One Piece Movie 05: Norowareta Seiken

I am a huge fan of One Piece, and I know for a fact that many people also love it! But something I really hate is when a bad movie is created using "One Piece" as the title. That's exactly what happened here with "One Piece: Norowareta Seiken".

This movie doesn't even compare to the awesomeness that One Piece offers. I'm guessing that whoever wrote the script for this didn't really have "One Piece" in mind. They very well could have just written a script and thrown the cast of One Piece into the roles.

It's necessary to be harsh with this movie because it ... is by far one of the worst One Piece movies, and anyone who loves the show shouldn't waste their time to watch this movie.


Story / Character: 5
Basically, the summary of this movie is that The Straw Hats go to some random island to look for a sword and then Zoro betrays his friends to go meet with his old companion and fights against the crew. Okay, already you know that this is ridiculous.

How many of you have seen One Piece? If you're willing to watch this movie, I'm guessing you have. And you should then realize that this is crazy because even though Zoro comes across as a scary, mean swordsman most of the time, he does care deeply for his 'Nakama' and would never betray them, even if it were to help an old friend.

That's mainly what made me angry while watching this. Seeing the characters personalities and values changed just for the convenience of the movie was a terrible idea.

Even Luffy seemed a bit off while he was on screen. Luffy may be reckless and doesn't think things through, but he's not a complete moron. The writer of this movie didn't seem to understand that fact.

Of course, in this movie we have a new character. That's right, Zoro's friend known as 'Saga'. Now how can I put this? Well first of all, I hate him. It doesn't matter how 'justified' his actions were; as an audience, I didn't feel any compassion for him.

Sometimes in shows we end up feeling sad for a bad guy because you realize that he was just trying to do the right thing! It makes us think to ourselves "wow, maybe he is really a nice guy that just went about doing what he thought was right", or something along those lines. Trust me, you won't feel any of that while watching this movie. It's really pretty impossible to be immersed into such a shallow character such as Saga.


Art: 8
Now, even though the story is horrific, the art is actually quite good! The characters have the same general 'One Piece' look to them, and then the backgrounds are quite beautifully detailed. It seems as though some computer animation was used throughout the movie as well, there are times when the camera shot moves around and looks almost 3D.

The fighting is also very well done. We see some pretty intense fighting shots, angles and colours during the movie. So in a way, the art reminded me of the original show, which is sad that the story couldn't be as good as the art was.


Sound: 9
If you've seen One Piece, you know what the characters sound like. You will also know that the voice actors always give 110% no matter what! Their voices are part of what make the show amazing! The way they can sound so emotional, sarcastic or angry is just incredible.

As mentioned before, we have a new character in this movie. Saga. His voice actor, Nakamura Shidou, is not very well known, the only role he's done that is worth mentioning is Ryuk from Death Note. I think there may be a reason that he hasn't gotten a lot of voice acting roles, it's not that he's bad, but his voice only works for certain characters. And Saga isn't one of them. He sounds quite out of place and out of character.


Enjoyment: 5
Alright, so I'll be fair. I didn't love this movie obviously, but I didn't feel the need to fall asleep while watching it either. Being a Shounen anime movie, it focuses on fighting a lot, which is something most of us can enjoy even if the story is terrible. And since the fights were good, I was able to keep my eyes on the screen and watch the movie all the way through.

I also love Zoro, he's a great character, so it was nice to see him get the spotlight for a movie.


Overall: 6
I certainly don't plan on watching it again. I've seen fanfics that have better story and character than this movie did (which is really saying something)!

If you like One Piece, feel free to watch this movie. But I'm warning you now that it isn't the One Piece that we all love dearly. It's an insult to One Piece and Oda himself to make a movie that messes with the original story and the original characters.

One Piece Norowareta Seiken (The Curse of the Sacred Sword) is definitely my least favorite One Piece movie. I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

Obviously if you are watching this movie you have seen the series, and have in all likelihood seen the first 4 movies, so I will save the talk about having to be a fan to see this first. So I will just jump into it section by section.

Story: Not bad. One piece has had some pretty terrible storylines in the past, and so this movie was easily forgiven by having a passable story, and one that focuses on one of my favorite characters Zoro. I didn't love it, I didnt hate it, so it gets a 5.

Art: Very One Piece style. ... I really don't want to talk about the art because one piece is one piece in its style of art, love it or hate it. It gets and 8 from me.

Sound: Good. Nothing much to say about this. Not as good as the series or Movie 4 or 2, but still good.

