Plot: The pirate crew is hungry and out of money, so they accept a new challenge. They enter a race, the winner gets a hefty sum of money. Along the way, they get sucked into a rivalry between ex-marine Gasparde and bounty hunter Shuraiya. Luffy and his friends will have to go to extreme lengths to win the race.
Watches
August 18, 2023
The upgrade that wasn't one. This is the first One Piece film that is feature-length, but it immediately highlights the problems of this series. While it is decent fun in limited servings, it starts to bore when stretched to 90 minutes. There just isn't enough there to keep things interesting throughout.
There is some interesting experimentation with cel-shaded 3D and regular animation, and the trademark exaggerations are fun enough, but the plot is basic and the comedy/crazy is also pretty repetitive. It's a shame the next few films are all 90-minute affairs, but maybe the animation picks up as the series would gain in popularity. Fingers crossed!