One Piece Film: Strong World

Considering Oda's supposed contribution to this movie, it was pretty disappointing. Note that Shiki's abilities and some other things are spoiled in this review just since it's hard to talk about the movie without spoiling it, but... ah, who cares? The movie was predictable, anyway.

I simply couldn't think of the story as being more than filler. I know they tried to make it "tie into" the main story, but I simply wasn't convinced. They added this magical "Shiki" character who escaped Impel Down! That place has such tight security that NOBODY HAS EVER broken into or out of it until Luffy managed to. Oh... wait, ... there was that one other guy who did it, how could we forget? What's more, he was Gol D. Roger's hugest rival and controlled a fleet of incredible proportions. What's even more, the news of his escape from Impel Down was broadcast to the entire world in the newspaper headlines, so EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT THIS GUY, and yet... he doesn't exist. He also destroyed Marineford before... He's like a hollow copy of Luffy's accomplishments for the sake of seeming like such a worthless character can be Luffy's rival. He's never mentioned in One Piece because he's nothing more than a character hastily inserted into the anime series in some weak attempt to create substance for the movie.
But okay, let's move on, shall we? This guy's been doing big things like making islands float and rampaging around East Blue (which shall hereby be forgotten by everyone). This is really quite horrible, so the Straw Hat Pirates decide to put their great adventure on hold. That's right, they're going to quickly sail back to where they started so they can save East Blue. That would surely take WEEKS or MONTHS, but don't worry! They'll surely make it back in time to save their hometowns. And they'll find some way to go back up the Reverse Mountain. Hey, I guess Brook can say hi to Laboon, going against his promise to circumnavigate the globe to see Laboon again. Seriously, the story was shit. It wasn't planned out at all and does NOT tie in with the main story in any way at all. By the way, this is only the introduction to set the stage; the movie's barely begun.

To me, it felt like the movie was trying very hard to be like "One Piece". The comedy was just pretty typical and didn't make me laugh. The "YOU CAN TALK?!" joke didn't really make sense seeing as everyone knows the guy can talk, though I found it slightly amusing. The final stage of that running gag was pretty decent, but overall I think it was a bad idea to try and stick a running gag into a single movie. There just isn't enough time to make the viewers familiar with it unless you throw it in their faces at every opportunity like they did in this movie. The bird and the electrocution humour felt like a copy of Pikachu from Pokemon.

The characters were... in character. Their costumes for the movie were fan service. They looked cool, there's no denying that. Shiki and his crew were made up entirely of complete morons. They also felt like a forced attempt to emulate "One Piece" - the three main villains were given very blatant quirks. One Piece often does a good job of making each character unique, like how Don Flamingo is always laughing and scheming, how Jinbei is honourable and self-sacrificing, how Zoro can seem scary while actually being a really great guy. Shiki had a steering wheel in his head and his own special laugh, which just felt bland and made him look like a joke. His assistant's shoes made fart noises and he had his running gag; the fart noise thing just felt really, really stupid. The gorilla dressed oddly and seemed to have a King Kong mindset or something. The characters had no depth; there was nothing to them beyond the quirks.

Shiki's power was kinda nonsensical. I can accept the floating stuff, but his special moves just didn't relate to that at all. When the Straw Hats fight him, the results are just kinda typical... like they want us to think "Wow, Shiki is so amazing and is not a guy to be messed with". I could feel that way about God Enel, but Shiki did nothing to earn a reputation like that. He just did some move that made no sense and everyone was suddenly too slow to do anything. I can't accept that, even if Luffy was hungry.


After thinking about it all, I think I rated this movie too high. The only good One Piece movie is the one where Chopper joins their crew... But it isn't good because it's a movie, it's good because Oda actually wrote that story and it was really touching; it was touching in the series. All of the movies are mere merchandise created to generate more money by throwing the "One Piece" name all over the place. If you're an extremely hardcore fanboy or if you can't tell good anime from bad anime, then this is the movie for you. One Piece has a good story, but you should just stick to the manga if you're tired of fillers and empty movies like this one.

Light Spoilers In This Review:

Welcome to Jurassic Park! A land filled with incredible creatures and danger at every turn! Hold on....wrong movie. One Piece: Strong World takes place sometime between Thriller Bark and the Sabaody Archipelago arcs and focuses on the legendary pirate Golden Lion Shiki. For the last 20 years after escaping Impel Down Shiki has been experimenting with "IQ" plants in order to create extraordinarily powerful animals in which he intends to destroy islands with.

