One Piece Movie 02: 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?

One Piece movie 2 was a fun-filled adventure with a memorable cast of new characters.

There were countless pieces of music which enriched this film and the anime episodes which followed.

The animation had lots of highlights and the shading was akin to episodes such as 312 and 474.

The composition was rather impressive too....

This is truly one of the most underrated One Piece movies despite only being the successor of One Piece 2000.

This is the second One Piece movie, theoretically taking place after Sanji joins the crew and before they go to Drunken Drum Island. Just like all movies, it is a filler mission with a good budget and a simplistic plot. The story is just about the Strawhat Pirates trying to save a kidnapped Nami and their stolen ship from an evil pirate crew. Along the way they also need to stop them before they complete their super weapon. And as usual there is a kid asking for their help …

Although not as far fetched as the previous movie, it still abuses the notion of making ... a super weapon out of a machine island. I mean they make it look so hard just to find the knowledge to build one from ancient manuscripts and they just do it with normal established technology? And where the heck is the navy to take advantage or protect this place? But hey, since when do filler movies try to be consistent?

As usual, Oda takes ideas even from these movies into the canon story later on, so later on you actually get a very similar case where Nami is kidnapped and is dressed as a bride to be forcefully married to some creep. There even is a mechanical island where they build all sorts of weird super weapons.

Anyways, as far as a movie goes, both action and plot are a bit more exciting than that of the previous movie for having more secondary battles (there are four mini-bosses instead of one) and the whole super weapon plan feels more epic than just looking for hidden treasure. Of course the whole thing is still quite simple since after their initial defeat by being unprepared, the good guys go to the offence and own everything. There is also that damn fuss with the kid asking the heroes to help out. They tried to make it look a bit tragic by having the population unwilling to resist the bad guys for not wasting all the years they spent on making the device. Yet all the resolution to this issue was just Luffy trashing everything and saying “There, I ruined your life’s work, so stop complaining and start from scratch.” Very weak I must say; normal people would flip if you do that to them.

So you will just watch this for the action scenes, which are not bad at all. They are more in numbers than in the first movie and since the enemies are all devil fruit users that use booby traps and sneak attacks which makes them have a lot more fancy powers. Plus, they have a motif around card symbols and gambling, so there is a vague identity trait here that follows a pattern. There is even a minor character that has a grudge against Zoro for an earlier defeat to build up some cheap excitement. As for the big boss, Bear King seemed to be undefeatable until he used the super weapon on Luffy. Just for no reason than ending the battle, Luffy manages to reflect back a bullet three times his size and wins the day. I didn’t like how he won with no real strategy other than having infinite stamina and reflecting what was supposed to be beyond human capabilities. Cheap!

In all, it is quite the passable movie. The action is cool but it all ends in a convenient way.

Oh and don’t miss the special short that comes with the movie. “Jango's Dance Carnival” may only be 5 minutes long but has an awesome song and choreography.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 9/10
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 2/2, Backgrounds 2/2, 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