Why the CCXP Badge Highlights 'One Piece' Greatness

CCXP is the biggest pop culture festival in the world, and that’s no secret to anyone. For four days, tens of thousands of fans from all kinds of geek culture franchises gather in São Paulo for an epic celebration of everything they love. This time, CCXP26 will be even bigger and bring a new passion to center stage: the anime One Piece. The animated series will be the event’s main highlight, featured on badges for every single day—an achievement worth celebrating for all fans.

One Piece is one of the most popular anime of all time. After nearly thirty years on the air, the franchise has gone through several sagas that embraced aesthetics already familiar in pop culture, such as horror, musicals, as well as desert and Egyptian-inspired themes. Now, in the Elbaph arc, which takes us back to the world of the Vikings, Luffy and his friends are exploring an island full of giant warriors under attack. The franchise has always used this dynamic of giving each island its own distinct theme, and this time the Viking theme will be a major highlight at CCXP.

For some time now, CCXP badges have been one of the biggest highlights of the year for Brazil’s nerd community. There is always a lot of anticipation around what themes each edition will feature, with past inspirations including Batman, Superman, The Lord of the Rings, and even some Crunchyroll anime—and now it will honor the legacy of Eiichiro Oda.

Having One Piece on a CCXP badge this year is a huge milestone for the anime, since being featured on the event’s credentials is a sign of the highest recognition within pop culture. If One Piece made it onto a CCXP badge, it’s because the anime broke out of the otaku bubble a long time ago and has now become a familiar name to all pop culture fans, whether they like anime or not. The work has often outsold comic books like Superman, and now it reaches a unique place in the audiovisual world, with its anime becoming a success all around the globe.