Anime Movie Review: One Piece Movie 5 - The Cursed Holy Sword

One Piece Movie: The Cursed Holy Sword

So this sort of 'filler' content is probably the kind that I wished they did a bit more often, where they focus the storyline almost entirely on one member of the ensemble cast -- in this case, Roronoa Zoro. We're around a thousand-odd chapters and episodes into the series, and yet Zoro, being the first crew member, has had great moments. Some of the greatest highlights in the manga, in fact -- in particular, the fight with Mihawk in the Baratie and the Kuma moment at the end of Thriller Bark are consistently some of the best moments in One Piece. But at the same time, I really do kind of wish that some of the earlier-introduced characters are given time to develop more outside of their debut arcs. Remember how great Usopp's story was during the Water Seven arc? We rarely get that much depth anymore for a good part of our supposed main characters. It's something that filler arcs could, in theory, help to flesh out. And even if it's something simple like a one-off movie, it would be nice to have. The thing, though, is how to make these stories exciting and have stakes without really contradicting some huge revelation that the canon story might have in the storyline. 

And to that end, "The Cursed Holy Sword"... works in some vague aspects. I enjoyed it as a quick watch, despite the fact that it really didn't feel like a One Piece story, and more like a generic side-quest you pick up from a RPG game. We don't really delve too deep into too much magic and mysticism in One Piece -- everything tends to revolve around Haki or Devil Fruits. But okay, sure, a demon-possessed cursed sword that possesses the villain-of-the-movie as the main premise? I can get behind that. What I can get the most behind is that the main villain is Zoro's childhood friend from the dojo, and how he's forced to choose between his friend and the Straw Hat Pirates. 

That sounds like a pretty cool synopsis, right? On paper. One of the biggest problems that people have with this movie is that Zoro ends up seemingly betraying the Straw Hats and acting like a dick, and it doesn't quite work. While watching the movie I assumed Zoro just got mind-controlled, but it's not even that. And as someone who, in the canon of the manga/anime, we know to be the one that puts the biggest stock in loyalty and how a crew works (i.e. his reactions when Usopp left the crew in Water Seven) it feels very out-of-character. But... okay. Sure. Let's handwave that for a moment, though that might very well 'kill' the movie for most viewers. But narratively? Narratively, Zoro's betrayal isn't even that important to the story, it's done mostly because he's bad at communicating and he spends a good chunk of the movie just lurking in the background making cool samurai poses before he realizes that Saga's not in his right mind and defects back to the good guys. 

The storyline of the movie is simple, even if it's a pretty standard sequence of our anime heroes meeting a new, secluded place, meeting the enemy and the likable good guys, finding the plot coupons, fighting the henchmen and having the main good guy beat up the main bad guy. In this case, this movie decides to sort of take a spin on the mystical martial arts genre, and have the story of Asuka Island be shrouded and surrounded in a backstory involving the titular cursed sword, the Seven Star Sword, and its wielder, Saga.

Our heroes also more or less just stumble into Asuka Island after Robin and Nami discuss the Seven Star Sword, and Zoro meets Saga... and decides to join forces. Saga is also the head of the "Marine Dojo" for no real reason other than to tie the movie even further into the One Piece setting and make it feel less like the One Piece characters landed in Rurouni Kenshin or something. Turns out that Saga is Zoro's childhood friend and they shared a dream or something, and Saga wants Zoro's help to destroy the pink orbs that can seal the Seven Star Sword, and fakes being ill to manipulate his friend into doing so. 

Meanwhile, after being angry at Zoro's betrayal, most of the Straw Hats befriend the local villagers (mostly "Chosen One" Maya and her grandmother) and learn all about the backstory of the island and the Seven Star Sword. It's... it's all right and competently animated, but all the talk of gods and sealing magic and stuff makes this feel like a plot ripped off from Naruto or something, and not even disguised well to work with the setting. 

Plus, at the same time this part of the movie is just a long, long stream of just seeing Luffy and Usopp outrun random dungeon hazards for the umpteenth time; and it's just such a huge time-sink for the movie because it has absolutely nothing to do with the movie until, oh-so-conveniently, turns out that the bullshit trapped dungeons are vital to how the Straw Hats and the villagers can get to the secret magic World of Warcraft altars.

One of the biggest parts why I'm not particularly invested is that it's painfully clear to everyone except Zoro that the Seven Star Sword is evil and mind-controlling Saga, and, in turn, allows Saga to mind-control the Marines and his other goons, and that sort of makes Saga's relationship with Zoro feel artificial since we don't even get to see what the real Saga is like. The movie plays out through the expected beats of our heroes figuring out what to do, Luffy bumbling through things because ha-ha-he's-an-idiot-shonen-hero, Saga beating Luffy around the mid-point of the movie, Zoro figuring out what happened to Saga, and then we get a bit of a drawn-out finale. 

And to the movie's credit? I genuinely thought this was going to be Luffy beating Saga. So many of these shonen anime movies' biggest weakness is that the main good guy will always be the one to land the final blow on the enemy regardless of who the focus of the movie is. And it's admittedly one of the biggest problems of shonen anime in general, but this movie surprisingly doesn't take that route! If nothing else, that scene where Zoro monologues about how to be the greatest swordsman, he must be able to cut through anything -- even his friend -- is pretty badass. But... but, again, with all of the rather truncated set-up, it does feel somewhat hollow. 

And that's about it, really. Saga gets freed from mind-control, the Seven Star Sword shatters and gets banished forever, and our heroes bugger off. It's a competent movie, but ultimately so much of it sort of hinges around a completely brainwashed and generically-evil villain, and it's not until the end that we actually get any sort of huge character moment from Zoro. Adding to the problem is that so much of the middle part of the movie just drags on and on and it doesn't really feel like anyone is accomplishing anything, and everyone is just waiting for exposition to be delivered to them and for Luffy (who, of course, accidentally stumbles into both the plot devices and the fast-travel tunnels that would lead them to the shrines) to regroup with the main cast. It doesn't help that no one in this movie are particularly memorable -- not the villagers, not the Marines, and most certainly not the brainwashed Saga. 

Not a bad effort, but ultimately it's a movie that's kind of just there. It's like one of the filler arcs in an anime where at the end of it you want to say 'oh, okay, it's not that terrible' and it's not, but for the amount of time that it ran, they really could've done better. 

Random Notes:

• The time-frame of this movie can be inferred to take place post-Skypiea, according to the wiki, because of the outfits and the fact that everyone knew their post-Alabasta bounties. 
• The Seven Star Sword borrows its name from a treasure from the Chinese legend Journey to the West, where it's one of the treasures of the Gold and Silver Demon Kings ("Kinkaku" and "Ginkaku" in Japanese, often seen in media). 
• Saga has minions -- we've got cool armoured guy Bismark, big tough guy Boo-Kong and the obligatory good guy Toma. Toma aside, the other two barely have any lines and get literally one-shotted by Sanji and Robin respectively. Hey, Robin in fights! If only she could actually do more with her insane Devil Fruit in canon. 
• Lt. Commander Drake of the Marines (not to be confused with X-Drake), who apparently first showed up in Dead End Adventure, makes a short role here still chasing the Straw Hats before they arrived on Asuka Island. I kinda wished that he would have cameos in all the subsequent movies, but apparently this is his last movie appearance before showing up in the anime's filler G-8 arc.
• Yet another example of Going Merry abuse when Luffy, with absolutely zero fucks given, tells the crew to drive the ship right into a bunch of rocks. And it's all slapstick here, of course, but considering the ultimate fate of Going Merry, all of these additional moments of abuse in non-canon material is pretty jarring.