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Probably my favourite movie so far; the plot tied together neatly through to the end and all the characters shone through perfectly :) I was hoping to see some haki/gear 4th but I guess this was too far back in the timeline? I loved how the crew just happened to have an armoury of guns (courtesy of Frankie?) alongside a wardrobe of formal clothes for the one occasion.
As with all One piece movies comes plot convenience, however the movie was entertaining which is all I care about. The ED is a nice throwback + ending was clean :)
The best thing about the movie was the animation quality.The rest was meh especially the plot which was mediocre and what made it even worst is the way they worked with it.
It just felt like an exetremly trashier version of the arlong parc arc (including nami's backstorie)
The movie seemed to care more about being pretty than actually being good in term of plot and storytelling
I remember really loving the 6th movie when I watched it the first time and being kinda bored watching this one... I've rewatched it today and was bored once again... The animation is good, music is neat and some moments were really cool (the intro for this movie and the part where they're all coming to Shiki's party with guns and smoking are the best part), otherwise the story and characters besides the Straw Hats are totally bland.
6/10
I hope my rewatch ofthe 6th movie won't be so disappointing. I also haven't watched the other movies yet (besides the 6th one) but I hope they are better than this one.
Since I wrote a lot I will put my post in spoiler tags.
The villagers were nothing notable. The islands and the situation itself was engaging but simple, survival of the fittest with animals evolved like dinosaurs. An oppressed village and a royal palace. It was cool and it worked but it wasn't anything special for me at least. The villains were boring. Shiki is the best one as he somewhat had his world view expressed, 'survival of the fittest' being brought up in the beginning by Franky if I recall, and then later Shiki mentioned they were getting rid of East Blue as it was the weakest sea. He was all about power, he was a bit of a goofball, he was relentless and cruel, and he believed presumably the strong should prevail. Yet, he was entirely surface level in my view, he never represented anything outside of the bad guy which was quite sad for what a presence he was said to have. His power was so cool, I loved how he fought with it, I loved how he sent a tone dial down with it as a phone, it was great but yet again nothing to make me see him more than an entertaining obstacle. The fart shoes guy and the gorilla were shallow gag characters. And Biri, as fun as they were, we've seen the trope before, a determined animal makes a bond with a human and helps save the day with their all, Karoo and Chouchou come to mind as clear examples but I think we've seen more than that.
This may all sound like harsh criticism, for I didn't care about anything in the movie. But I loved it, I adored this movie, it offered some of the most fun I've had in awhile! It worked so perfectly with the movie format giving us an unbroken, perfectly paced, chaotic and energetic experience. And as for everything that I listed which could be seen as something bad, it was all to accentuate the Straw Hats, and as I think is written by Oda- that part of it was perfect.
The simple world kicked us right into it without telling anything, letting us see how the world was rather than giving it to us with exposition as all the Straw Hats tried to survive and find each other. The villagers added some cheap stakes and ways to give exposition about the situation on the island. It was just enough for us to get all the Straw Hats having amazing interactions and running around together while setting up for the 2nd act of the film. We had moments like Robin stopping Franky from being mad and using her cold and resourceful attitude to get information from the pirates. Sanji screaming for Robin and Nami as Usopp was stuck with him cowering and trying to avoid any unwanted attention. Later we have small moments like Usopp kicking his foot into the door, or Usopp falling and asking "what about me?', or how Sanji wanted to be the one to catch Nami. We had Nami uncharacteristically swimming in enemy territory and showed us the bars in the water to imply she was trying to use it to escape! I mention all these to name just a few ways the movie really captured the feeling of the Straw Hats in a way most non Oda-related movies fail to do, and everything regarding the story just facilitated this feelgood content.
Plus as I implied, it planted all the seeds for the second half to commence. I'd call the second act starting after the team Shiki fight but I'm going to start talking from before it started. The Shiki fight was the turning point, it was an incredible team fight with all the Straw Hats overwhelming Shiki together, something we hardly ever get outside of Oars or Pacifista fights! As Shiki can't keep up he gets hit a few times, Sanji even launches Zoro at him, but it's no match they all get destroyed in a brutally tense and great team fight. When he grabbed Sanji's foot or told Zoro he didn't even deserve to die it was breathtaking.. And he takes Nami.. Interestingly regarding Nami being taken, I didn't think there was a secret message, instead I thought she knew that she had to take Shiki down, so she would leave it as a waver trail of sorts like she did in Skypiea, and as a way to enrage Luffy to make him try his darn hardest. She knows the kind of person he is. So by doing that, I thought it was to start a spark to inspire them and then go engage on the attack herself.. which was almost right and I'd honestly prefer if it was. I also want to mention that Usopp yelling at her not to go with Shiki actually got to me emotionally.
