English Dub Review: One Piece: Stampede

One Piece as a franchise has been going on for over two decades now, sitting confidently as the king of modern Shonen as new contenders have come and gone. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the original manga, One Piece releases its fourteenth feature film! And IIIIIIIT’S just like the last thirteen. I mean, you basically have to lower your expectations for big shonen anime movies from the get-go, seeing how they typically fall into a pretty predictable formula. I’ll get into ways I think they could be different, which One Piece has actually done before, but we should probably talk about this movie first.

Stampede starts with a pretty interesting premise: numerous pirates from across the series’ history have been gathered for a massive race known as the Pirates Expo, with the prize being a treasure once owned by the original King of the Pirates himself, Gol D. Roger. It’s pretty cool seeing what is essentially Hanna Barbera’s “Wacky Races” played out with pirate ships, which would be cool to see happen in a whole movie…but not even halfway through, that gets chucked out the window in favor of what these kinds of movies tend to default to. That being a random intimidating new character who has somehow never been mentioned before (nor will ever be mentioned again) showing up out of nowhere to fight everyone, equipped with all the latest power-ups from the recent chapters of the manga to show he’s extra tough but then is finally defeated by the main character (in this case, Luffy) in a climactic final strike that uses up 40% of the movie’s animation budget.

Another thing to note is that I have not checked in with One Piece in either the manga or anime in quite some time, meaning there are many characters showcased here that I simply won’t recognize. That’s ultimately not a huge problem, as many of the cameos here are more for fan-service than anything you really have to remember, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It can be cool to see a movie that is celebrating twenty years of an accomplished series which acknowledges this with mountains of cameos, but then it also feels a tad patronizing to not have them incorporated into much more than giant fight scene against a block of wood who is just a walking repeat of the old “friends make you strong” message. Still an important message after all these years, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been told in so many more interesting and clever ways that this simply doesn’t cut it.

As I said, it’s just something you kind of has to get used to with these sorts of movies, but I can’t help but feel a bit of a sting each time it happens. Especially since I think this poses an opportunity for more notable directors to take the reins of these characters for an adventure that is ultimately inconsequential but could at least be unique. Take “Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island”, the show’s six movies, for example. That’s typically cited as one of the franchise’s better take on the film and was helmed by “Summer Wars” director, praised for its uniquely dark visual take on its material. Maybe we couldn’t have done that for a twentieth-anniversary movie, but I just don’t see much of a reason to stay in such a small box like this.

In the end, if you enjoy the show even the tiniest bit, there’s going to be something in this film for you to get excited about, especially if you’re seeing it on the big screen. One Piece Stampede is perfectly serviceable as a product in and of itself. As a film, it’s woefully predictable and disposable, even amongst its own peers, but it plays to its strengths when it needs to and ends up being a solid outing and installment in the One Piece film series. But just like the Straw Hat Crew, I believe there’s merit in searching for something greater instead of simply staying on the usual routes. Hopefully, Toei Animation will know that too by the time movie 15 comes out.