One Piece: The Movie (2000) User Reviews

Cool for the first movie of a great Anime.

[emasterslake · 8/10 · 18 February 2007]

In the first movie installment of One Piece, we're told of a tale of Great Gold Pirate Woonan. A pirate who obtain 1/3 of the world's gold. Over the years, Woonan's existence has faded away. And a legend grew on his gold located on a remote island he settled on.

Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, and Nami got involved in the hunt for Woonan's treasure after meeting Tabio(a kid who admires Woonan) and a group of pirates lead by El Drago. El Drago is a tall Aztec Indian like man who's mad about gold. And wants every piece of Woonan's treasure.

As the hunt begins on the island, the Straw Hat Pirates must stop El Drago from stealing the treasure. But El Drago's crave for gold makes him dangerous to go up against.

Takes place between episodes 18 and 19. This movie is well thought up for being the first for the ever popular One Piece series. The animation and style are the same. And 51 minutes running long makes it feel like a double episode special.

Never a dull moment with the action, comedy, and character development used throughout the movie. A must see for those who like the anime. Only available on fan sub. Which is as easy to find on the internet as %0

Great movie for a Great Anime

[electrovator · 8/10 · 29 November 2016]

So I was kind of worried about watching the movies at first but I'm glad I did. This first movie isn't by any means what I would call a perfect One Piece movie, but that's not to say it isn't any good at all. I can't entirely remember the characters or the story but I do remember watching it and thinking it was pretty good. Although in my personal opinion I wish there could have been an English Dub for this movie as well as the ones that don't currently have one. If your a fan of One Piece then I can almost guarantee you'll like this, so I suggest giving it a watch just in case, after all, even if you don't like it, it's still One Piece right

Fine, for the "First"

[zhyates · 6/10 · 19 December 2021]

As the first "One Piece Film" it clocks in at 51 minutes. It is a glorified 3 part episode, and has the early series entertaining charm. The small cast (before the series expanded greatly) really helps the pacing of this, letting the narrative work around the Straw Hat crew. While there's no real stakes and the villain is a one-note joke, the film is fine. Not great, not bad, but just fine.

Very, very, interesting

[Bullitt33 · 7/10 · 6 October 2023]

This is a non-canonical side adventure taking place in the East Blue prior to Sanji joining the true. Very old school (90s) looking anime movie art style which I enjoyed for nostalgia reasons. The slapstick here, especially involving Usopp seemed funnier here than typical One Piece anime eps during opening East Blue arc.

The reason I gave this a bonus 1/2 star is because while most of the story feels typical filler'ish, I really found the reveal at the end to be quite a surprisingly powerful/meaningful message.

Currently on anime 339/2078. This is my second OP film and looking forward to watching all the OP movies and specials!! 😜👍

A film without any ideas of its own

[Meldow_ · 5/10 · 18 September 2023]

(This review contains spoilers!!!)

The first movie of One Piece has no fresh story. It sort of takes the prologue story of One Piece ("Wealth, Power and Glory...." We all know it) and just rewrites it a little. There was once a pirate named Woonan who was called - surprise - Gold Pirate. He stole stolen gold from pirates together and eventually had a huge treasure. Then he hid it on an island. To find this treasure, there is a treasure map, which coincidentally reminds us of the Road Porneglyphs. There is also a little boy named Tobio whose biggest dream is to find the treasure (comparable to Luffy), and his grandfather Ganzo knew Woonan (comparable to Garp). This story has many parallels to the real One Piece story, even more so from today's perspective.

The film is now by and large a simple treasure hunt story. With an island, treasure map, riddle and an antagonist who is also looking for the treasure. The riddle is on the treasure map and is super trivial. Apparently, not even minimal effort has been made here. By the way, the main antagonist is El Drago. He has eaten from a Devil Fruit (the name of this is never mentioned). The power of this Devil Fruit seems very One Piece untypical and fits more to Dragon Ball (he can shoot such a Kamehameha out of his mouth). Of course, so that Zoro also has an opponent, El Drago has a swordsman named Golass as a sidekick. Both the fight against El Drago and Golass are pretty boring.

At least the comedy aspect of the film is convincing. The comedy gives the movie a bit of that old One Piece feel. Ruffy is stupid, Nami yells around, Usopp lies for his life, and Zoro is typically cool on it. However, I feel like the writers of the movie simplified the consistency of One Piece to just comedy and stretched it to the max. There are some very over-the-top jokes that don't fit even for the old One Piece. For example when Ruffy asks Ganzo if he died and even repeats that. Yes Ruffy is the typical stupid Shonen protagonist, but he's also not that stupid. The old One Piece, besides the comedy, also makes up for a sense of adventure with, or rather through, an unknown island. The island here, however, remains uninteresting. No inhabitants, no special animals, nothing.

In the end, the film should have been made longer and embellished more. So even for huge One Piece fans (like me) there is no real reason to watch this movie and even less for basic viewers. At the same time, the film is not really bad, but simply sinks into insignificance without bringing its own ideas to the franchise. Too bad.