One Piece Movie 04: Dead End no Bouken

I recently began watching all of One Piece. No skipping filler, watching every movie, every OVA and ONA, etc, and out of all the movies and smaller stories I've watched this one was my favorite up to this point. The supporting cast got along with the Straw Hats neautifully, and the concept was interesting enough. The setting is really cool, honestly I wouldn't've even minded if it had been a little longer. The animation and soundtrack are what you'd expect from One Piece at the time that this aired, nothing particularly different.

Like I mentioned, some really good scenes with the Straw Hats are what ... make this movie so special, there's particularly a really great Sanji scene that I loved, I really hope he gets more wholesome moments like that in the future, there's so much potential to him as a character and I really love him a lot! Overall a really enjoyable movie, definitely watch if you enjoy One Piece, even if you usually skip the non-canon stuff!

This is the first one that was really good, more what I was hoping for from the standalone movies. The first one that felt like more than just an extra-long episode. And the first one that looked a little better than the regular show as well. You can see the animation glow-up from having the extra budget to produce a movie. I really liked their use of movement in this. The fights were fluid and fun. The CG moments stood out but not in a way that was off-putting.

Race stories are always fun. The feel of adventure was present all the way through, from ... before they even got out onto the water. I really liked the sequence in the beginning-- the secret underground passage that opened up into the meeting place for the participants. This whole movie was just fun. What I've been hoping for from these movies.

Of course, it also included some extra characters... A subplot of sorts running through the whole thing. The kids and the old boiler man were all likable enough. Watching Shuraiya, in particular, fight was one of the high points of the movie. His greatest strength is being really quick on his feet. That kind of fighter is just fun to watch. Their personal drama was... fine. Just a little predictable. But that wasn't the main draw of this movie for me anyway. This was a good one.

One Piece Movie 4: Dead End no Bouken Review


Story (5/10) Mediocre

I thought the beginning plot for this movie was fine at first and they hype up this Dead End Adventure, the Pirate Ship Race (which gets interrupted and just felt bland) and the story of Shuraiya and his backstory and what not. I think with these three written on paper it sounds like it should be a good movie but I personally felt it fell short in the execution department as certain parts felt drawn out all of characters in the straw hat character didn't really do anything in this movie and I felt ... the pacing was was off as there was a lot of boring dialogue scenes and had me dozing off honestly. Too much uninteresting things I felt was going on in this 4th movie of One Piece.


Art and Animation (6/10) Fine

Continuing with this annual repetition of release the 4th One Piece movie yearly at the point of this movie coming out of course. The only major difference I saw between this an the last movie is that during the beginning they tried to do this 3rd 1st person view of going through a town at night seeing all the people of the town until we eventually get to the Straw Hat Crew who is in a restaurant of some sort getting their grub on like always. I understand the idea of what this scene was trying to do and it probably looked good back in 2003 but I don't think it aged well at all because this is really slow frame rate 3D presentation honestly just hurt my eyes. The camera angles were cool but the fact that it felt like an introduction to a 1999 computer game before you hit the title screen just didn't sit well with me. Other than that everything else seem fine for a One Piece movie as far as the 4 that I've seem to this point. This one doesn't look any better than the 3 that came before it and it's not surprising since this (just like movie 2) came out almost exactly a year after the 3rd movie so advancements in the art style and animation category obviously made no improvements.


Sound (7/10) Good
Nothing to compliment but nothing to complain about. The BGM and voice actors were fine. Outro is fine also not bad not amazing it just exist so yeah..


Characters (6/10) Fair

Like I said in the story section majority of the characters in the Straw Hat Crew hit the back-burner hard in this movie. As we really only get to see mostly Luffy and not that much either. This movie tried to push the movie MC mostly and his introduction started off good. Shuraiya with Luffy in the like the first 15 or so minutes of the movie and they are about to throw down but the main antagonist comes in and interrupts their fight as they basically say "we'll fight later". To me that's Toei basically hyping up a fight we never saw and at this point who cares because the Movie MC Shuraiya get's his ass whooped around the end of this movie anyway so I didn't even want to see the fight between him and Luffy anymore. His backstory with him and his sister (who didn't even looked like she aged since her backstory) was boring and uninteresting and since the movie gave him so much screen time I personally think he's the reason why I was dozing off during this movie. The other characters like the straw hat crew when they were doing something was good but like I said we don't get to see them that much, I usually give this section a 8, 9 and sometimes a 10. But that's only because I enjoy seeing the Straw Hat crew do what they do, when they are taken out of the picture my score in the section will most likely dwindle if the characters they focus on can't suffice for replacement.


Enjoyment (5/10) Mediocre

My enjoyment was not that high for this movie, I was honestly expecting more from it. And I like I said earlier I personally think they failed to capture my attention with this movie with the various things this movie tried to bring to the table. My interested raise just a tad at the very end when Luffy is fighting the Movie Villain and his Candy Syrup powers or what ever when he messes up Luffy's hat and the various signature moves Luffy was using against him. It was a good fight but I don't think it was enough for me to forgive the rest of my boredom I had for the other hour and like ten minutes I was watching the movie for.


Overall (5/10) Mediocre
More Specifically (5.80/10) Mediocre at best

Dead End no Bouken in my opinion is probably the most boring of One Piece movies yet. It's down there with the 2nd movie and I like I said earlier if they focus on the Straw Hat crew then we can have a more entertaining movie, hopefully the future ones don't follow this template of letting the movie MC have all the spot light just to get whooped and end the movie with a Luffy fight because I don't think that's a good formula.