Ranked #1334

One Piece: Nejimaki Jima no Daibouken

I was considerably delighted to find that the second movie of One Piece had a more creative plot than the first. Stepping right into the film, the audience is immediately thrown into a humourous situation: the Straw Hats have lost their ship, and are without a change of clothes. Enter, stage right, the crew in wedding attire. No, seriously. Apparently that was the only clothing rental shop open. (REALLY guys? Really?)

So the story picks up from there, going into the traditional method of laying out movie plots: enter, stage left, side characters. And what do you know, they may have an idea of who the villains of the show might be. How coincidental. They're a loud, self-important group, which clearly contrast with the Straw Hats and make for some amusing banter. I really liked the movie characters in this, really. They've got memorable personalities, nothing that just fades into the background after watching them.

The movie continues with a light, humourous theme, and we're introduced to the island of the day with a bit of camera work: it's this giant Clockwork Tower, what do you know. I adored it. Thought it was really interesting. I mean, the crew hasn't come across many giant towers of islands before, have they? It's something that's more unique to this movie. So the landscape and setting of the incoming battles, you can tell, are going to be a bit different from normal and just plain interesting.

The villain was also highly amusing, what with his fascination and crush on Nami in a wedding dress, who was not in the least bit happy with the enemy taking a liking to her. But of course, Nami, being manipulative that she is, sought to use this against him. So Nami's role in this movie was just great.

All the other members of the crew, acting out their roles as suave and cool and determined fighters, are what mostly made this entertaining for me. Because you just know that the villains are going to assume that they're the toughest, greatest, most brilliant men and women that ever existed; oh what you've come to defeat me? Let me tell you how great I am—

Ass-kicking commenced from there on, of course.

They put up a good fight though, which further entertained me. Some interesting battle tactics and teamwork later, the Straw Hats managed to come out on top, but the villains were tougher than expected. I guess they had a reason to be obnoxiously cheeky. Not that that made them worthy of being defeated by our heroes.

All right, I'll stop mocking the villains.

At any rate, I much preferred this plot over the plot of the first movie, so if you saw this first one and were disappointed or concerned that the other movies wouldn't cut it, I would definitely try at least watching this one before you call it quits. Creativity and character motivation and back story and so much more were all improved from movie one. So don't despair.

Let me try this line to get you to see it: the villain attempts to crush Luffy with the slow and heavy downward force of a ceiling. That's action for you. No, wait a minute. Scratch that. There's Nami in a wedding dress. Yes? read more