At the time of this writing, the "One Piece" anime has over 850 episodes and counting. That's a lot of story. If you watched the show 12 hours a day, every day, you could technically catch up in less than 30 days, but that's more than most anime fans are willing to dedicate. Simply put, if a new fan wanted to experience what the big deal was behind the long-standing popularity of "One Piece," the only way is to turn to the theatrical movies, hoping that the story would be self-contained enough to appreciate it.This was my thinking when I took a chance on "One Piece Film: Z." This is the twelfth movie, and the second after "Strong World," where there was a resurgance in interest in the "One Piece" movies, partially due to the manga writer's direct involvement, partially due to better production values, and partially due to Funimation's increased interest in feature films in North America. At the time, if searching for the "best" movie to watch in the franchise, fans would quickly point to "Z." At the time, it was also the most recent movie, which is the typical trend and not entirely representative of quality. Anyway, I gave "Z" a chance, mostly ignorant of the backstory of "One Piece" and its many, many characters. This was a mistake. "One Piece Film: Z" makes some pretty heavy use of obscure characters from the series, assuming the viewer knows them all. Immediately, this makes for a sour experience for someone like me: while I suspect a fan of the series will have a decent time, a new viewer will still be left pondering what all the fuss was about.The core plot surrounds a new enemy for Luffy and the Straw Hat crew. His name is Zephyr, a large normer-navy officer who went rogue, leading a new army with one purpose: to obliterate pirates from the world. As the antagonist, his characterization is much improved over what "One Piece" is known for. Zephyr has real motivations that gives his war a real purpose, and his strength makes him seem like a real threat. On paper, it seems the movie nails the most important aspect for a stand-alone shonen action movie through Zephyr. But that's not all there is to the story. Due to an early fight, several key characters of the Straw Hats team are reverted to the age of children, and the team has to fight their way to get them back to normal. A slew of side-characters get caught in Zephyr's mission, with different motivations to stop him. These types of plot threads feel irrelevant to the story, only existing as fodder to pad out the film's runtime. Or other motivations. For example, is it a coincidence that Nami and Nico, the two hot girls on the show, are reverted to cute children for the majority of the movie? Most likely, that entire bit was just meant to make die-hard fans squeel. Zephyr's personal war isn't specifically against the Straw Hats crew, but on the entirety of pirates across the sea. Are the Straw Hats fighting to save themselves, or old friends or foes? Nope. Led by the simple stretchy captain Luffy, he loses his prized hat to Zephyr in a fight of pure strength. And Luffy won't stand for it. With tears in his eyes, screaming at the top of his lungs, he tracks Zephyr down for a final fight... just to get his hat back. For such a dramatic enemy, to simplify the hero's motivation like this feels childish, and ruins some of the payback, only redeemed by Zephyr's cool maturity and conviction as he meets his end.
Story aside, one major reason to watch "Z" is for the animation. As colorful as the series is, character designs have always looked bizarre in "One Piece," a major cause to deter both anime fans from getting into the franchise, and to deter normal people from anime in general. That doesn't change in the movie: everyone looks weird, and new locations (typically barren rockey mountains and volcanos) and costumes (why does the crew dress in red uniforms for the final battle again? I forgot.) don't improve the experience. For most of the movie, animation is disappointingly poor, only a slight improvement over the television series. But there are action scenes, and this is typically a highlight, animation-wise. Both expressive 2D animation and 3D character models are used interchangably for great shows of speed and might. The final battle in particular gets an ambitious fight sequenece between Zorro and an enemy in mid-air, with the camera whipping back and forth, barely able to keep up with the action. The sound design is fair, mostly at its best in fight-scene sound effects. Strangely, new songs provided by English singer Avril Lavigne are used in the Japanese soundtrack, which are fine, but doesn't have much purpose in the movie, other than confirming that Avril is a geek like we are. The English voice actors are mostly married to the roles, and do a good job reprising them, whether or not you like the exaggerated acting the series has always been known for (again, new character Zephyr gets the best acting and the best speeches in the movie). An FYI to fans: the movie is almost as well known for Nami's rainbow bikini at the beginning as it is for it's villain. There was a short animation of Nami lounging at the pool on the Straw Hat's ship, with closeups of her body as she relaxes and swims. Technically, it was a bonus for Japanese fans, and not part of the movie itself; hence, Funimation doesn't include it with the Bluray release, opting to keep the movie as family-friendly as possible. It was probably a wise move, but I'm sure certain fans will be disappointed."One Piece Film: Z" isn't entirely a waste, but it's definitely best suited for existing fans of the show. They would appreciate the many cameos, and probably be impressed with a story and with animation that is stronger than the majority of the main series. But long-running action anime aren't known for quality, and exceeding the quality of the "One Piece" television series is a low bar. It's not quite worth it for newcomers to dive in here... I'd only recommend it if a friend and die-hard fan was eager to share it. If this is the best movie of the franchise, I shudder to think how bad the others must be... thankfully, my limited experience indicates there may be better movies, if you are willing to seek out the true gems.