- Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review
of source for everything One Piece,
and today we are going to be taking a bit of a break
from the canon of the series
and shifting our focus onto the films.
Now, when it comes to the movies,
One Piece is not the friendliest of franchises
to leap into because there are a total of 14 films
which currently have come out
between the year 2000 and 2020.
All of which have wildly varying degrees of quality,
ranging from a must-see experience for One Piece fans,
to what I would describe as a complete
and utter waste of time, even for a One Piece fan.
But as someone who has equally consumed each
and every one of them over the course
of the last 14 years or so,
I am here to advise on which films you should watch.
And what we're going to do
is we're going to go through all 14 titles
and I'm going to assign them a rather complex grading system
consisting of definitely watched the film.
Definitely don't watch the film or maybe watch it or not,
but starting with the first thing you should definitely do,
that would be subscribing to the Grand Line Review
for regular One Piece content uploaded straight
into the YouTube Feed.
It is a 10 out of 10, five star gourmet experience
Would highly recommend
whilst you'll be joining the grand fleet
and helping us become the pirate Kings of YouTube,
which sounds simply glorious.
And one more quick note,
before I begin with the actual movies,
you may or may not need to watch,
I just wanted to say that I will not be going
through the TV specials.
So this means things like Episode of Merry, Episode of Nami,
3D2Y, Heart of Gold, and all of that other stuff.
Those things are an entirely different discussion
which we'll probably have another time.
But right now I am only considering
the films that were released in theaters.
And with that, we will start with the very creatively titled
One Piece: The movie.
This is our first theatrical outing
for the One Piece franchise,
and you can tell it takes place incredibly early on
because in this sort of fake movie chronology,
these events come before Sanji joins the crew.
And I really don't wanna spend too much time on this one
because I don't tell you right here and now you can skip it.
Watching this film is actually quite surreal
because it was created long
before One Piece really solidified itself
and it follows a very standard piratey treasure hunt story.
The man antagonist Al Drago is pretty underwhelming
but I will say that the animation of One Piece: The Movie,
does offer some really beautiful 90's charm
but that's only relevant to me
because I enjoyed the nostalgia of my long lost childhood.
Otherwise don't bother.
Next up though we have Clockwork Island Adventure,
which was made in 2001.
And while this only debuted almost exactly a year
after One Piece: The Movie,
it is amazing the difference a year can make.
This is a 55 minute long shot
of classic One Piece featuring Sanji this time around
which is important because you get that wonderful dynamic
of the first five crew members.
But unlike the first movie,
Clockwork Island Adventure has a much larger scale
and it focuses on really pushing a straw hats.
Like early on all that key items get stolen,
likes Zoro's swords
and Sanji's shoes, Usopp's Slingshot, et cetera.
And most of the film sees the straw hat struggling
and succeeding to find at an incredible disadvantage
against Allegion of fun and quirky villains.
Although the main antagonist in the Bear King is a bit meh,
that's okay though because the rest of his crew
makes up for that.
And the fights themselves rather shockingly
for something that was made almost 20 years ago,
are quite possibly some of the best in the series
in terms of art in animation.
But this is one you should definitely watch.
It's it's short, it's competent, and it's One Piece.
Which is a lot more than I can say for movie number three,
Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals.
(groans)
Look, just don't do it.
This is in my opinion the worst film in the entire series:
"The Villain Sucks", "The child sucks", The Premises is Meh,
although I will say it's probably worth
looking up Zoro and Sanji's fights.
They are the only, and I mean the only redeeming factor
of maybe three, because Zoro ends up facing
off against a kick specialist.
and Sanji fights a swordsman.
So it's a nice on One Piece standards
which we really don't get too much in the canon itself.
So yeah, look those up on YouTube and just abandon,
completely abandoned the idea of watching movie three.
It's 56 minutes long but it feels so, so much longer.
Moving on we have Movie four, being Dead End Adventure,
which is the first full length feature
being 95 minutes long,
and this is a definite must watch if only for the premise.
Basically the idea is that in an attempt
to make some good old money,
the Straw Hats enter a pirate race
against a whole hoard of other crews,
including our main antagonist, Gasparde
a former Marine Vice Admiral, who was first main villain
in one of these films to really make me feel
like the straw hats are definitely in over their heads.
He has a terrifyingly commanding presence
along with a candy syrup Logia Fruit
and his fight against Luffy is well worth it.
In addition, this film also features
the first truly interesting side characters.
