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this special is pure comedy, especially during the first part. it has a cool premise, and nice unexpected elements, typical of the One Piece world. very similar vibes to the Skypea arc in the anime

if you like One Piece, this side story fits perfectly into the main story, sometime after picking up Usopp

when it comes to art, animation, music, sound effects are all typical early One Piece, there is no significant change from the base anime, it is not better, it is not worse, it is just in line. there doesn't seem to be any extra special effort like anime companies usually do for movies, ... and that's ok, this is a TV special after all, and honestly, I would not have written this entire last paragraph if mal would allow me to post a review with just the first two paragraphs

animation:
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first off, the elephant in the room. yes, the animation is not even close to being close to being state of the art for 2025. it's limited motion, so it relies a lot on viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps in animation. limited motion has been used in amine since forever, it's in dragon ball, one piece, naruto, bleach, and if you don't specifically look for areas where they could have inserted awesome sakuga, you won't notice. also there are a couple moments of sakuga here and there that made me say "yooo, that's cool". and there's no jarring CGI, thankfully, as of yet ... anyway

art style:
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also I've seen may people say "the artstyle of the manhwa is much better", so I put them side by side and it's not. the anime just looks better overall. we also have kinda cool light effects for mana usage (though I still have mixed feelings on those), but the artstyle is good.

storytelling:
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the story is just perfect, probably one of the best works of fiction ever created, with awesome characters. good cliffhangers are a nice extra touch. it has similarities to Mushoku Tensei, but I'd say it is refined in many areas, and the best magic system I've seen so far. the pacing of the anime is good too, some skipped content here and there, like in any other anime, it is a faithful telling of the story.


bottom line, if you don't specifically look for ways to lose immersion based on art & animation it is worth it, especially for people who like isekai anime

probably the most special One Piece special. it is so different from everything else One Piece while at the same time still being One Piece, it's a delight to watch.

this ova was released before the original One Piece began airing, so it serves as a sort of a pilot episode, gently introducing the concept of One Piece, and does it really well and holds up really well 26 years later. it's just Luffy, Zoro and Nami which creates a novel dynamic, and one interesting new character, all packaged with some high quality, slightly different animation.

in general, I watch One Piece casually, I'm rarely 100% ... caught up. right now I'm at 1083 out of 1122, I'm also watching the Fish-Man island remake as it is airing, right now at 5 out of 6, and I was in the mood for a special. this special was a great treat indeed, thank you for existing.

it feels off, and I'm entirely sure why, but I have a hunch... is it too fast now?

I guess the animation is not entirely new, it's the same one from the original, just cut and stitched together differently. and so, its panels that were created with a much much slower pace in mind, when sped up 2-3x, it ends up feeling odd. I would have loved to see a complete new animation, but maybe some other time

at least for the first three episodes—"Return to Sabaody", One Pace feels much better. it is slightly slower, 32-33 minutes per episode instead of 23 but covers the same ... content and flows better

that being said, I'm still glad this exists. adds a little color, a little diversity in the ways we can watch and re-watch One Piece

First of all, I am not a PRO review writer, and this is also my first review, but I just had to share my thoughts about this anime.

Since it's a horror anime, and it's supposed to give you the creeps, and that's probably the reason you want to watch it, you wonder about how disturbing it is. Actually, it does involve some scary stuff, but it didn't quite reach the level a 'pure' horror anime should. There are other anime you'll find more disturbing (Tokyo Ghoul is one of them).

For a horror anime, the story is kind-of standard and doesn't really stand out with anything ... but it would be good enough to get a 7, maybe slightly more ... IF and only IF they would cut the last 30 seconds. For real, when you reach that point just stop and imagine the ending yourself. It basically ruins everything with a WTF moment, and those moments are not what you look forward to in a horror. It's not that it's disturbing, it's just that you don't have enough build-up for the characters to actually care, and a moment that is supposed to be sad becomes laughable, and the last thing you want from a horror is comedy. Let's be real. Horror movies are supposed to give you the creeps. It's one of those moments that are so bad that they're actually funny. And it wouldn't be so bad if it would be somewhere in the middle of the story. But it's the ending, and from my experience with anime, the premise and the ending are the most memorable. Now I gotta live with that. That alone makes the story worth a 4.

There is not much to talk about the art. It's standard for 2013, but the music felt a bit more than that. It clearly enchanted the spookiness of the story, but none of the tracks were good enough to make me want to listen to them alone.

Personally, I found the characters to be quite stupid. Come on ! You clearly shouldn't pull on a hanging person ... :\
Other than that, the characters are quite numerous and pretty useless from my perspective, but I don't wanna go into 'why' 'cause that's spoiler territory.
Memorable characters are only two (and those create the WTF moment at the end. Duh ... Could've been a lot better. )

Over all, I enjoyed the anime up until it hit the last 30 seconds. It just fell into a never-ending pit.

And since the 'art', 'sound' and 'characters' are there just to decide the enjoyment value and to amplify the story, I won't count them in the final evaluation, because I already counted them in the other 2. And with a little bit of maths, (4 + 4) / 2 = 4 final score.
If the ending would've been cut or different: (8 + 8) / 2 = 8


Have a nice day, or night, wherever you live.
And for your sake ... Don't watch 'till the end ... Stop when you reach 26:35 in episode 4. On top of the fact that it's a comedy WTF moment in a horror anime, it actually makes no sense, so take my word for it and don't watch it. Please.