One Piece Movie 01

Story: This OP movie is pretty basic, its a just a treasure hunt. Its pretty decent but nothing special.

Animation: Its just the basic one piece style.

Sound: Its very good, acoustic music done perfectly.

Character: Luffy, Zoro, Ussop, and Nami. Great characters and every thing that is in the show is in this movie.

Enjoyment: Decent enemeys and a story about pirates, how can this not be good.

Overall: Watch this if you like One Piece and haven\'t seen it yet

(This review contains spoilers!!!)
A film without any ideas of its own

The first movie of One Piece has no fresh story. It sort of takes the prologue story of One Piece ("Wealth, Power and Glory...." We all know it) and just rewrites it a little. There was once a pirate named Woonan who was called - surprise - Gold Pirate. He stole stolen gold from pirates together and eventually had a huge treasure. Then he hid it on an island. To find this treasure, there is a treasure map, which coincidentally reminds us of the Road Porneglyphs. There is also a little boy named Tobio whose ... biggest dream is to find the treasure (comparable to Luffy), and his grandfather Ganzo knew Woonan (comparable to Garp). This story has many parallels to the real One Piece story, even more so from today's perspective.

The film is now by and large a simple treasure hunt story. With an island, treasure map, riddle and an antagonist who is also looking for the treasure. The riddle is on the treasure map and is super trivial. Apparently, not even minimal effort has been made here. By the way, the main antagonist is El Drago. He has eaten from a Devil Fruit (the name of this is never mentioned). The power of this Devil Fruit seems very One Piece untypical and fits more to Dragon Ball (he can shoot such a Kamehameha out of his mouth). Of course, so that Zoro also has an opponent, El Drago has a swordsman named Golass as a sidekick. Both the fight against El Drago and Golass are pretty boring.

At least the comedy aspect of the film is convincing. The comedy gives the movie a bit of that old One Piece feel. Ruffy is stupid, Nami yells around, Usopp lies for his life, and Zoro is typically cool on it. However, I feel like the writers of the movie simplified the consistency of One Piece to just comedy and stretched it to the max. There are some very over-the-top jokes that don't fit even for the old One Piece. For example when Ruffy asks Ganzo if he died and even repeats that. Yes Ruffy is the typical stupid Shonen protagonist, but he's also not that stupid. The old One Piece, besides the comedy, also makes up for a sense of adventure with, or rather through, an unknown island. The island here, however, remains uninteresting. No inhabitants, no special animals, nothing.

In the end, the film should have been made longer and embellished more. So even for huge One Piece fans (like me) there is no real reason to watch this movie and even less for basic viewers. At the same time, the film is not really bad, but simply sinks into insignificance without bringing its own ideas to the franchise. Too bad

This is the first One Piece movie, theoretically taking place after Usopp joins the crew and before Sanji is introduced. Just like all movies, it is a filler mission with a good budget and a simplistic plot. And indeed, the story is just about the Strawhat Pirates trying to find a great treasure before an evil pirate crew does. Why? Well, the adventure sounds like fun and there is a kid asking for their help, so how can their shounen hearts say no?

As simple as it all sounds though, I must say the premise is quite far fetched for the point in the storyline it ... was thrown in. The treasure is supposed to be around 1/3rd of the world’s riches and the main villain has weird Dragonball super powers. It just doesn’t feel like that sort of grand-scale premise fits into the weakest and calmest of the world’s seas. This is something one would normally expect after the CP9 are introduced. Hell, why is there even a character called El Drago, when the main series already has Dragon? But hey, since when do filler movies try to be consistent? Anyways, a notice must be given to how the real form of the pirate treasure may as well be the real One Piece of the main series. Since Oda takes ideas even from these movies into the canon story later on, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is so. In a way the first movie may be spoiling one of the greatest mysteries of the show.

As epic as it sounds though, the overall plot is as I said quite simple and unimpressive, and has the usual kid asking the heroes to help out fuss. So you will just watch this for the action scenes, which are not bad at all. They are definitely longer and more elaborate than those of the earlier Ganzack OVA and there is even a mini-boss for Zoro to fight and show off his powers properly. If there is something I didn’t like is how final boss El Drago was being defeated constantly with his own power turned against him and he didn’t just stick to using cutting attacks. I also didn’t understand how Luffy could block or deflect energy beams but then again I am overthinking in a shounen filler movie. Let’s just say I didn’t like how Luffy didn’t really use any actual strategy in battle other than having infinite stamina and using the attacks against the bad guy. Cheap!

In all, it is quite the passable movie. The story is too simple and even out of sync with the point it’s supposed to take place, while the action, as flashy as it may be, lacks any real excitement once you realize the protagonist has plot armour.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 8/10
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 2/2, Backgrounds 1/2, Animation 2/2, Visual Effects 1/2

SOUND SECTION: 6/10
Analysis: Voice Acting 2/3, Music Themes 2/4, Sound Effects 2/3

STORY SECTION: 4/10
Analysis: Premise 1/2, Pacing 1/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 0/2, Conclusion 1/2

CHARACTER SECTION: 6/10
Analysis: Presence 2/2, Personality 2/2, Backdrop 1/2, Development 0/2, Catharsis 1/2

VALUE SECTION: 1/10
Analysis: Historical Value 0/3, Rewatchability 0/3, Memorability 1/4

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 2/10
Analysis: Art 1/1, Sound 0/2, Story 0/3, Characters 1/4

VERDICT: 4.5/10