Ranked #777

One Piece: Episode of Chopper Plus - Fuyu ni Saku, Kiseki no Sakura

After seeing the preview for this movie, I was eager to watch it! The summary says it all, the movie is basically a re-make of the show's "Drum Island arc" (episodes 78 - 91) where Chopper joins the Straw Hat Pirates.

In the original arc, we have only 5 of the main characters (Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Usopp), and in this movie the creators advertised the fact that Franky and Robin would be in it, which most people will know that they don't join the Straw Hats until much later. I thought that would very interesting to see how the changes would be now that those two were included!

So of course I did watch the movie...and for all that excitement, the movie was not what I was expecting at all. Franky and Robin were indeed in the movie...but really didn't do much at all, in fact they are not even 'Main' characters in the movie. It felt as though they didn't exist at all throughout the whole thing.

If you have watched One Piece, then there really isn't much to see here. To be brief, it's episodes 78 - 91 just crammed into 2 hours with Franky and Robin standing in the background.

That doesn't mean it was bad at all. In fact, I did enjoy watching it, but there really wasn't anything new. Except for the very end.
So, do you all remember that 'evil guy' named Wapol from the anime? Well, turns out he has a brother named Mushul, who does have a role in this movie. And that's where the difference happens.
Rather than just fight Wapol, Luffy has to defeat Mushul. Which is actually a rather epic fight (even though it's not very long).

The art was decent enough. It reminded me of the 6th One Piece movie (Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island). It doesn't have all of the "cell shading" (general anime shading) that we are used to, and the movements seem a bit less smooth than what is common. But as just about everyone knows, One Piece has unique art, and that never has stood in the way of a great story!

But since this movie wasn't completely up to my expectations, I'm going to say that it deserves an 8.

I do love Chopper's story and even if I have seen episodes 78 - 91, I still liked watching it once more. You don't have to have seen all of One Piece to understand what is happening, it's a great movie that I think anyone could enjoy!
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I watched all the one piece movies in the past before I picked up this movie and the arabasta one. Both are recaps mostly, but this movie is considerably better. I thought this movie did a even better job at telling chopper's story than the tv series. I rewatched one piece plenty of times, but every time, I couldn't really get into this story arc that much. Don't get me wrong, I love Chopper and how Luffy invited him to be his nakama. The background story about chopper is also very touching. But this is probably the only main arc where luffy is the only one fighting against the bad guys, and actually, those bad guys are so weak that I wouldn't consider it a real fight.
Of course, one piece isn't about fighting, but in the tv series, the arc took too many episodes and the other characters played too little role. This movie, however, I felt was really well paced and told the whole story in the right amount of time. Plus, you get to see franky and robin there too, so that's refreshing.
Out of all the older one piece movies, I feel this one is probably the most well planned and worth watching. Even as a retold story, I find it interesting. So I recommend the fans out there who haven't watched this to give it a try.
I'm about to watch the new one about nami too, so hopefully it can be much better than the arabasta movie and as good as this.

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