One of which would be Shuraiya, who in retrospect seems
like the Lovechild of Ace and Trafalgar law.
You know, he has that cool guy vibe about him,
but with some hard hitting tragedy
but probably my favorite aspect about Dead End Adventure
is that it's a story that takes place
almost entirely at sea.
Which is one of those things where for you know
a pirate based manga that doesn't happen all
that often a One Piece.
So it's quite a rare experience.
Definitely recommended it.
Now, continuing on the train
of terrible odd numbered One Piece films,
I now give you One Piece Movie five, The Cursed Holy Sword.
Now, initially this was the film I was most excited to see
because it focuses on Zoro.
This is his story where he has to confront
and defeat a childhood friend.
And as a proud Zoro fan boy,
I was all on board with this idea
or at least I was all on board with it until I saw it.
And I'm not saying that this is impossible to do
but this movie made clear to me
that Zoro is just not meant to be the primary protagonist.
He's too quiet,
he's very difficult to identify with,
and he works best in support someone like Luffy.
Even if he had the greatest of stories to work with,
it would be hard to pull off,
and The Cursed Holy Sword is a terrible story.
So it's a profoundly awful combination.
A lot of which boils down
to the fact that magic has heavily utilized,
which is not something that one piece even comes close
to delving into.
Like we're talking hard magic here
orbs and moons and swords that absolved blood and hatred,
it's not what a One Piece is,
and sadly it's not even a solid fantasy film either.
It sounds tempting, but just stay well, well away
from this one now
Now for movie six,
we have Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island
and this is probably the most infamous One Piece film,
and one thing you will consistently hear as to why this is,
is because it is dark half.
This movie goes places I never expected One Piece to go,
and unlike movie five, it does so very, very well,
and the idea is fairly simple.
The Straw Hats land on an Island to relax,
but coerced into a series of games
with Miss Davy Back Style.
Except there is a much more twisted motive
behind the actions of the Baron our lead villain,
who looks like a joke, but he is anything bad.
There is something about this Island and its people
that is quite disturbing,
and I don't wanna say any more if you have yet to see it.
In addition, this film also has an entire plot
of the Straw Hats toting against each other,
which leads to some really great drama
and a fairly desperate situation,
that seems all but hopeless.
But once again, this is a must-watch.
It is One Piece like you've never seen it before
and likely never will again.
And that brings us to the strange creature,
that is movie seven,
The Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle
not to be confused with Karakuri Island,
which is the birthplace of Dr. Vegapunk
in the actual series.
But this movie is well, it's weird.
If I had to sum it up,
I basically call it a parody of every other One Piece film
that has come before it.
I think at this stage,
the production team were well and truly aware
of the consistent tropes and plot devices
that had appeared in almost every One Piece film,
especially the bad ones.
So movie seven is very self-aware
because it uses all of them,
but with some sort of comic twist.
The movie is almost pure comedy, by the way
at no point, is it, or can it be taken seriously
Which, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
However, if you're not familiar with the other six films,
I don't think you'll have a full experience of this one.
I will say that it does have one really cool piece
of action though,
which attempts to give an origin story
to Luffy's Gear Second, which is nice.
And I guess it's fairly enjoyable in general.
So look, this is going to be our first meh rating.
You can take it or leave it.
Now movie eight is where we change things up quite a bit,
because this is the episode of Alabasta,
The Desert Princess and the Pirates,
which is basically a super abridged
and reanimated telling of the Alabasta Arc.
And it's another pretty tough one to recommend.
What I will say is that this is not a repeat,
is not a substitute for reading or watching the full Arc,
and in my opinion, it fails horrendously in its mission
to retell the Alabasta story.
What this movie is good for,
is for fans who are intimately familiar with the Arc
and want to see it with some updated animated fights.
That's really all.
Even then, I think you can quite easily skip this one.
And movie nine is a similar, yet different premise
because we now have episode
of Episode of Chopper: Bloom in the Winter, Miracle Sakura,
which at its core is a retelling of the Drum Island Arc.
However, unlike in the Alabasta film,
this takes place in an alternate universe
where Robin and Frankie are already crew members,
and Walpol has an older, more sinister brother
named Musshuru.
And it sounds really weird
but it actually works quite well.
Firstly, because Drum Island is a much more achievable story
to condense into movie form,
And secondly, because the alternate universe aspects
make it worth watching for those of us
who were already very familiar with Drum Island.
It offers something new, yet very familiar.