Characters: Main Character = Zoro = +. I wish Luffy had a little bit more of a role, because it felt like he wasn't even needed in the entire movie, yet he was still the "main character". No one else really seemed to matter in this movie except for Zoro. I felt like they included all the other characters because otherwise it wouldn't be One Piece. Really disappointing on how they used everyone.

Enjoyment: Made me laugh at times. I watch One Piece to laugh, and get me really excited when someone is pissed off. Surprisingly no one got that pissed off in this movie. I thought I would have enjoyed it more because of this fact, but I didn't so now I appreciate it more when someone does get really angry. Other than that it had its usual jokes that put a smile on my face.

Overall: I still enjoyed it, would never watch it again, and if I could have gone back in time to tell myself to just go ahead and skip it, I would have. Your not missing much if you decide to skip this movie.

One Piece Movie 5: Norowareta Seiken Review


Story (5/10) Average

The story in the 5th One Piece movie is average but also generic at the same time. Why because it's basically your typical "I'm your comrade from the past now back out of nowhere and I'm evil now" story. And I'm not hating on it because it was forced or I've seen it done before because I have seen it done many many times before and I did like it in the past, I like The Bleach Diamond Dust when it did it there and that's plot is basically the same as this. I felt once again ... the execution fell short and I think majority of the issue is pacing. They are given an hour and a half to do this and I think they realize that the substance/plot they have for this movie has to be stretched if they want to make this last as long as they have. With Luffy and Ussop running around for who knows how long in the cave, to having the remaining straw hat crew just sit in with the movie characters basically doing nothing for majority of the movie until Luffy and Ussop get back, to letting Luffy have two fights with the movie villain instead of feeling entertaining and like some sort of story progression is taking place it all felt like fluff kind of like what the anime does to stretch out certain scenes because they need to make this certain amount of content fit the amount of time they have in this episode. So if there's anything that killed it for me in this movie it's definitely pacing.


Art and Animation (7/10) Good
More Specifically (7.75/10) Good+

This one does look a bit better than all of the previous films but not enough to give it too much of a compliment. The colors used did fell like it did bring out a more saturated feel and it made certain scenes look more lively but once the setting got dark or night time those colors aren't needed anymore and it looks just like the previous movie.


Sound (7/10) Good
Sound is good nothing in particular to talk about


Characters (8/10) Very Good

I was going to give this section a 7 because like some of the previous movies the Straw Hat Crew wasn't utilized and a lot of characters hit the back burner for majority of the movie and they usually let the movie MC or movie villain or villains have more spotlight. But not really in this one as the movie antagonist does indeed get more spotlight than majority of the crew yes but at least they didn't end this movie the way they ended the 3rd movie (the Chopper one) where basically you can tell other than Luffy himself you can tell that (just like chopper was in movie 3) Zoro has majority of the spotlight and he is a focused character in this movie. In the 3rd movie I wanted Chopper to have the final blow to the villain in that movie because I felt he deserved it but that didn't happen it he lost and Luffy saved the day. Even though Luffy saved the day technically in this one for plot convinces of finding the Orbs and bringing them back even though he had no clue he knew that were that significantly important at least they didn't let Zoro loose the final battle against the movie Villain and let Luffy obtain the final blow at least they let Zoro have that and for that I will give this movie a little more credit in the category than i did the 3rd movie.


Enjoyment (5/10) Mediocre

Just looking at the poster for this film it got me a little hyped to start watching it because it looked (and was) Zoro focused and I'm currently Team Zoro right now. And I was indeed enjoying myself for like the first 10 minutes but after watching Zoro go rogue and then pacing issues kicked it it went from an 8 to a 7 to a 6 to a 5. Pacing killed it..


Overall (6/10) Fine
More Specifically (6.55/10) Fine+

The movie was fine but far from recommendation quality it was one of those movies were I couldn't even finish it in one sitting, the pacing was too slow for me I tried to skip ahead a couple of minutes because I was either getting pissed at the movie for taking so long to progress a certain scene or I was straight dozing off again and didn't care what was actually happening. As a Zoro fan right now I'm disappointed I got my hopes up a bit too much for this one. Like I said earlier I'm glad Zoro got the final blow but even that wasn't enough for me to think the overall was even a 7/10.

The fifth One Piece film centers around Roronora Zoro, which is a nice change of pace, but does it live up to the name of "One Piece"?