But from Nami being taken we had a 'walk to Arlong Park'-esque sequence.. Ignoring the comedy in that they had time to suit up in formal-wear, it was so damn cool. Almost too cool!!! The way they walked in looking all good was like it was straight out of the yakuza games, like Kiryu and his friends vs the whole Tojo clan, all the way to them saying the immaculate "she was the Vanguard and we're the main force!" to blowing everything up, the hundreds of guys coming out, and Luffy chasing down Shiki as Sanji and Zoro fend off his main allies. It was seriously such an explosively cool sequence, and there were so many elements at play. Nami trying to destroy the daft green barrier and being set out to die, later to sacrifice herself to try and make sure Shiki won't get away with this. Chopper and Usopp on the lookout for her. All the monsters unleashing on the inside. Zoro fighting for the medicine, Sanji fighting to save Robin, both of these going back to one of my first points. The gorilla takes Robin to kiss her which ignites Sanji and lets him lay one mean beating on a guy made to get his ass beat by Sanji, and Zoro dismantles a guy who pokes and prods at East Blue and is the way to save Nami. Both featuring incredibly cool fights and beautiful, beautiful animation. They were made to get beat, but it doesn't make the fights any less freaking cool. Then we have Biri who isn't anything new, but Biri allows the final fight to be an air battle, with Luffy riding on the back of an electrical bird, something he is invulnerable from, to fight Shiki who's flying through the sky with him, only to end it with an electric giant stomp. Like?!??!?! While that's going on Usopp, Nami, and Chopper made Shiki fly into a storm and Robin sets up dynamite everywhere to destroy everything Shiki has made in these 20 years in one single moment.
As Sengoku put it, the government didn't need to do anything even though they were approaching Shiki as this was going on. It was completely coincidence, Luffy was kind enough to reach out to the guys in the cool flying ship and they wanted Nami. Mess with the Straw Hat and you get the horns! Basically, that whole last sequence was so energetic and cool even though it feels a little self indulgent as the entire movie was based around awesome character moments and a brilliant final battle. I feel nothing was that great outside of how it facilitated this along with one of the coolest set pieces imaginable...
And although I call this a fanservice movie, as it only got me hyped, showed me lovable character interactions, gave us ridiculously cool setpieces that worked perfectly with the pacing of a movie, gave us beautiful fight scenes with enemies that were made to get an ass kicking, quite literally especially with the monkey, it did give me one small character moment to think about. Not the fact that Roger is from East Blue, or that Roger and Luffy beat Shiki either. Rather, it was Zoro's sentimentality to his village. He grew up there, he made friends with Kuina. He had a teacher at a dojo which taught him so much. He said goodbye to him before going out on his journey. I haven't thought about how much his hometown probably means to him until this movie, but the introspective and somber look he had when hearing about Shiki's plan to destroy East Blue said a lot to me. It came after a defeat, he probably felt disgusted with himself due to it. His friends homes are places he's ought to protect too. But he was most definitely thinking about his home too. He's always been a bit of a loner, but from later when he loved beating the snot out of the fart-shoes guy he made a point that if 'he's an east blue pawn then these guys are even below them'. Almost as a way of saying don't scoff at East Blue, for they were capable of producing Zoro, the strongest swordsman ever, or at least the to-be best. I'm sure everyone's home is important to them, all their flashbacks involved how their hometowns led to who they are for the most part(looking at you Brook and Sanji), but for some weird reason until we saw Zoro's sentimentality, or what I read as that, I hadn't thought about how much respect he must have for his village. For his sensei who taught him everything, and for Kuina who lived and died there. It gave me some more insight into Zoro in a way I haven't thought of before. I adore this shot of him! :)
So, all that said.. what can I give this?! I don't know if I'd personally like to watch it again, its 2 hours and in my eyes it's fanservice- there's not much to get out of it, but in my eyes it's also the best fanservice ever. Because of that, I am tempted to give it an 8, but again that feels slightly weird for such a self indulgent movie that mostly gave me hype and laughs. So, to be safe I'll give this a 7/10, it was fun and it set up a dumb-cool action piece which is probably going to stay in my mind for a long time! It's very reminiscent to the 4th movie in my eyes for pure fun and rule of cool, but the setpieces in this one are so much more brilliant...
