Sanji's Movie Debut Gets a Prime-Time Rerun
When Clockwork Island Adventure opened in Japanese theaters on March 3, 2001, it put Sanji on the big screen for the first time in the movie series. Hiroaki Hirata (Kotetsu T. Kaburagi in Tiger & Bunny, Klein in Sword Art Online), the longtime voice of the Straw Hats' cook, is joined by the crew's original core cast: Mayumi Tanaka as Monkey D. Luffy, Kazuya Nakai as Roronoa Zoro, Akemi Okamura as Nami, and Kappei Yamaguchi as Usopp.
That five-person lineup is the early-era crew in full, from before Chopper, Robin, and the rest of the later additions came aboard. For viewers who came to One Piece through the recent films or the live-action series, the broadcast is a chance to see the story at its smallest and scrappiest.
A Wind-Up Island and a Stolen Going Merry
According to a report from Dengeki Online, a Japanese game and anime news site, the film sends the Straw Hats to Clockwork Island, a legendary island built on giant clockwork machinery, after their beloved ship the Going Merry is stolen. Standing in their way are the Trump Pirates, a gang of Devil Fruit users who rule the island, while a pair of mysterious thief brothers, Borodo and Akisu, also get tangled up in the adventure. The plot turns on whether Luffy's crew can recover their ship and save the island's people.
Junji Shimizu directed the film at Toei Animation, working from a screenplay by 橋本裕志 (likely Hiroshi Hashimoto), with Eiichiro Oda's original manga as the foundation. Dengeki Online frames the film as an early-era gem packed with the adventure, action, and crew bonds that defined One Piece's first years.
Three Summers Running on Tokyo MX
Tokyo MX, a Tokyo-area local broadcaster, has turned summer One Piece movie airings into an annual tradition. The channel ran One Piece: Straw Hat Chase in 2024 and the first One Piece movie in 2025, and Dengeki Online notes both broadcasts performed well. Clockwork Island Adventure makes it three consecutive summers.
The film airs Sunday, July 19, 2026, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Tokyo MX1.
Looking Ahead
The broadcast itself is Japan-only, and this is where things get frustrating for international fans: Clockwork Island Adventure currently has no official streaming home in the United States. It isn't on Crunchyroll, Netflix, or any other major US service, and no Western re-release has been announced. The One Piece TV series remains widely available, with Crunchyroll carrying the full run, and Eiichiro Oda's manga is published in English by Viz Media.
For now, the 2001 film remains one of the harder pieces of One Piece history for overseas fans to watch legally. A television rerun in Japan won't change that, but it does show the early movies still have an audience 25 years on.