One Piece Film Z

If something is popular enough, you'll inevitably find a movie version or spin off of it. More often than not, it's because some executive is trying to make a quick buck by using the name value to bring people in to see whatever movie they're selling. While every now and then you'll find a diamond in the rough or a true gem, most of the time the movies feel forced, rushed, or unfaithful to the original material and the quality tends to suffer as a consequence. If a manga is popular enough, you can almost be sure there'll be an animated or live action movie of it. Or two. Or three…

So I went to the theater with a pretty skeptical mind; I'd been somewhat burned with the one of previous movies, One Piece Film: Strong World. I was skeptical, but at the same time, I hoped that the movie would be good. Something that was, at the very least, not a pile of dung. What I got was something I totally was not expecting.

Overall, One Piece Film: Z was immensely satisfying. It wasn't a prefect movie, but as Shonen Jump anime films go, it was the best one I've ever seen. While most other movies have a tendency to buckle under the limitations of being a stand-alone movie, (i.e. they have to end exactly how they started) Z seemed to make the most such limitations and genuinely feels like it is part of the main series. Full size Personally, I feel what they had was good enough that they could have taken what was a single dense stand-alone movie and made it into a two- part masterpiece to further develop other characters and satisfying tie everything up. Personal ideas aside, the movie is definitely well worth seeing for any fan of the series.

This is truly a great movie. Felt sorry for Z. The straw hats kicked some major ass hell yeah. This had better be in the Japanese Oscar award and win the title of 'best animated Japanese film'. The story and plot are awesome. The action is mind blowing. Overall a masterpiece. Perfection simply perfect. This I heard became the most popular movie with a lot of tickets sold so go to the theater and watch it the experience is even better. I can go on about this for hours. The characters shine- all of the strawhats- luffy, usopp, nami, franky, brook, chopper, sanji, zoro and robin. Not to mention this is the first after-timeskip movie! And of course kizaru and aokiji appear as well we get to see the navy vice-admirals.

This is the first one piece movie that will take your breath away until the end. This packs with a lot of actions and great flash backs especially the story of "Z" behind his past. The management had decided to print out another 2 million copies of the film so they can accommodate the moviegoers. Originally, this movie has 2 million copies and yet weren't enough for us ONE PIECE fans. Luffy shows great fighting ability here as he just always shown in the series. But the thing is, the movie has done with great camera tricks as if you were watching 3D animations and that's the difference. Non the less, this film is a hell kind of epic.This also shows and would make you think that the monster trio were in par with admirals for their monstrous strength shown as the movies get into its epic battle. Even the WG and Marines got shocked after the SHs beat Z and his comrades. Their names resounds all over the world after they took care of the Z pirates.

I can't express in words of how amazing this movie is. All I have to say is go watch it for yourself.

This review will be broken down into four parts: Music, Animation, Characters and Story.

Music: If you watched the trailers, you know that two tracks of Avril Lavigne would be played in the movie but you won't hear that until the credit rolls. First half was "How You Remind Me" and then "Bad Reputation" played after that. The original soundtrack was brilliant. It was different while at the same time maintaining that One Piece feel we all love; high tension to melancholy themes that played throughout different scenes.

Animation: There was a lot of CGI just like Strong World. The action scenes were animated far better than anything I've ever seen in previous One Piece movies or the anime. The angles and camera movements following every scene was done fluidly.

Characters: The title of the movie is quite self-explanatory. The movie focused on Z, at times even more than the Straw Hat gang. Character Z, also known as Zephyr had such deep story to him and if you love backstories of various characters in One Piece, you'll definitely love Z's. As for our lovable characters, the Straw Hats each got their turns to shine in this movie, however the stronger and prominent fighters such as the Monster Trio(Luffy, Zoro and Sanji) had their own individual opponent to fight. Franky was the next in line after the Monster Trio. Usopp also had good action scenes, but not quite on the same level. Nami and Robin at times were used for fan-service until the climactic battle at the end. Chopper was funnier than ever before, but not entirely important to the story. Brook didn't do a lot in terms of getting into battles, but he had his comedic moments just like Chopper.

Story: This movie as an entirety was built around the Marine lore and back story. This will have it's drawbacks for some though. The story had lots of explanation regarding the principle themes of the Marines and some characters were basically used strictly just for the sole purpose of providing exposition. To fit the plot in a movie length time span, it was surprisingly well done. This was one huge gripes that I had with Oda's previous project, Strong World was a bit of a let down. With Film Z, I feel that he understood what it took to make a movie that retains the breathtaking aura of One Piece series, and he delivered it.

I'd be surprised if this movie doesn't win major awards in Japan, it surely deserves the Best Animated Japanese Film Awards. Perhaps it should even be nominated in Oscar Awards Best Picture because this movie just nailed it.

I remember back when I first heard about "One Piece". I didn't care for it because it looked kind of dumb with the goofy character designs. I've read some of the manga and seen two movies and honestly? I think it looks great now! Nami is so hot. The "Z" in the title actually refers to the name of the main villain.

His full name is Zephyr. The title isn't shown on screen until 15 minutes in! I'm not used to these characters, but I was still able to really like them and I'm no longer turned off by their designs. I guess it just took some getting used to. There's great action to spare and very nice pacing as well. I'm glad to get to remember the names of the main characters. ***1/2