One piece stampede
ONE PIECE STAMPEDE MOVIE
That’s the degree of references the movie takes from and it’s a delight for those of us who have taken the time to enjoy the series.īut the references don’t end in just the characters: there’s so many moments, attacks and scenes that will make you go “oh, that’s from that point in the manga/anime!”. Yes, remember the salesman who sold Nami some sea chart paper in that random post-Alabasta filler? Yep, he’s in the movie.
ONE PIECE STAMPEDE SERIES
But beyond the 12 or so Pandamans in the movie, the pool of characters this movie references is insane, both from the main series and the years of non-canon content the anime has added. You know me well, One Piece details are my life, and seeing all these references is incredibly exciting for me. Yet one of my favorite aspects was the third tier of characters, being the easter egg and cameo characters. Aside from perhaps Mohji, Richie, Cabaji and Koala, every single character in this picture gets a standout moment to shine. There isn’t a single one that I can recall having 0 moments to stand out and all of them, in some way or another, get their chance to take the spotlight at some point or another. Beyond them, there’s another set of supporting characters who aren’t given as much focus (though most of them get a couple moments to shine), but are still cool to see there in the movie, even if for brief moments, lending credence to the scope of this event.
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All of them get extensive focus and have their own time to shine, be it through a battle or via special moments that represent their characters faithfully. There’s three core groups of characters the movie focuses on: the Straw Hats, the Supernovas and the seven fighters that have been hyped up in promotional material. Yet after watching it, I was shocked at how incredibly well it handled its large cast of characters. However, a big worry was that having so many characters would be too overwhelming and that ultimately the movie would suffer from not being able to focus on all of them. While it might not carry the same narrative weight and quality Marineford had, in terms of scope this could very well rival that arc in the sheer amount of characters gathered and clashing together. If anything, the fact that this movie is non-canon might be one of its best aspects: seeing certain character interactions that we could’ve only dreamed of, seeing certain match ups that you would never imagine being possible in the main story, it’s fanservice at its absolute best. Yet Stampede throws all of that out the window and basks on the fact that it is non-canon to create some amazing set pieces that would otherwise be impossible. Stampede takes that concept and runs wild with it: the movie fully takes advantage of being non-canon and brings characters from all over the series that wouldn’t otherwise fit in any point in the manga: Bonney and Sabo being at the Reverie, Drake being in Kaido’s crew, Hancock being back at Amazon Lily, it would be literally impossible for this to happen in the manga. In the last movie, GOLD, all the Straw Hats were present despite them never being reunited since the beginning of Dressrosa, essentially making a completely non-canon setting. Rather than just being a movie about the Straw Hats and a group of enemies, this is a movie about many characters from across the whole series: the entire Worst Generation, the Shichibukai, the Marines, the Revolutionaries, the Cipher Pol and many more the movie brings in many beloved stars from across the series in one big action-packed thrill ride.
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The main selling point that has been focused on so much in official promotion is that this is a crossover movie. But it’s not until I watched the movie in theaters this Friday that I realized just how much it really is a celebration of not just the manga’s history, but also the anime and the franchise’s legacy. I originally thought this was just one of those anniversary promotion things, they do it a lot of the time with anime and game franchises, so I didn’t think much about it. There was this thing thrown around to hype up Stampede’s release: that this movie was meant to be a “celebration of 20 years of the One Piece anime”.
ONE PIECE STAMPEDE FREE
While I do gloss over some minor points of the movie and pre-release information about the general structure (which is still pretty vague), I do not bring up any big plot points or specific reveals, so rest assured that this review is SPOILER FREE DISCLAIMER: This review does not feature any sort of spoilers about Stampede.