One Piece: Taose! Kaizoku Ganzack

This is the very first piece of one piece animation. The voices are somewhat different, the faces are very different and the animation is anything but splendid, however the story that is told is still classic one piece. It is still luffy who goes on an adventure. Who saves the day and wants to become pirate king. You cannot call yourself an one piece fan without having seen this special at least once.

One Piece may be considered the best perpetual ongoing shounen of all times, but its first anime adaptation was actually a short OVA, aiming to promote it and subtly prepare the way for the main series to begin next year. Strangely enough it is made by an entirely different studio, and for that reason it also has a very different animation style, as well as voice actors.

I have heard from most viewers how they didn’t like it because it looks weird and has different voices but these reasons are mostly aesthetic since we were accustomed to the Toei style. It is not bad at all ... for the year it was made and actually has some very good names in the production team. Studio I.G. has far better budgets than Toei and poured enough in this short to make it look ok. The director of it was Taniguchi Gorou, and this was also his first wok. Later on he went on to direct many other famous/cult anime, such as Infinite Ryvius, Planetes, and Code Geass. As for the voice actors, the villain is voiced by none other than Wakamoto Norio, one of the most distinguished and cherished ones in the field.

All the bright people in the world though are not enough to make a good omelette out of rotten eggs, and it is true that the plot is too short and simple to mean anything. In just half an hour, we get a more than linear story of the gang having to beat a pirate for food. It also plays out quite anti-climactically, as there are only three of them, they don’t even have their first ship yet (just a small boat) and the villain just wants to build a ship and a base. Not that the later movies were doing a much better job but at least offered a bit more time to building up the tension and fleshing out the secondary cast a bit. Yet here we have this child trying to protect the island and the bad pirate exploiting the population and we barely get anything worth remembering them about. And seriously, having a kid asking from the heroes to help turned out to be an overused and lame trope for the franchise.

Now something regarding the pirate Ganzack. Aside from being a filler character without a backdrop that we will never see again, he is also a very weird blend of various cannon villains. He has the clothes of Baggy, and the mechanical weaponry of Don Krieg. And if I stretch it, since Oda eventually took ideas even from the movies for his later arcs, Ganzack also uses a crab weapon like a very minor pirate captain in Merman Island. But hey, he is voiced by Norio and that alone gives him some style, lol.

The action scenes are good for their time; simple yet with fluent motions for the most part that make them a bit likable. The problem is, they last too little to get you into the proper mood but they are not bad. The sound part is unimpressive in terms of music and terrible if you can’t get past the different voices the characters have.

In all, it is quite the passable little OVA but the open minded should accept that it’s well made or how it was meant to promote what was to be the most adorable long-term shounen of them all.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 7/10
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 1/2, 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: 5/10
Analysis: Presence 1/2, 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: 4/10

Nowadays, One Piece is everywhere, anywhere, millions of fans around the world, and is for sure, a cultural phenomenon in Japan that has influenced so many other parts of the media. And it's been over 20 years as of now, and it's still going strong if not stronger than ever.
But let's go back in time, back, back... back, before the story had an Anime adaptation. Part of a tour of short animations, a certain piece of animation made it an entry under the name “One Piece: Taose! Kaizoku Ganzack”, and I'm sure that even then, a lot of people ended up sleeping on its true ... potential to flourish, and look at it now. Brighter than ever.

Ok, let's get it out of the way, the animation, for something from the 90s, you can easily get a fuzzy picture on what it would look like on your head, that's probably why I was surprised the most, of course, not because of the out-of-nowhere insane high resolution of the time (and it had none of that), but mainly because of the satisfactory fluid animation that spans almost the entirety of the OVA continuously, something even early Toei One Piece never scaled up to.

The main cast, composed of Luffy, Zoro, and Nami, making it the story fit somewhere in between of Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs, Nami is as betraying as ever, Luffy just as goofy and glutton as they come, and Zoro as infamous and widely recognizable as he's always been. The trio got themselves involved into saving an island that was overrun by pirates, and to be honest, it was as generic of a setup as the classic One Piece we're grown to love.
Dock into an island or be forced to land on it, make a move on the villain, get captured, escape death, learn about the story of the island, head back for a second round, beat the bad guy, set to sea for more information. Grindy but effective.

As I was waiting for One Piece episode 884 to download (slow internet), it was a great deal of time for until then, I'm sure it's going to be weird shifting between a pre-One Piece adventure to the intense events of the Levely arc, but for what it is, it sure made for a good watch.

Overall score: (6.8/10)

I mean, it's fine?

This is from a different studio and has different voice actors.
But it's also only 28 minutes.

So, for someone who wants to watch through One Piece with all the specials, movies and the like, it's not that hard to get through.

It is also very 90s.
The art style is so 90s anime, unlike One Piece the series. Considering the series is right at the end of that era of animation.
This art style has the 90s anime big eyes, Luffy sounds a little off from his normal voice actress. Zoro too.
... It's just a weird but okay experience.

Essentially, it's to try and get people to watch One Piece.

