But then Strong World came with great involvement from the creator of One Piece Eiichiro Oda, many important characters from the series doing a cameo and a proper villain, one of the strongest in OP universe with a well thought plan, thus an interesting movie plotline. So, despite the unavoidable flaws of a theatrical release, Strong World was a huge leap in anime movies of the shounen genre based on a long-running popular show.
And then Film Z came and, following the steps of its predecessor, it managed to be a really enjoyable film, respecting its parent story but also managing to show something more in the quite full one piece world
Story 8/10
A former navy admiral Z around the age of Garp and Sengoku, having suffered great losses from pirates in his whole life, forms the crew of Neo-Navy and decides to eradicate all the pirates from the New World. And what better way to do that than destroying the entire New World itself?! So he begins his quest to destroy three connecting volcanoes acting as key points in the New World in order to sink it into magma. After a fierce battle with admiral Kizaru, he suffers from many wounds and drifts in the sea. Straw hat crew find Z and take care of his wounds but when he realizes that he is into a pirate ship goes all out and nearly breaks Sunny apart, his crew finds him via a vivre card and manages to escape. So Z is being chased by both the navy in order to stop a holocaust with many civilian casualties and by Straw hats in order to get revenge.
Nothing extraordinary or mind-blowing in terms of concept but really well paced and interesting enough storyline to keep the viewer interested throughout the movie. Also the fact that this might be considered canon material makes the whole experience even better.
Characters 9/10
The movie’s strong point. Z manages to be a really well written character with many info given about his throughout the whole movie and not in a 30 minute monologue (thus the good pace). Also the fact that every important marine of the generation after Garp’s is been trained by him makes the whole character much more interesting. But the best move of the movie is that besides a small original cast, nearly all the characters appearing on screen have also appeared on the show, so they are familiar to the viewers and there is no need for time consuming character development, leaving more time for the plot. The only problem is Z’s first mates aka Zoro’s and Sanji’s opponents. Once more in a One Piece film, they are nothing particular and are beaten quite easily. Finally we have a major appearance of a(n already seen in the show) character that is sure to be of importance in the future , thus learning more about his whereabouts and current condition,.
Animation 8/10
Beside what most people claim, I don’t think that Film Z’s animation is the best One Piece franchise has to offer. Strong World seemed to have much better animation and since it’s 3 years older, it says a lot. However the animation still is beautiful with the fights being the films proudest claim. The final fight between Luffy and Z is staggering and something that goes against the shounen rule of loud screams and landscape reducing farts with no further gain (Gigguk ©), being just a blunt fist brawl in the front but hiding a whole clash of ideologies and willpower, carved in the faces of the opponents. And because of the fact that Nami and Robin *this content had to be removed due spoilers*, the ridiculous One Piece fanservice was absent for once. The movie’s animation was so good that it makes sense now why in the summer and fall of 2012 the anime’s animation was so shitty, it seems all the decent animators were involved in the film’s production.
Sound 7/10
Movie’s ost, while being good, was nothing extraordinary and out of this world like the original One Piece ost. The new tracks were decent but, let’s face it, when walking towards the enemy, giving a speech that doesn’t make sense but in Luffy’s mind is as inspirational as Theoden’s in Pelennor Fields, if overtaken isn’t playing in the background is not one piece. Also the fact that nearly all the characters have appears in the show leave little potential to talk about the voice acting and the two Avril song in the end credits were quite good (especially the Nickelback one)
Enjoyment 8/10
Is film Z a fun watch? Yes. All its aspects are above average with the fights characters and plot development being really really good. All in all is a good movie, not just by One Piece films standards, but as a fantasy action movie as well. Compared to the other one piece movie comes #2 after the amazing movie 6.
So can someone expect the awesome feel they got by marathoning the good arcs of the series? No. And how possibly could they? Many people are annoyed because they judge this film how much close it came to the CP9 saga or the Arlong arc. How could it possibly come close to the best or even relatively good One Piece arcs in only 1h 43min? Those arcs had >24 episodes aka >4 film Z length of content so they were able to build up the proper tension.
All in all film Z was a really enjoyable movie with many great aspects, opening the way to a series of good One Piece films that might hold some significance to the show and not being another way to make money from the always growing fanbase
