Anime Movie Review: One Piece Movie 6: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island

One Piece Movie: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island

Ooookay, what the fuck!

This movie is sure going to be one of the most memorable movies from One Piece that I've ever watched, and I'm not sure which part of the fence I actually land on when I say that. 

The sixth One Piece movie ran for slightly less than 90 minutes, which is kind of the norm for these non-serialized movies. We've even got a surprisingly different art style (courtesy of Mamoru Hosoda of Digimon: Our War Game fame). A lot of people don't like change, but I actually do like it a lot when we get to see familiar characters drawn in a different art style. 

And the movie spends... oh, around 45 minutes or so being pretty chill. Like, 'anime filler arc' chill. The animation's all right and the voice acting is all right, but it's just the Straw Hat crew dicking around the island-of-the-movie, where they are roped in under the premise of a resort and ends up being thrown into a game-show island. There is a heavy Foxy/Davy-Back arc feel to the whole thing, and... and it's all right, y'know? I don't mind seeing these characters have some downtime. It's just not the most interesting thing in the world, and it's the sort of thing I let play on while I play a mobile game or something. 

The concept is that the enigmatic Baron Omatsuri is setting up an odd little mind-game thing where every member of his crew is basically engineered to try and drive rifts between the 'nakama' of the Straw Hat Pirates, a concept that is actually pretty great on paper and for the boat-ring-toss segment of the game. Nami gets pissed off at Usopp for seemingly abandoning her during the competition on a hang-glider and gets pissed off at him for the entire movie, while Sanji and Zoro have their usual angry rivalry. It's a very cool concept, but the fact that half the crew is excluded from this inter-personal conflict (Luffy, Robin and Chopper go off on their own personal sub-plots) and that it actually never gets any sort of resolution ends up being points to dock against the movie.

There's your typical cast of movie-exclusive wacko characters, of course, and... none of them are particularly noteworthy, but none really are offensively annoying. Baron Omatsuri is pretty hammy with a pretty fun voice (it's Otsuka Akio, a.k.a. Blackbeard), and his crew are all obnoxiously, and, on purpose, over-the-top with speech gimmicks and whatnot. There's the Chaplin-mustached Brief, an enigmatic captain that's clearly a victim of the island, who Luffy befriends. And there's the family of pirates that Chopper befriends.

And then the movie gets real dark, which is pretty surprising. Not just because this is One Piece (a.k.a. One "no one ever dies" Piece), but it's not just dark because a bunch of people die or anything, no. We go straight into some pretty nasty shit straight out of a horror movie. And I love that! I really, really do like that. I'm just still undecided, even a week after finishing the movie, whether this fits as a One Piece story or not. And, even in the context of the movie itself, it contrasts so much with the cheerful 'ha ha Sanji cooks a giant omelet; the straw hat crew juggles a giant goldfish' tomfoolery that's been going on. And there's also notably such a lack of action throughout the entire movie, which makes the movie feel so much more different than your typical One Piece fare. 

The reveal that the entire Omatsuri crew has been dead since a fatal shipwreck isn't particularly new or over-the-top. It's practically cliched, honestly, as far as horror or ghost stories go. But the way that this is executed? Sure, Robin's personal investigation (and Luffy's accidental one) do kind of tell us that there's something not quite right about the island. But when Muchigoro basically decays into a mummy, not comprehending what's going on, while Nami is getting him drunk and trying to fish for information about the island? Good lord, that was genuinely well done. 

And throughout the movie, as much as a dick that Omatsuri is in methodically taking down our beloved main characters and being a dick about mocking Chopper and later Luffy's beliefs about 'nakama' and stuff, there's a genuine sense of unsettling oddness where he's very tender and tolerant of his crewmates' antics, and how even his crewmates kind of realize that there's something not quite right (like the DJ, who is confused why he doesn't even bleed from Zoro's sword strikes). 

With the entire Straw Hat crew being essentially taken out in quick succession (Chopper's the only one given a somewhat extended scene), Luffy is left abruptly alone against Omatsuri, and there is some real great voice-acting work even if the argument done is quite basic. It's a bit where the voice-acting and the animation of Luffy's desperation as his limbs are stabbed one by one with one of the Baron's arrows while Omatsuri's speech, Luffy's desperate cries and the music builds up while the bodies of the Straw Hats are consumed by the odd giant spiral flower thing. 

And then, of course, near the end, the cute little flower (which is easily the best thing and the creepiest thing in the movie) that has been perching on Omatsuri's shoulder reveals itself to be the true body of the Lily Carnation, the magical (???) flower that's been consuming pirate crews and using them to animate the bodies/ghosts of Omatsuri's crew. And it explodes to some Evangelion-style abomination with some terrifying giggling, scare chords, and the contorted bodies of our main characters. Holy shit. I mean, I find it awesome, but it's also hell of out-of-place in a One Piece movie and I can imagine a lot of children in 2005's Japanese cinemas got traumatized by this. 

And... and, yeah, the conclusion is honestly more or less what you expect it to. Luffy's gained some new friends in the allies he makes on the island. The unnamed Papa grows some balls and helps out. Omatsuri's flower gets destroyed, and all his friends (and even Omatsuri himself) transforms into plants. And then Luffy gets reunited, and credits roll. 

And... and oh my god, what a fucking tense final act that was. It's so different, so genuinely scary and unexpected, and the combination of great voice-acting and background music really helps a lot, too. The fact that it's so different to other One Piece material also helps to sell just how unnatural the whole final confrontation is. No Zoro-and-Sanji-fight-a-miniboss sequence, with the DJ fight lasting less than 10 seconds. No supervillain with a Devil Fruit or special moves; Omatsuri gets ultimately taken down by a cheap arrow shot and a punch to the face. No over-the-top heroic declaration; Luffy genuinely sounds so desperate and upset. And while there isn't a complete lack of Luffy calling out his moves, he feels less like an anime protagonist calling out his moves and more like a desperate man. 

And... and it's, again, just kind of a shame. The mystery and horror are great -- even the unexplained nature of Lily Carnation is something I appreciated -- but the sheer lack of resolution on the inter-crew personnel is kind of a failing, I feel. And while Luffy's desperation is well-acted, arguably other than a single line of dialogue between him and Sanji, he doesn't need to learn the 'be a good nakama' moral in the events of the movie. And then there's the whole tone of the movie as well, and...  yeah, I'm still processing this. If nothing else it really feels different. I did enjoy watching this one for how utterly batshit crazy it is, but I can also completely see why some fans would be utterly put off by it. 

Random Notes:

• Seriously, Lily Carnation becomes super-creepy once we establish that it's connected to the giant spiral-vine thing, where it's visibly chewing when its larger body is eating Chopper. 
• I get caught up with Lily, but man, the sight of the otherwise-silly-looking Muchigoro or DJ Gappa shriveling up like mummies is pretty nasty. 
• The dodgy CGI in this movie is mostly used to actually great effect since it's mostly utilized on Lily Carnation's larger form, whether when it splits into a mass of arrows, or when it uses thin vines to strangle Chopper. 
• I'm not 100% sure if there's any significance to Baron Omatsuri using arrows, but okay, sure. 
• While they were utterly annoying the first time I saw them, the side characters' bizarre mannerisms -- from the mustache pirate's mustache salute; to everything Muchigoro does; to the old people bickering -- gets a neat tragic callback later on.
• DJ Gappa's a bizarre one who is a weirdo kappa that launches plates that home into targets mid-air. Between him and Digimon's Gawappamon, is there something between Kappas and DJ's that I just miss?