One Piece: 3D2Y [2014]
(I'll be offline for the forseeable couple of weeks, but I do have a bunch of articles that are basically ready to be posted automatically.)
Okay, this one was... interesting? Released around the time that the Dressrosa arc was hitting the anime, the 15th anniversary 3D2Y is an anime special that ran just shy of two hours, chronicling Luffy's training with Rayleigh... in a way. One of the escapees from Impel Down, Byrnndi World, shows up and acts as a menace, and because of an honestly odd series of coincidences for him to even come to Luffy's radar, Luffy and Hancock head off to fight World and rescue Sandersonia and Marigold.
And... I don't know. The animation is pretty crisp and nice, I have to admit, particularly the surprise new-animation-style montage of the Marineford War that opens the special. But ultimately it's just pretty... one-note? It's still heads and shoulders better than many of the filler arcs I've seen, granted, but maybe I was just expecting a bit more?
And it's kind of frustrating, because I can see that there's the skeleton of a very good story here. Brynndi World (oh god, the name) is a pirate who feels betrayed when his brother and crewmates abandoned him in the past to be captured by the Marines, and have given up on everything but revenge -- his final act in this movie is quite literally firing off a cannon that would break his crew's precious ship. There are many times where his brother Byojack has a bit of a conversation or two that seems to lead to somewhere; and there are many times where World demands from Luffy if his attempts to save his brother amounted to anything... but ultimately? Ultimately I don't feel like the payoff is quite enough. The confrontation between World and Byojack just sort of trickles off, and the fight with Luffy devolves into a pretty standard "how dare you treat your nakama like that" spiel. And... and there's nothing wrong with the latter, because this is an anime movie, but I really wished that Luffy learning to unleash Armament Haki in this special is tied a bit more tied to the story. Instead, it's just tangentially related to World's story.
And it's a real, real huge shame. Because I actually did feel for Byrnndi World and Byojack's story by the end of these two hours, but the thing is that we've got way too much buildup and hints of their tragic story, and then all we had to show for it is just flashbacks and the actual present-day confrontation feels somewhat muted.
There is also the somewhat wasted potential of actually showing how Luffy learns Haki beyond just 'rawr me angry RED HAWK!' because the beginning of the special actually does show a bit of Rayleigh's training; putting blindfolds on Luffy to have him learn Observation Haki. I'm not saying that every fight in this special has to have Luffy learn how to use an aspect of Haki, which would feel unrealistically convenient, but I really did expect Luffy to utilize some of the earlier training to give us the glimpse of how he would use Haki post-timeskip.
Oh, and there's also the obvious 'hey, let's toss in a bunch of popular characters as fanservice'. Hancock is the one that has the biggest role, essentially acting as a deuteragonist with Luffy; but Buggy's crew, Mihawk, Perona and Akainu also show up... but none of them actually interacted with anyone else, which is disappointing. Buggy's scene of slapping Luffy awake doesn't even get registered by Luffy at all, which I found pretty bizarre. Other than that, though, I actually did like Buggy's inclusion here the most, mostly in showing how he 'racked up' achievements as a Shichibukai by capitalizing on the beatdowns made by Luffy and Hancock throughout the story. Otherwise it's actually kind of just Luffy and Hancock taking out every single one of the goons. And... well, some of the action scenes are pretty cool, at least? Even if Hancock fighting Nightin has some of the most eye-rolling 'the anime department really wants to appeal to the teenage boy demographic' shots ever.
Action-scene wise... Byrnndi is a user of the Moa Moa no Mi (More More Fruit) that allows him to expand either the size or speed of things, but ultimately gets reduced to just Haki-based punchy-punches in the climax. The other goons include Sebastian (a dapper Fishman in a suit who gives us a brief but very entertaining melee fight with Luffy and Hancock), Nightin (the fanservice one, leading to one of the more eye-rolling fights that honestly feels more like a montage of Hancock's character quirks and attacks we've seen before) and Dr. Eggman Gairam (who uses the Kyubu Kyubu no Mi/Cube Cube Fruit for the requisite CGI scenes).
Still, ultimately, other than some flubs aside, I actually did think that this is a pretty fun standalone adventure. It's just kind of a shame that the cast is kind of limited and I think they could've done a lot more with Brynndi World's actually interesting character, but at least it's got some pretty animation.
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