A part of me thinks that the best way to make a One Piece movie would be to not make the movie so episodic for lack of a better word. It starts and it finishes and because of that it loses a lot of the appeal that One Piece has in its character and world building, and just how organic it makes it all feel.
Solid movie! Even though the concept of the Movie is eerily familiar with Stampede & Z, I couldn't help but enjoy this a ton.
Setting, firstly, was brilliant! One Piece is known to have creative settings and this is like the pinnacle of it, if you ask me. IQ plants is a territory that's a little bonkers honestly but it hardly had any significance, in the first place.
Villain was straight-up stereotypical and there's hardly any positive input to highlight on this note but some of those random comedic moments for some reason succeeding in making me chuckle so I'll give props for that.
Luffy taking him down is a bit of a stretch considering he managed to hold his ground against the likes of Sengoku and Garp for a fair bit but I suppose that's a matter of plot convenience and underestimation that led to that. Funny how the Marines didn't have a say in this, I must say. Heck, Garp wasn't even shown anymore after the first 5-10 minutes or so.
Some nice references to Arlong and Skypeia arcs too, in the process. Always great to have these!
Animation Quality and the Sound Department were fantastic and I've got next to no complaints there. Some CGI indeed but well handled.
And finally, on to the Characters. It's cool how they all had their shining moments with an extra focus on Nami, and it was a treat to watch it all. Poor Storyline doesn't hold a candle against this, I suppose.
As such, I'm going to settle with a very generous 8/10 (7.5/10). Definitely more deserving of a 7/10 but it was a really fun watch and I feel like an 8/10 is more true to my experience. Might bring it down to a 7 later on though, who knows...
While Golden Lion Shiki and his goons left a lot to be desired in terms of being a good villain, I really liked how this movie felt like a modernized version of One Piece's early arcs like Arlong Park and Skypiea.
The action segments were a lovely treat for the eyes and seeing the Straw Hats look cool just for the sake of it riled me up like the creators intended it to be. I suppose that my attachment towards Luffy and his crew along with my nostalgia for pre-timeskip One Piece made me enjoy this movie more than I would've otherwise but I'm not complaining~
Hmm, I got a bit sleepy towards the end, but overall it's still a very good movie. It's so far the best animated One Piece movie I've seen. I have yet to see the latest One Piece movies though. 8/10
Damn, for a "legendary" pirate, Shiki was beaten by a pre-timeskip Luffy. That means he's weaker than a Pacifista. I wonder why the Marines were so scared of him. lol
This was an awesome movie. I just thought it was a wild and super fun ride from start to finish. Great animation and the outfits were incredible. Oda really knows how to dress his characters (as he wrote this movie and most likely consulted on the outfits). I also liked that Shiki was appropriately strong (as to be expected from a Pirate of Roger's era), and gives us a great idea of what we can expect when Whitebeard makes his appearance. Shiki really reminds me of Don Krieg, in a good way, by repaying Luffy's kindness with malice. The Straw Hats are super naive so it's great to see a pirate who actually acts like a pirate for once.
Of course Luffy being nice is what got them into this mess in the first place, but they would have ended up having to face off against Shiki anyways, if he was targeting the East Blue. Its super cool that they brought back that theme that while everyone makes fun of the East Blue as the weakest sea, the few that do make it are generational greats, first Roger (who was born and died in Loguetown) and now Luffy.
Really enjoyed seeing the Buster Call vice admirals again. Their character designs are so good and immediately convey to the viewer how badass and battle-hardened they are. I've loved all their designs ever since we first saw them in Enies Lobby, and hope we get to see them in the future!
The animation was something else. I really like the antagonist, Shiki, and how they started the movie with him dumping those boats at the Marines. The plot was interesting, but I really wished we had learned more about Shiki’s past
bit of old school Nami despair mixed with a tinge of DbZ flair and wild west Luffy and co.The variety and the animation is what carried it than the story itself.Shiki could have been handeled miles better.