There's nothing ground breaking or anything.
But if you are currently going through the completionist route, it's not that graining to listen to or watch.

This is a really fun little OVA set in the early parts of the East Blue arcs. The animation is incredible, the music is a lot of fun (the jazzy ending song is going to be stuck in my head for a long while), and it's very true to the kinds of stories being told in that part of One Piece. The change in artstyle from Oda's unique cartoony look to something a bit more typical for the era is actually a lot of fun and somewhat refreshing, but I think if the actual show had continued like this it would have garnered a lot ... of criticism for the decision. It's obviously going to appeal to fans of One Piece as a bit of interesting ephemera, but I think this is just as good for people who haven't made that tremendous commitment yet. I wouldn't use this as a way to gauge whether you'd like the anime or not, though; it's an entirely different beast given that it doesn't have to contend with a weekly-airing budget and pacing, and is frankly a lot better than the anime because of that (I am a manga-only, though, so take my views with a grain of salt).
Get out your CRT, turn down the lights, and have a nice little break from modernity with this OVA. My only wish is that it was a little bit longer, and that we had a better-looking rip of it, but some things just aren't meant to be.

Watching luffy,zoro & nami in hand drawn cell animation, with all the sharp lighting and shading and warmer colors, along with the old school light special effects.
It feels so strange yet I like it a lot.
However voices are different because the voice actors are different.
In 1998 standards this OVA stands very much at top and even now due to it's amazing animation and sound. Really miss the use of saxophones and electric guitars in soundtracks, makes them more action filled and lively, like they feel more triumphant. And in 1998, one piece was part of something called “Jump Super Anime Tour ... ‘98” it was a film festival featuring three shonen jump comics adopted into short animated films. This is an original story that doesn’t take place in the manga.

After watching this OVA and seeing other reviews, I gotta write a quickie to defend this first foray into the animated world of One Piece.

First of all, I feel like the majority of those writing negative reviews of this short movie have really weird expectations. They're judging the movie (which predates any other OP animation) by the Studio Toei series that wouldn't begin until next year (comparing the voice actors, art style, etc.), which makes no sense. The movie should be seen in the proper context, as something preceding other attempts to bring OP into the world of anime. I think it does a splendid ... job of this, so let me get to the meat of it:

Story - 8/10
The plot of this little adventure is classic early One Piece. The Strawhats arrive at an island, find its inhabitants oppressed by some cliche evil villain, then they take him down. I honestly found it really satisfying. It serves as a great introduction to the typical formula of most of East Blue, and if you like what you get in this OVA, you get more of it with even more detail in the Toei adaptation. Nothing to complain about here.

Art/Sound - 7/10
Some of the weirder complaints about this OVA refer to the art. I just don't get it. Of course it's somewhat dated, it's from 1998. The quality is hardly different from that of the first Toei saga. It's nothing spectacular, but it stays true to the vision and style of the manga for the most part. I am quite mixed on the sound however. There were a few tracks in the OVA that STUNNED me for being so quality in such a short one-off thing. However, I did have a problem with the sound design. For some reason the way the tracks were played felt... off. It was the one part of the OVA that felt unduly rushed to me, both in the sense that it was as if proper time wasn't put into doing the sound design, and also in the sense that it felt like the music was really speeding along and changing frequently. Not that big a deal though.

Character - 10/10
You get everything One Piece out of this. Luffy, Zoro, and Nami get all of their most prominent character attributes displayed in a very short amount of time, giving a viewer all the characterization they need to decide if these are characters they want to see more of. The OVA also does a good job of showing what other typical OP characters seem like, from the over-the-top and cruel villain to the hapless but loveable villagers (I especially liked Medaka and wish she was a canon character).

Enjoyment - 8
I like this OVA better than a lot of regular One Piece episodes as it contains a full story in such a short amount of time, and I happen to find one of my biggest issues with the main series to be its pacing. It really works as an example of what One Piece is, and I enjoyed it a lot for the short runtime it has.

Overall - 8
Taking into consideration that this animation was the first foray into animated OP and is separate from the popular Toei adaptation, I really liked this OVA. It's a nice little self-contained story with the characters every OP fan loves, only 28 minutes long. Definitely worth the watch and gives you little to complain about.

This is a very short and cute story, i really like the art style and animation, its a bit different than the normal One Piece series.
This actually came out before the anime was airing.
This is set before we meet Usopp, and i advise you to watch this, before you watch the Syrup village arc.
You should not skip this, as it is pretty good, however don't expect it to blow your mind.
There is no character development in this story, we also don't meet any new characters that are important in the future, so if you are a sucker for those kinds of ... things, keep watching the anime.

The animation holds up well. It's smooth. It does a good job capturing how the manga looked in the first 30 or so chapters. Everyone is so expressive and the battle scenes were so well animated! I'll admit, I was getting a tad bored of it near the end, but it wasn't bad. It was entertaining, especially at the end when the little girl had that life preserver on Luffy. This was made before the anime and it wasn't even Toei who made it; everyone sounds different obviously but it's not too bad and the music in this is amazing, it honestly reminds me of ... a 90s video game!