One Piece Fan Letter

7/10 ~ how did I get here

So I dont one piece really, and this just auto played after I finished watching Dandadan, but I had no idea what I was watching but said fuck it, its only 24 minutes. And my god, this was a fantastic little piece here, im sure this would hit much harder if I truly understood what was going on during this little film. I did not know the events they were referring to but I could follow it all well enough. This felt like one of those pre-film Pixar shorts like the Oldman playing chess or w.e, and it was ... pretty refreshing to just sit back and watch the gorgeous animation with a pretty nice conclusion.

If I do ever make the journey and do actually watch Once Piece in its entirety im sure ill come back and re-appreciate this one.

The special begins on a recap of the Marineford War arc that moves too quickly. The sequence would be easier to process if it had been one continuous take moving horizontally. A later scene returns to the war at a slower pace but is blobby, not bloody. Outside of the level of consistency, nothing in the animation goes beyond what Masaaki Yuasa had done by 2014. After Ryuu Nakayama brought empathy to Chainsaw Man through nonstop naturalistic animation, and in the year where Midori Yoshizawa cut to a live action, all red POV shot of a mad dash down the street, it is hard to ... be impressed by the cutesy, endearing but not profound idiosyncrasies of one sweet Nami fangirl. Compositionally, the girl zooming through town on a vehicular bubble is a dynamic delight, while other shots seem literally flat. The art style itself is affectation for its own sake. It doesn't express anything about the One Piece world that Oda's art style has not already.

Ishitani indulges in the brilliant premise, but not enough. The depth of fandom is how celebrities appear liberated from the mundanities and cruelties of one's particular life. Easy references are insufficient to engage this deep, human subject. A rowdy bar argument about who may be the world's strongest swordsman seems too detached, as if we are watching from the vantage point of someone who does not share their excitement. A shopkeep in love with Brook's music sports deep black makeup under her eyes, a Goth touch implying an inner life that is otherwise unexplored. The protagonist's love of Nami, bluntly exposited as being predicated on Nami not having big muscles or a devil fruit, is not overpowering because Ishitani does not show us the suffocation of living in a world where only the strong are celebrated.

The special's best scene, which is moving as opposed to pleasant, depicts the violent backstory of a Marine in love with Straw Hat Luffy. The Marine's leg is shredded by a falling boat, a harrowing, tactile detail that makes up for the film's other depictions of war. Though it contains the film's best expression of the awe a distant role model can inspire, the heart of the flashback lies in the relationship between the Marine and his younger brother. A reverse chronological montage conveys the older brother's understandable irritation and the younger brother's heart melting sweetness. The rest of the sequence uses a star of light as a primal symbol for Love. The best images are all contained in these few minutes: blood gushing from a screaming mouth, an admiring yet bitter gaze at the back of a hero running ahead, a coward turning from what is obviously right.

The ending is saccharine, built around the lazy device of a vague speech set to music. The climax would be more affecting if the flurry of images shown were new, and not shots that were already shown earlier. The protagonist bravely chooses to focus on the moon instead of the finger, but the depth of that choice is under-emphasized. A post-credits sequence would have been unnecessary if the final scene had properly expressed the gravity of the situation. The film as is could use a beautiful epilogue, but the one we got expresses nothing that is not already in the story proper.

We can use all the auteurs we can get, and as few show-boats as possible. One Piece Fan Letter toes the line. Ishitani would do right to sacrifice the noticeable for the substantive.

As a one piece fan, I'm disappointed. From how much fans were overhyping this I came into it expecting the best episode or something. In reality, it's just a cute little filler special full of fanservice; nothing to elevate the main material. It's nothing special. I couldn't care less about the new characters and their emotional struggles despite how hard and in your face the story tried to make me do so in the span of 24 minutes. Oda is also being weird again with that unfunny forced joke where the young girl tries to flirt with the drunk bar goers and nothing of value ... would've been lost just doing without it.

The visuals also look really cheap at times and I sincerely hope this isn't the direction that new one piece episodes begin taking. The music is forgettable, though it's not something this series was ever known for. I enjoyed the voice acting at least.