Story/Character: One Piece is certainly well known(in the anime especially) for dragging things out, but this movie just drew the line with me for how much of my ... time they could waste. I am a huge fan of One Piece and I typically let these types of things slide, but for more than half the movie I felt like I was watching endless exposition. The new antagonist Golden Lion Shiki who is built up in the anime to be this intimidating character taking on the likes of Roger doesn't bring much to the table either. Shortly after watching almost everyone in the crew fight a mutant group of animals we learn that none other than Nami is kidnapped. Later on in the movie she feels forced to join Shiki's crew in order to save her friends and family. This not the first time we have seen Nami in this situation and I felt this was very weak from Oda's usually great story telling.The only saving grace in this movie was Luffy's finishing blow to Shiki but lets be honest here...what is a One Piece movie/arc without that iconic knock out?

Art/Sound: Not much needs to be said here for a One Piece movie. The same soundtrack we have come to love and know is present throughout the movie, and besides some scenes of Shiki's floating fortress of a ship we don't see anything too daunting in the art department either.

Overall: If you are a big fan of One Piece like I am I do recommend watching this movie. However, watching Strong World long after it's release and having already seen Film Z (which is far superior) it's hard to say whether I will ever be watching it again. At best there are a couple of good fight scenes and little quirks such as new outfits that make this movie worth it if you have the time.

This review contains slight spoilers for this movie.

As I'm not very used to writing reviews this will definitely not be particularly well written, however I really wanted to share my thoughts.

I did not like this movie, but i'll still start of with the positives:
The animation is quite good (Especially for one piece) it isn't anything special in terms of anime movie standards but compared to the abysmal animation the anime has it comes off as incredible.
I really liked the designs of everything, the floating islands and animals especially. I also liked the designs of Shiki, his two henchmen and the feathered villagers. all the NEW ... characters personalities where suitable and they felt like One Piece characters
I like the origin of where namis arm band thing came from, and from my recollection of the manga that was never touched on

Now as for the bad:
First of all, as i previously stated the NEW characters are all pretty fun (aside from the fact that Shiki is extremely weak compared to how he is portrayed in the rest of the series) However the straw hats don't make any sense whatsoever. This movie takes place after Enies Lobby yet Nami makes the exact same decisions as Robin did back then, however for robin it made sense for nami it doesn't. Nami learned to trust her crewmates back in Arlongpark which was kind of the point of the Arlongpark arc. She was also one of the crewmates Robin needed to trust during the Enies Lobby arc. The point that I'm trying to get across is that Nami (like the other straw hats) should know to trust in Luffy and trust in the crew, yet in this movie she does not.
Another problem about this movie is the plot and how it just feels like it was copy and pasted from the manga (Especially Arlongpark and Enies Lobby/Water 7) except they removed most of the good parts as in the Fights, the drama and the characters and only left in the humor (There's not that much) and the general structure.

In general I think this is a good MOVIE however that is only if you seperate it from the rest of the One Piece series, but as i absolutely LOVE the manga series and have read and re read it multiple times i simply can't evaluate this movie as a separate thing.

In comparison to Film Z, this film is just decent. It was the first One Piece film I watched and it kind of left me with a feeling of a slight dissatisfaction.

It started great, but... Hmm... It wasn't as great later.

Firstly, the animation - I feel like the only character that was taken care of here was Nami. And she was really well animated, but that's it. The rest was mediocre.

Secondly, the plot. It started off as if a big deal was going to happen out there, but except for some occasional scenes with crowd of pirates or the comeback of Shiki (with the Marines) ... the movie lacked that... Sense of greatness, epicness, insert whatever comes to your mind here. All I can say is Z really had this, and Strong World totally missed its potential when it comes to this.

Thirdly, the characters. Nami's a badass, that is to say. Shiki too. But those 2 guys by his side effciently weakened this dangerous "halo" of a pirate. Can't remember the name of the gorrilla, but I for sure remember Indigo who was speaking with the voice of my beloved Ryuusei Nakao (the guy that's responsible for Caesar, ahhhhh!!!) and... I have no idea why, but Oda-dono has that weird habit of portraying brilliant scientists as... Clowns. Why, I will never know (he could spare the... farting, really...)

And last, but not least, is the score. Tanaka does fine job as always. :) Play me "Giant Thor Axe" again and again...

To sum up: fine, but it could've been better. A thing for a rainy afternoon.

Story: 6/10
The Story of this film cannot be compared with the others One Piece specials and films, 'cause many things aren't managed properly, but overall its good.

Animation: 8/10

Sound: 7/10

Nothing to say about these, the movie is animated very well, in step with the last seasons of anime, and the osts are good.

Enjoyment: 7/10
... Overall is a good film, but it's sins in some things as i am about to explain.


SPOILER


Character: 4
This is the main problem of this film.
The villain is made ridicolous like never before.
Shiki, legendarious pirate lived in the age of Garp, Sengoku and Gol D. Roger cannot be defeated by a Luffy that cannot master the haki...
The others characters are not bad, in particular Nami play an important role in the story.