first serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997 and has become the magazine’s longest-running series to date. One Piece has celebrated many milestones this year, including the release of its 100th volume, surpassing 1,000 chapters, and almost reaching 1,000 episodes in the anime. Netflix is also spearheading the live-action adaption series of the popular manga with the expectation that it will follow Oda’s source material.

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Shonen Jump previewed the cover on its official Twitter account the same day as One Piece chapter 1,028 was released. Many fans might not have expected to find the Straw Hat crew taking a break from Wano and having fun playing Super Smash Bros. The colorful artwork pays perfect homage to the Nintendo video game by having the One Piece characters in full cosplay as various Smash Bros players.

Nami and Usopp are in full gaming gear with personalized VR headsets, game controllers, and gaming chairs all while focusing on playing a One Piece version of SuperSmash Bros. Luffy’s dressed as Street Fighter‘s Ken and is unleashing a Shoryuken attack on Donkey Kong Franky. Zorro’s not wielding his signature three swords but instead a single sword and shield similar to Link from The Legend of Zelda. Chopper is dressed adorably in a Pokemon Charizard suit, however it appears he is losing in his battle against Link Zorro. The remaining crew members are spotted in the back with Jinbe as Mario, Sanji posing as Fox (with a Splatoon gun), Nico Robin as Morrigan Aenslan, and Brook flying out the arena as Demitri Maximoff in a classic K.O.

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate-inspired cover art isn’t surprising since most of One Piece‘s video games are published by Bandai Namco. Nonetheless, the artwork sparked a conversation among manga and video game fans trying to pinpoint who each Straw Hat member was from the video game. Eiichiro Oda most definitely did a fantastic job at merging the two franchises into a fun piece for fans of both Super Smash Bros. and One Piece to enjoy.

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Source: Shonen Jump

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