One Piece: Heart of Gold

Note: This is a SPOILER FREE review! Feel free to read without worries : ).

One Piece: Heart of Gold is a prequel to the "Film Gold" movie.

There is no denying my approval of the recent swashbuckling specials for providing better screentime among characters and presenting more adventure in between the much longer story arcs(I’m looking at you Dressrosa). This brings me back to the classic One Piece episodes that I love.

The plot itself goes into following the Strawhats meeting a mysterious girl named Olga who managed to escape from a metal production island called “Alchemi’. She is now being pursued by not ... only Marines but also the infamous Gildo Tesoro.

It’s been a while since we’ve really had one of these movie stories since movie 12: "Film Z" received a prequel that was a mini filler arc(episodes 575-578) which took place before the Punk Hazard story(episodes 579-627). This time, we receive a two hour special that I found much more exciting and a whole lot better in execution. I’ll put it this way: I want to see Film Gold now because of this. The plotline structure felt refreshing. Seeing more of Sanji, Nami, Chopper, and Brooke here as well made me personally happy because there hasn’t been much of them as of recent in the anime.

Animation wise, it was pretty good! You're not going to have much problems liking this visually either.

Overall: One Piece: Heart of Gold is an entertaining story that really hypes up Film Gold in a splendid way. There are a few moments that drag on a bit too much but the adventure itself was an absolute joy to watch as a One Piece fan.

If you watch it, don't forget to watch whats after the credits of this show otherwise you'll probably miss the entire point that this special offers. Just thought id mention that first before my review since I almost missed it too.

The show itself feels more like a filler episode rather then a movie or a special. The characters are somewhat mellowed out of the normal reactions as there are no surprises or things to expect. It lacks the story aspect making it hard to enjoy. The new female character the show is centered around is also a bit repetitive, almost reminds me of a luffy ... knockoff, you may get bored of the show early. You wont miss much if you don't watch it.

There are two possible scenes from which I can tell that seem to be related to the next upcoming movie. This special doesn't feel like a movie, or even a episode, its probably closest to being a very long and dull teaser.

- Well this is meant to be a prequel to the new movie "One Piece Film: Gold" and to be honest i don't think that i need it.

Story:
-The Story is very simple. New girl appears and we are going into an adventure to find a piece of gold \o/
In the adventure, exists a villain called Mad Treasure (Horrible character btw) that will be trying to get to the gold before the StrawHats, while being in their way.

Art:
-I actually was pleasantly surprised with the art. Taking into account the anime series of One Piece that the art usually is really not that good :/ This special ... had some really beautiful art and fluid animation.

Sound:
-The sound was very average, dont recall having something special about it, just the usually One Piece Soundtracks.

Character:
- The characters was what it really failed for me. I think that the only characters that it needs to be mentioned are the villain called "Mad Treasure", Olga and her father... and i really didn't enjoy any of these characters.

- The Villain was really bad. In the beginning the episode i remember that he said that he likes treasure hunting because of the excitement... and ended up using the StrawHat crew to pass the traps. Why? Because he is a villan and needs to be a bad person -,-''
- Olga was that generic character that appear from time to time, that in the beginning of the episode don't trust people and in the end of the episodeend up being friends with the StrawHats.
- Olga's father was a simple character.. Just there so that in the beginning of the episode Olga started with hating him and liking him in the end. (Never saw something similiar.. really original...)