One Piece: Strong World Episode 0 is currently on YouTube. As it has never been sold commercially, this is a rare chance to see a piece of lost media.

The special tie-in OVA for the One Piece: Strong World movie is free for viewing on franchise's official YouTube channel for a limited time. Episode 0 is lost media, with physical copies of both the OVA and the manga volume existing in minuscule quantities. The YouTube upload is a rare opportunity to watch the short animation from an official source.

The tie-in was penned by One Piece author Eiichiro Oda, the same as the Strong World movie itself, making it canonical to the story's greater timeline. Despite that, trying to watch it has been an exercise in futility, given how few copies exist. The YouTube upload, while welcome, also isn't particularly accessible to English fans, thanks to a lack of subtitles. Adding to the problems is that the lost episode will only be available for three months.

Strong World Episode 0 is free to watch - for three months, sans subtitles

Episode 0 serves as a prequel documenting the rise, fall, and escape of the movie's villain, Gold Lion Shiki, who was also a rival of Gol D. Roger. Of course, watching or reading it is a challenge: the physical manga was only given to the first 1.5 million people who watched Strong World in theaters. The OVA itself is even more obscure, existing only as 3,000 DVDs given away by House Foods in 2009, who collaborated to make the adaptation happen. The OVA's upload was done to celebrate the return of the One Piece: Red movie to theaters.

Unfortunately, the video is clearly catered towards Japanese fans: it comes with no English subtitles, even though the video's description is written with it. For international fans, this means the value of the upload is more historical since this will be the best opportunity to watch the OVA at its highest quality, with Toei's art and animation unmarred by any transfer to discs. The owners of the DVDs will still have the last laugh, however, as the video will disappear at the end of the year, returning Episode 0 to the void of long-lost media and ultra-rare prestigious collector's items.

Thankfully, Episode 0 is mostly a novelty, serving as 18 minutes of backstory running at light speed, but its rarity only illustrates how important it is to preserve all and any animation, if only for the sake of posterity. The YouTube upload at least confirms that Toei is in possession of a master copy. Perhaps in the future, they will see fit to upload the OVA once more when the time comes to celebrate another One Piece milestone. Until then, fans will have to make do with these few months to see this secretive part of One Piece: Strong World.

Source: One Piece YouTube Channel, Anime News Network

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Born and raised in Canada, Kevin Chu lived internationally throughout his childhood, spending the majority of his schooling in Hong Kong before returning to Canada, first to study at the University of British Columbia, and then to find work. He has written for the newspaper publications The Standard and Inkwell Productions before joining Screen Rant. Kevin has a love of videogames, anime, and everything related to them. 

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