One Piece - L'isola segreta del barone Omatsuri

The sixth One Piece film, Baron Omatsuri, and the Secret Island, deviates significantly from the television series in terms of animation, sound design, and character development. I must say this now: if you enjoy One Piece for its combat, go somewhere else. This movie focuses on enhancing the crew's emotional ties, which are highlighted in key storylines, and emphasizes how vital nakamas are to every one of them.

The Mugiwara pirates discover a letter in a bottle promoting Omatsuri Island (Festival Island), a pirate haven, while they are traveling the Grand Line. However, the crew is set up for experiences akin to the Skypiea arc, which are all based on Japanese festival games (goldfish capturing, etc.), when they arrive at the island ready to unwind. While the other members of the crew begin to gradually disintegrate, Luffy, who is always upbeat, is content to play the games. This movie is far more enigmatic and, at times, even disturbing than the television series-especially toward the end when things get desperate. To avoid giving anything away, I'll end the story there.

It is a definite oddball film. It will subvert your expectations, which some people might not like. That said, it is wickedly chilling, and doesn't quite hit the creepy mark. You can also see a lot of Mamoru Hosoda's style seep through. I will say the animation itself looks almost incomplete at times, but it is charming and very fluid. Its great to see a progression in style as he would go on to make Summer Wars and Wolf Children.

The StrawHat Pirates were invited to a Resort Island, owned by Baron Omatsuri. It was a great opportunity for everyone to take a brake from traveling the Grand Line. After a big welcoming from the locals. Our heroes found out that in order to have their relaxation on this island. They must pass a few contests offered by the locals. The whole island has a mystery to it. As Luffy encounters a mysterious man, Chopper encounters a family, & Robin who noticed that there aren't an flowers populated on the island.

This movie's theme separates itself from the other One Piece titles. As the story to it is more grim like. And the animation gives the characters a new style. There are a lot of good scenes in this flick. Including violence, comedy, and suspense. Most of the characters in this movie a unusual. It may not look too much like the TV series. But it's still One Piece.

I really struggle to categorize and review this film. It's a very specific, and intense film from start to finish, clearly a well crafted and directed work.

The issue I have is that, to me, it doesn't come across as "One Piece" story (itself a shonen style story). It's a terrifying and gripping narrative, where the Straw Hat crew are the players, detectives, and ultimately victims to the antagonist's machinations, which makes for an interesting experience. However the stakes and the imagery used to reveal what's occurring are perhaps to intense. The 3rd party characters also own large chunks of narrative, which in turn also reduce the Straw Hats down to nothing more than being "at risk" to drive Luffy into the protagonist role.

Let me just start by saying I am not a fan of One Piece. A lot of people love it, but I can't get into it even after I've tried a few times, it's gone on way too long and I find a lot of aspects of it personally pretty off-putting and stereotypical. But I have a strange relationship with it; although I'm not a fan, I can understand why so many other people are and kind of wonder sometimes why I'm not.

I was referred to this movie by a YouTube video about One Piece's appeal and figured I'd try it out even if I don't like the series, and I've gotta say, I actually liked it.

The first half still had some of the aforementioned off-putting aspects, like the stupidity of Luffy, the over-the-top quarrel between Sanji and Zoro, and some of it still having plenty of Shonen cliches and slapstick comedy. But over time, it changed drastically. It changed from the carefree insanity of the anime series to a more somber tone. Little by little, I found myself actually getting intrigued, and the plot actually felt pretty interesting and I liked the difference in storytelling from the manga where it actually let it's audience think as opposed to just having the plot laid bare before them.

A lot of One Piece fans may have found the sudden change to a dark tone to be out of place, and while I kind of agree with that, I also enjoyed it. As I've said, the general tone of One Piece really turned me off, but this movie actually had a tone that kept me intrigued, especially in the second half. And some of the new characters were actually pretty interesting and the main characters got different characterizations as time went on. The villain himself might've been a little over the top, but honestly, the conflict he created was fun to watch.

There were some parts I still didn't like though, like the villain himself who had motivation for his actions, but it didn't completely make sense. And for the second half, Luffy (the character I found most annoying) had screen time dominance. I think this could've been a little better if it wasn't a property of One Piece, but an original movie instead.

That aside, though, the animation is gorgeous. The characters got some slight redesigns that look pretty cool, the movement is very fluid, especially in fight scenes, and there's few if any still shots or stiff movements that are common in tv anime. Also, it seems to have a similar animation style at times to Studio Ghibli. So it's pretty much a combination of Studio Ghibli and a really high budget anime.

All in all, it's not a perfect movie by any means, I think it would've been better if it was an original property or something rather than a spin-off of One Piece, especially considering director Mamoru Hosoda's talent in the field of animation. But still, I think it was interesting, if One Piece in general took a similar style of tone, I might like it better. The first half might've still been a little off-putting to me, but the second half was awesome.