One Piece Film Gold

     One Piece film 13 is on a limited release in the US from January 10th to the 17th. I managed to go see it last night, and had fun seeing it.


     A couple quick notes for the review: I am a big One Piece fan, but I'm not a massive fan. If I was I would watch subbed instead of dubbed and be completely up to date on the story. As it stands I have only seen up to the last episode before the two year time skip; I know about what happens after, so less is lost on me than if I didn't, but those who are watching dub only and are avoiding spoilers, this movie has a ton until you reach the end of the "dressrosa" arc.
      Second, this film is definitely not an introductory point to the world of One Piece. If you came into the film with no knowledge, there is some decent fun, but everything would be flying over your head and you'd be asking quite often "Who is that? Why does that matter? What are they talking about? Does that burn scar mean something?" The film assumes you are a One Piece fan. Which by no means means it is bad, just that there is a bit of a height bar of, "You must understand this much about One Piece to have fun."
      Third, this is the only One Piece film I've seen. Funimation doesn't have Strong World available to stream, so I haven't seen it. I also haven't seen the filler episodes related to the movie, but that's more an aversion to filler in general. (This film being the sole exception.)


      Point blank: I had a lot of fun watching this movie. The fights were kinda eh, but the atmosphere and tension were spectacular. The comedy was on point of course, full of One Piece's usual brand of humor mixed with drama.
     One Piece carries a lot of themes in its stories; the ones on display in this film are power, money, freedom, greed, and slavery. They work quite well with the motivations of the villain, and he works quite well as one. Though I feel like if this was actually 6-7 episodes of One Piece, he should've gotten one, or part of one, episode devoted to his past so we can see why he's so nuckign futs. But, that's partly to blame on Japan's love of extra reading material before their movies. The other main villains were neat, but the fights were, again, weak.

     Normally One Piece has a whole episode devoted to defeating a named villain. That might seem really slow to non viewers, but it actually works well... when you can watch the next episode after it ends without waiting a week. This pacing allows the villain's powers to be shown and developed, giving a proper push and pull to the fights. Here, it's more brief malicing, then finding the key to beating them and just knocking them out in one shot. The proper build up for the villains was there, but the payoff was a bit rushed.

     Also, several important figures to the story are present... but they are completely pointless. Brief cameos and nothing more.



But, as I said, I had fun seeing this film. It was like watching a marathon of 6 fun One Piece episodes. I recommend fans of the show see if any theatre near them is playing it; or see if Funimation added it to the streaming service if you are reading this from the future.