Story: 6
The story isn't too complex, with a lot of standard tropes that we've seen before. Luffy & crew are in search of treasure as usual, but Zoro ends up going off on his own after receiving a message from an old friend in the form of a knife. This old Friend of Zoro's is known as Saga. From there, there's lots of adventure and conflict between different groups, as well as a predicament that involves a ritual sacrifice. ... None of this is too interesting on their own, but they all come together and are presented fairly well to make for an entertaining enough plotline, one that is enjoyable to watch, but not super impressive.

Art: 4
The art, when compared to the One Piece films that came before this, really seems to drop the ball. The iconic One Piece character design is still here in full form, as expected, and there's plenty of good-looking, well-animated shots, but there's also plenty of instances of obvious-looking limited animation, making me think the budget was decreased a bit from the previous films. However, even aside from all that, the most baffling parts are the moments where the animation becomes so low-resolution that it looks like pixel art instead of a drawing. Honestly, some shots in this film look like they came directly out of a Sega CD game. It's just entirely unacceptable, and the moments of good animation can't excuse these moments of exceedingly poor animation, making the overall animation less than average.

Sound: 7
The soundtrack is what you'd expect from One Piece, no surprises there, but it still sounds good. The audio design is loud and booming, as expected from a theatrical release. The voice acting from the Japanese cast is also just as well done as it normally is in the show, and the new characters they introduce also had solid performances from their voice actors. Overall, the audio in the movie is nicely done, but it's nothing to write home about.

Character: 8
The cast from the main show are in full form here and, for the most part, just as likable here as they are there. As for the new characters, they're a mixed bag. Maya is a pretty standard young priestess girl and isn't very interesting, and the main villain Saga is also a pretty standard bad guy, who used to be good but was turned evil by a cursed sword. However, Saga's underlings have pretty nice visual designs, and are a bit more complex than Saga himself, since even though they're the antagonists, they're not clearly on the side of good or evil. Also, the old lady from the village has some great moments.

Enjoyment: 7
Despite it's shortcomings, the movie was still pretty fun to watch. There were a lot of good moments, but also a few moments where I was bored and wondering how much more of the film I had left...
I would recommend it to fans of the characters who want to see them on another (fairly standard) adventure who can forgive a little bit of roughness from the animation side of things.

Overall: 6

*this review contains light spoilers*

WHY I LIKED:
⬤ *spoiler* Luffy vs Boss fight scene was very satisfying to watch. Luffy just kept using dozen of skills uninterruptedly, without expecting a counter-attack

WHY I DISLIKED:
⬤ Low quality eyesore animation, a big downgrade from movie 4
⬤ Out of place character development for Zorro
⬤ *spoiler* Nami beating off a battalion of marines in with single swipe, the heck... when did she get that strong...
⬤ *spoiler* The plot armor again, I just cant get used to it.. The bad guy destroys Zorro's hand but it takes a few hours to heal. Plot armor seem to love Zorro and Nami alot.
...
SUMMARY:
-We have a couple of fillers left but it doesnt fit in the story line... what are we gonna do ?
-Lets make a movie then... Oversaturate colors and give it a movie feeling...

During my time watching this movie I wanted it to conclude as soon as possible so I could continue the tv show from where I left. The magic didnt happen Im afraid.
The anime is pretty much average, so it gets a bittersweet [[ 6/10 ]] !!

Story: 6/10
Art: 5/10
Sound: 7/10
Character: 5/10
Enjoyment: 6/10

Overall: 6/10

As the rating suggests, this one was... fine. I'd even say good, overall. It just wasn't particularly moving or fun. It's a pretty standard standalone movie plot. I didn't spot any majorly gaping plot holes. (Though their description of Saga just "drifting" along the Grand Line until he reached this village after seeing just how hard it is to enter and navigate grated on my mind a bit...)

Unfortunately, this entry is guilty of one of my all-time least favorite standalone movie tropes... The villain being an old never-before-mentioned childhood friend of one of the protagonists. Thus explaining away any motivations said protag might need ... to justify helping them. It's just such a meh cop-out to me. I like to see more effort put into movie characters. Zoro's a simple guy. Stubborn, but I feel like they definitely could have found some way Saga could have appealed to him and gotten on his good side as a stranger. They probably would have had to cut out the dojo being a facet of the marines-- and thus being in opposition to everything he now is by default-- but that part never really flew with me anyway. As loyal as Zoro is, I'm not totally sold that even keeping a promise to a childhood friend would have been enough for him to put up with this group loudly gloating about their intentions to separate him from his crew.

And honestly, that final fight was a bit lackluster. But the plot itself was executed fine. And visually, this movie was a really good one. I really liked the settings and color.