One Piece Movie: Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals
Otherwise known as "the one that highlights Chopper a lot". The first two One Piece movies have been relatively standalone stories that relied more on the Straw Hat crew stumbling upon a guest star of the movie and then beating up the antagonist, but as the title of this movie implies, this is going to be a movie that focuses a lot on a specific crew member -- that being the extremely marketable Chopper. Gotta sell those Tony Tony Chopper merchandise, right?
And I'm not sure just how much the people who talk about Chopper being super-duper marketable and the studio executives pushing for him being a bigger face is... but this movie sure does push Chopper into the forefront. And the plot of this movie? Chopper's a coward, but he learns not to be a coward to protect his friends, thereby inspiring guest star of the week Mobambi to also not be a coward. Also, at some point during the movie Chopper accidentally gets mistaken as the King of Animals of Crown Island. Sure.
And the movie itself really doesn't have a whole ton of interesting or exciting bits. As formulaic as "Clockwork Island Adventure" is, it's at least trying to build some tension and menace for the villains, and the story was a bit more tense. Here we spend a huge chunk of the first act just dancing around the fact that, hey, our heroes get blasted onto an island with speaking animals, Chopper got separated, and due to silly prophecies (and a recently dead Kirin Lion) he ends up being treated as the king of these talking animals. And, y'know, Chopper being Chopper, he ends up basically being peer pressured into the position. A grand total of zero of the talking animals make any sort of impression on me. The rest of the human Straw Hats are just kind of dicking around and exploring the island.
Then we get the villains, which is a herd of "Horn Eaters", basically giant armadillo-rhino creatures that specifically hunt down animals with horns, leading them to a group of illegal poachers -- Count Battler, President Heabi and General Hot Dog. They all have exaggerated "look at these slimy-looking villains" look, other than Hot Dog, who's just a generic brute. They look like they're taken out of a pile of rejected designs for One Piece villains, I'm sorry. At no point do they feel threatening in the movie, and their plan is to basically have Count Battler use his ability to manipulate the Horn Eaters to bring the animals to him so he can slice off their horns and eat them, because he's hunting for like the prophecied golden horn that gives people super-strength or something. The movie spends way too long on Battler's 'gimmick' of giving exposition accidentally to the heroes. We also learn Mobambi's story, and it's very flat. He is basically Tarzan, a human who was washed up on the island and adopted by the animals. And he's very insistent that Chopper stay there as king. Also, he hates pirates because his human parents got killed by pirates, and he's also an annoying little brat.
Our heroes regroup and sort of catch each other up on what's going on, while Count Battler's group ends up finding the clue that the King's horns is the true treasure of the island. Chopper, despite being not really a king and having no stake in the fight, ends up walking up and showing his badass courage and stuff. And then we get the Straw Hats saving the day, although there's a particularly obvious bit of the movie wanting to let Chopper have his big moment by having Luffy's fat belly blocking the way of him and the rest of the Straw Hats from going through a door. The Straw Hats give Mobambi kind of a pep talk, but Mobambi is infinitely less likable than last movie's kid guest star, so I felt like it kind of fell flat.
At this point of the anime, Chopper is still kind of treated as a bit of a joke character (Monster Point isn't a thing yet) but it's still kind of badass when he stands all on his own on that cliff side against the three villains. Then we get our typical division of goons and main cast members. There's another ass-pull that Count Battler's animal-controlling violin also affects Luffy because he's dumb, but it's mostly an excuse to keep Luffy from ending the movie prematurely. Nami and Usopp end up dealing with the Horn Eaters by trapping them in a ravine, and while there's a bit where our heroes seem to be on the ropes, Sanji and Zoro beat the two goons pretty handily. Credit where credit's due, Zoro fighting the kick-using goon and Sanji fighting the sword-using goon, and then handily one-shotting them and commenting how they are nothing compared to their respective rival is actually a very cool moment. It's kind of a shame that, y'know, Hot Dog and Heabi are kind of unimpressive on their own.
We get the huge dramatic moment where Mobambi shows up to help Chopper, daring to betray the rest of his people on threat of exile to protect his friend, and we're supposed to read this as Mobambi finally getting the courage to act, but since Mobambi and the talking animals have been gigantic selfish pricks throughout the movie, it's more like "finally, you did something that isn't shit". I dunno. I know Mobambi has a sob backstory and all, but I just find him very unlikable, y'know?
Then Count Battler eats the golden horns of the Kirin Lion and becomes this hideous ogre-beast with horns that overpowers Luffy, and... and this fight is pretty uninteresting, y'know? There's a cool bit where Chopper looks at Hiriluk's pirate flag and goes into like Jumping Point and Arm Point to cause Count Battler to bleed, but ultimately Chopper just gets beaten up, Mobambi gets beaten up, we get the (obvious) revelation that Count Battler's the one who killed Mobambi's dad (and he's not even a pirate, so, uh Mobambi has no reason to hate Chopper? Or something?), the animals all come, Count Battler blows them all away, gives a monologue, then Luffy shows up and says the obligatory heroic things, snaps off his horns and bazookas his dying corpse away. Because of rule of drama or other, the island suddenly decides to acknowledge Mobambi as the Animal King, and then he and Chopper have this tearful goodbye.
And... and I dunno. I don't enjoy this movie at all. It theoretically has a solid stand-alone story, but Mobambi is so unlikable, the villains are so flat, and the location of talking animals are so throwaway that even giving Chopper a much-needed arc where he gathers his courage isn't even enough to really carry the story forwards. I kind of appreciate the creative team trying to do something different, but there are points where I don't even feel like this is a One Piece movie, but more like the One Piece cast stumbled into a terrible Tarzan ripoff or something. I dunno. Not a fan of this one at all.
Random Notes:
- There is no point in the One Piece storyline that the movie could've been slotted in -- Chopper joins the crew when Vivi is already around, and when Vivi leaves the crew, Robin immediately joins up. The lack of Nami's clima-tact staff implies that the movie takes place prior to Alabasta, but that doesn't explain the lack of Vivi.
- Pandaman briefly shows up in the background when we pan to the terrible animal costumes Usopp designed for his friends.
- Man, it's clearly been a while since I've read older One Piece arcs. I forgot how frumpy Chopper looked before the redesign that made him a lot more chibi-esque post-timeskip!
- Zou and the Minks, this island ain't. Honestly, the movie's so unmemorable that I didn't even remember the names "Crown Island" and "Count Battler" when writing up the drafts for these reviews ten minutes after watching the movie.
- That scene where Count Battler's goons slice off the horns and tusks of the animals is a bit more disturbing than it should be.
- The scene where Count Battler shrinks from his giant mutated were-animal form into a shriveled purple corpse is probably the best animated scene in this entire movie.
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