I mean, with that said, I'd still rate it
as a bit of a meh though
because it's interesting, but in no way,
is it a must-watch event
This does change though once we reach movie 10
which is One Piece Film: Strong World.
And so with this, we invented the most recent age
of One piece Cinema,
with Eiichiro Oda heavily involved in their creation.
In fact he wrote this particular film and it shows.
Strong World is like nothing that came before it,
every aspect of filmmaking is displayed
on an entirely different level.
Be it story, animation art, music, whatever.
And in fact,
you know what I'd really like to single out?
Lighting.
One Piece often feels like a very flat experience for me
because the movies and even the Toei animated series,
are quite aesthetically one note.
But Strong World makes a huge effort
to provide that a set of depth with lighting,
and even in the more subtle of scenes,
it makes Strong World stand apart.
The one negative thing I will say
is that it does suffer from "middle of the movie syndrome"
where things slowed down and your just kind of waiting
for it to kick back into gear,
but otherwise it is a must watch.
As for movie 11, that would be One Piece 3D: Straw Hat Chase
and don't bother
It's a 3D CGI Meh Fest that certainly here by technicality
because it was released in cinemas, paired up
as a double feature with Toriko's 3D film.
The full thing is also really painful to find
and it's just not worth the time.
Not worth the time to find
and not worth the time to talk about,
so we're moving on to movie 12, which is One Piece Film: Z
and absolute must watch,
which is the first movie to take place
following the time skip,
and it does something very interesting
by having a more Marine centric story
which allows for characters like Kizaru, Kuzon, Garp, Coby,
and in fact almost every Marine
that had been created at the time
was in the movie in some form or another,
even if it was just a cameo, which is pretty cool
because these movies are usually
a completely isolated affair.
So film Z feels connected to the world
of One Piece like no other,
and its main antagonist, Zephyr,
is probably the most sympathetic.
In fact, I still have to fight the tears
every time I get to the end of this film
because it hits so hard, but the animation is stunning,
the fights a superb, and it's a great adventure.
The only thing I really dislike of the technical devices
like the endpoints and the dyna stones,
they're just boring, they're over powered,
and they don't belong in this series.
Everything else though, absolute must watch.
Movie 13 now and we have One Piece Film: Gold
which I will say is a really really good one
to have your friends watch,
who may not be into One Piece.
And that's because Film Gold
gives you a solid One Piece experience
with beautiful, modern art and animation,
without the need to have followed the story up until
that point, which with film Z look,
you definitely needed to know what was going on
in the One Piece world.
Gold is just plain fun though.
It's a heist film with a strong casino aesthetic.
a ton of interesting villains,
and I must say it holds a special place for me
because it was the first One Piece film I saw in cinemas.
It's definitely not perfect,
but it does everything it needs to do.
So it's a must-watch.
And finally we have the most recent film,
One Piece: Stampede.
And this confusingly enough, is either a must watch
or a do not watch under any circumstances.
And that's because Stampede
is what we would call an All-Star Film,
which say Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame,
they could be called All-Star Films
although they're done much, much better,
and with like 20 other movies of set
that Stampede did not have.
Stampede takes an extraordinary amount of canon characters
and throws them together in a single setting
being the pirates festival,
which is concocted by a former member of the Roger Pirates
for the very boring motive of fighting
and killing the world's most powerful people.
With just that aside,
not most of the world's most powerful people
don't even show up.
But any way One Piece: Stampede is action porn,
plain and simple.
Most of the movie is fighting like an extraordinary amount.
I'd say 70, maybe even 80% of it is just fighting.
And that can be exciting, but do not expect a story,
do not expect a memorable main antagonist,
certainly do not expect a memorable secondary antagonist,
and finally do not expect a satisfying ending
to all of the madness that was created.
However, I would very much recommend watching Stampede
with a group of friends.
I was lucky enough to see the Australian premier of it
with like 700 other people in a theater,
and it was one of the greatest experiences I've had
with this series.
And that was all because of the people around me cheering
when you characters appeared, or fought,
but you will not get that alone.
Stampede is not a film.
I would call it an event, something to be experienced,
but you're better off not treating it as a movie,
and definitely definitely, definitely do not try
to show this to someone as their very first experience
of One Piece.
And that pretty much does it for the One Piece films
you should and should not watch.
But what don't you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below,
or even join my discord server.
And if you'd like to see more videos like this,
then please to go and check out some
of my other content,
or even subscribe to the channel
for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight
into your YouTube feed.
But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review,
and I'll see you next time.