The Garden of Discordia

I've seen this movie like three times now, and I still haven't managed to review it. Wellp, I only bought the DVD once, so let's blather a bit about pirates in honor of my first fullprice anime purchase for years!

When it comes to One Piece, I have a very back-and-forth relationship to the manga (don't really watch the anime). First I read some eight volumes, and found it silly. Then lanjelin began rawing about it and after quite a while, I gave in and decided to give it another chance. When I could borrow the whole bunch from A-chan and A-kun (~50 books at the time) I discovered that I did actually like it, and that it took off and became much better after a while.

But there were still too many fighting fillers (god save me from One Miniboss vs. One Strawhat fights) and at times the story just drags. I'm also getting increasingly annoyed with Oda's designs for female characters, which have decidedly not been improving lately.

Very telling is how I've felt about the latest chapters. ( Extremely miniscule spoilers about the latest manga chapters )
It's not a long sequence, but it's absolutely lovely and like that it made me interested in keeping up with this insanely long shonen fighting series... idek, man, I think I'm just a sucker for Epicness.

Epicness being something that the sixth One Piece movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island does pretty well, though it doesn't reach the heights of the best manga chapters. Would be hard to, considering how those often build upon a long and ardorous journey.
This movie also has some really with funky animation - really, it looks nothing like anything else One Piece, but still captures the feel of the characters quite well - and a healthy dose of horror. You thought Thriller Bark was bad, you ain't seen nothing!

I've seen the tenth movie too and Youtubed a bit of one of the other ones, but honestly, they mostly feel like extra-long filler eps or summaries of previous arcs. This movie starts out a bit like that, as the Strawhats (just before Water Seven, I'd say) pick up spam a message in a bottle, advertizing a luxurious pirate resort on Omatsuri Island. Once they get there, however, they're challenged to a series of pirate tests.
Ho-hum, been there, done that and it was one of the most boring non-filler parts too... but hang, why does such a big resort (and it's huge and lushly animated, managing to look pretty good even six years later) have no other guests? And how come an island, marked with a flower on the sea chart, not contain one single blooming plant?

This is one part of where the movie does a good job, imo, as it let's the more naturally inquisitive characters discover things in a very organic fashion. We in the audience always know a bit more of what is going on than the Strawhats, but never more than that we realize that something is deeply off with the friendly Omatsuri island.

( Cut for spoilers for movie #6 )

The music didn't impress me that much; I've seen it mentioned positively in some reviews, but except for the memorable carnival piece played whenever Omatsuri reveals more of his Epic Resort, I honestly never noticed it. Which is perhaps a good thing in it's own way, because it certainly helped building the mood?

The cutting of the movie also impressed me. It's made like a collage of moments, where we switch POV's several times (thus breaking up the fight scenes huzzah), so that scenes layer over each other in a very thought-out way, that I'm certainly not used from TV animation. The director has also made Summer Wars (not seen) and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - the latter makes me think he should stick to material with a bit more oomph in it, because while TGWLTT also had a lot of fancy cutting, it felt a bit dull tbh.

So. That concludes my somewhat rambling (sorry) review. If you want to see this movie legally and do not speak German, though shit, cuz it's not released in the US, the UK or Sweden. Don't ask me why, it works as a One Piece film and it's actually a decent stand-alone anime movie too.

By the by, I listened to the very first scene with the German dub just for the lulz, and I can again conclude that German's dub anime miles better than Americans. Even if Ruffy's voice felt a bit off and Zoro's was too high-pitched, the acting part of VA just felt much more natural. Lovely packaging too, with slip-cover and a poster. Just wish they could've squeezed some extra material on the actual DVD. Oh well.

Like One Piece? Like scary anime? Like flat-style animation? See this movie ^_^

Okay, wow, that was good.

I just read myself up to date with One Piece and it's getting really, really good again. I felt that Impel Down dragged, then came the emotionally exhausting and gut-punchingly good big fight at Marines HQ then Oda went on his first vacation in years and after that? Well, let's just say that plenty of SPOILERS happened, but the story soon picked up again with a really intense pace. Now we've had a longer story/flashback sequence recently which was also good as in seriously so (and it contains loads of info about the world, maaaaan I want to have time to write some meta about this) but there was also a few really annoying characters. Except, of course, Oda is the master so he made me care about them and like them in only a few chapters.

And what's happening now feels like it will really have a great impact in all the threads of world politics that have been revealed over time. This part contains callbacks way back to East Blue and it's all really, really well done.

One Piece - it's love.