Grammy Award-nominated DJ and producer Steve Aoki is teaming up with Toei Animation to bring his musical and fashion vision to the beloved manga/anime franchise One Piece. In addition to performing at Anime Expo 2022, Aoki's company Dim Mak is launching an entire line of apparel and gear inspired by Eiichiro Oda's perennially popular One Piece. As a longtime fan of One Piece, this particular collaboration has an especially strong connection for Aoki as he adds his voice to One Piece's enduring legacy in time for the upcoming anime movie One Piece Film: Red.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Aoki shares the origins of his love for One Piece, details Dim Mak's work with Toei, and teases what fans can expect from him in the near future, including new music projects and more. Aoki's set will be on Saturday, July 2, exclusive to registered Anime Expo attendees. Also included is a sneak peek from the Dim Mak One Piece collection itself, provided by Dim Mak and with Aoki himself wearing some of the line's apparel.
Steve, do you remember what your introduction to One Piece was?
Steve Aoki: Yeah, it was in college. I was part of an anime club, and every week we would get together and take over our student hall and watch a variety of anime. That's what was great about the club, I was already an anime geek, and I already had things that I watched. I liked more of the older stuff, like Armitage and Ghost in the Shell, but One Piece was one of the new offerings. It was how I was introduced [to the series], with all the other geeky kids getting together, trading soundtracks, and watching all the new anime every single week. I am so grateful to that club. That club really introduced me to a lot of different anime.
Are there any standout moments or elements from One Piece and the continuing adventures of Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates that really resonate with you?
There's definitely more synergy and a reference to now than when I watched One Piece back then. Back then, it was more of an introduction to the world. Luffy is awesome, he's so happy-go-lucky, positive, optimistic, and [he's] the perfect role model for a leader, especially for kids growing up. I have an affinity for Luffy and his relationship with the Straw Hat Pirates, for sure, because that's kind of like the relationship I have with my crew. We roll around the world, go on adventures, and go for experiences. We don't search for One Piece treasure, but I guess the treasure that we go through, with the musical adventures that I'm on, is connecting with people -- that's the treasure.
Between the score composed by Kohei Tanaka and Shiro Hamaguchi or any of the rotating opening and closing themes, are there any musical moments that stand out?
Definitely, the scene when the Straw Hat Pirates are raising their fists to say goodbye to Princess Vivi. That's a standout because it ends on the "We Are!" theme, and it's such a moment. It reminded me of the Project X and "Pursuit of Happiness" moment. My remix of "Pursuit of Happiness" in Project X was like the climax of the film, and it broke culture in a way that "Pursuit of Happiness" blew up after that. I feel like the scene where [the Straw Hat Pirates] are raising their fists and saying goodbye to Princess Vivi, with the epic "We Are!" theme coming out -- it's super-strong and iconic.
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How did the opportunity to perform at Anime Expo and help promote the release of One Piece Film: Red come about?
My relationship with Toei has been for close to ten years, since back in 2015. I've been such a Toei fan for such a long time, and I'm so happy that they reached out to me to work on Dragon Ball when they launched Xenoverse 2. I did two remixes, but we did something really unique with those remixes, they created an NPC of me as Goku, which is already crazy because they don't mess with their IP. You never see them mess with Goku. They put my head on Goku's body, and you had to find him in the game as an NPC, and if you found me, you could download two remixes I did of "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" for the game. That's the only time you could download and hear these remixes. You can't hear them anywhere else.
I think it's really cool that we did that approach, and I play those remixes out sometimes, and it's interesting to go back and play them. With anime and music, they're not at a tempo that I'm used to. It's always such a challenge to work on a remix in the anime culture because I know it's going to be at some crazy-ass tempo that I have to work with. [laughs] Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 was the first time I started working with them, and we did an incredible Dragon Ball collection with them, and we're doing another one with them later on. I love Dragon Ball, so it was exciting to do the whole Dim Mak Dragon Ball collection together.
We're doing something with One Piece, we have a Dim Mak One Piece collection with skateboards, merch, hoodies, t-shirts, and fans want the Luffy hat and other stuff. We have an insanely large Dim Mak collab, and we're launching it at the Anime Expo this year. People will want to get their hands on all that fun stuff this year, so be sure to swing by [Booth #3326] for all that. The [performance] is all icing on the cake for me because now I'm part of the history of One Piece, and that's important to me. Deejaying at Anime Expo for the One Piece film -- the experience is important, but I'm a music producer and want to be part of the cultural history of One Piece.
When you're doing Dim Mak collabs like One Piece, Dragon Ball or Street Fighter, what are you looking for in those partnerships?
It doesn't have to always hit me personally because Dim Mak is spanning across all different aspects of anime and animation culture. Anime is such a big piece of my life. I may not watch every single episode from all the different anime IPs that we work with, but if it hits me personally, I'm going to get really involved. With Street Fighter, I remixed Ryu's theme, and we did a whole video game thing with that too. I remember playing [Street Fighter] in high school, it was such a big deal and I would play every single day after school. When it's something personal for me, I'm going to go in and do a lot, like remixing Dragon Ball's theme for Xenoverse. It means so much to me.
I feel very fortunate now that I am able to work with IPs and these characters, storylines, and music that I grew up listening to and had such an impact on me as a human. It still has such an impact, and that's what's great about anime and animation, it can live forever, it's all about the story of these characters. The story of Luffy, the Straw Hat Pirates, and this world is so inviting and exciting, and it's exciting to work with.
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Since we invoked Street Fighter, I have to ask: Is Ryu your main?
Yeah, always! [laughs]
Apart from Anime Expo and the Dim Mak One Piece collection, what do you have coming up next, Steve?
I've got a lot coming up next, the big thing is my album HiROQUEST. I just dropped the CD, CDs are coming back [laughs]. I did a limited-time drop for four hours for people to actually buy the HiROQUEST CD that comes with the first-ever trading card game. I have my own HiROQUEST world and I created a TCG around HiROQUEST. Each CD comes with a single card, and it's a 70-card set that we're launching through the album. This has never been done before, that a TCG world is so connected to a musical album.
They're introducing dozens of brand-new characters and a lot of different characters that live in our MetaZoo Universe, a world that I helped found last year. It's all about cryptids, beasties, characters, and folklore from human history, like Bigfoot or chupacabra. We have an incredible MetaZoo community and HiROQUEST is this new world I created that lives in the MetaZoo Universe. HiROQUEST is a really big one, and I'm touring heavy, I just posted a bunch of new dates on my Instagram, and it's almost a show every day.
In the NFT space with MetaZoo, we're dropping our first NFT PFP which is exciting for all the fans at MetaZoo. My rookie NFT Character X, we're dropping Replicant X, that'll be coming out very soon. I'm doing that with Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, Seth Green's company, and one of my favorite stop-motion animation companies in the world. We created a whole world around Character X called Dominion X, with all these different characters and, within Dominion X, is what we call Replicant X, replicants of Character X. There's lots of fun stuff with world-building -- just opening up the imagination and having fun with it.
Steve Aoki's set at Anime Expo is on Saturday, July 2, with tickets on sale exclusive to registered Anime Expo attendees.