Movie Review: One Piece Stampede

One Piece: Stampede [2019]

I could've sworn I did a review of this way back in 2019, but I guess I didn't!

And so... Stampede, huh? It was released way back before the Oden flashback hit the manga, which felt like forever ago -- the one big canon revelation told to us in this movie, after all, was the whole thing about Laugh Tale's proper English spelling. But that's hardly the appeal of this movie anymore, almost three (holy shit) years after the fact, yeah?

No, the appeal of this movie is that Oda even signed on the concept of this movie at all, which was 'get every single character that the fans care about and toss them into a massive rumble'. Most of these times with these movies, you get one villain and maybe a cameo or two from other popular characters -- like Sabo and Lucci's non-battle in Film: Gold, or the Admirals having secondary roles in Film: Z. Not so for this one. With the idea being a Pirate Festival set up by the lunatic Buona Festa, it's just an excuse to gather almost every single imporant character at the time of publishing the manga (other than the Yonko crews) and have them all try and fight for the secret treasure, treasure belonging to Gol D. Roger himself. 

And we have our typical scenes of the Straw Hats having fun in a festival island that has become obligatory in these movies -- except the one in Stampede is so much more exciting to look out for cameos from characters in the background -- from Vander Decken to Hatchan to Wanze to Pandaman. The main event is having the pirates -- well, technically just the ten Supernova crews -- fight on their way to gain Roger's treasure on top of a giant bubble island. 

But what initially seems to be fun and games turns out to be an excuse for Douglas Bullet, the "Demon Heir" that once sailed with Gol D. Roger, to wreak havoc. We even get a bit of a cold open where Blackbeard and his crew refuses to let Bullet out of Impel Down because he's "too crazy" even for Blackbeard's tastes. 

Douglas Bullet just... he just really wants to prove that he's the strongest character ever. He's got a pretty cool design, a pretty cool voice, and amazing action scenes, but... that's it. Like Gild Tesoro before him, Douglas Bullet's backstory is only told on text-only forms in a pamphlet or a magazine text story given out to audiences before the movie, and the very short montage and flashback we got in the movie proper doesn't really inform his actual motivations. It's really very unfortunate -- Douglas Bullet's basically a child born from a war-torn country and eventually saw Roger as the only person he'll submit to because of the difference in strength, and ultimately he ends up seeing strength as the ultimate thing to aspire for. All we got out of this, though, are some out-of-context rantings by Bullet mid-battle, and a very brief montage of scenes. 

But you know what? Up until around the midway point of the movie, that... that kinda works. Sure, we do have a bunch of fanservice scenes as we get to see wacky characters like Foxy and Buggy and Wapol do their nonsense, we get short speaking roles from Bartolomeo and Cavendish (easily two of the most popular members of the Grand Fleet) and we get some pirate fun... until the Law sub-plot kicks in. Law has been injured fighting Bullet and ends up recruiting Robin, Sanji, Brook and Chopper to go with him and investigate the mysterious inner workings of the organizers of this event. There's this very cool three-way conflict between the Law squad against Smoker and Crocodile, who are all investigating Buona Festa, and we do get very cool and brief scenes of Smoker fighting Sanji and Robin meeting Crocodile and all that. That's all Stampede is about, isn't it? Just seeing characters clash with each other with no real consequence to the plot at large. 

Meanwhile, everyone else continues with the race, and we get an absolutely fun little rumble as all the Supernovas just shoot attacks at each other. Eventually, though, everyone comes face-to-face with Bullet. I absolutely love that the movie takes full usage of Buggy's role as a former member of the Roger Pirates himself. He doesn't actually trade dialogue with Bullet, but he explains to Mr. 3 and the rest of his crew that Bullet was a lunatic that would only ever listen to Roger, hyping Bullet up as this unstoppable monster even before that epic and now-iconic Conqueror's Haki scene occurs.

And hey, holy shit, just like something out of Dragon Ball, how cool was Bullet and Luffy's Conqueror Haki clash ended up being? The red and blue spheres just slamming into each other, while we zoom in on Bullet's grinning face and Luffy's serious one? And the sheer pressure that the animators beautifully draw on all the other surrounding characters? Damn, yo. 

Oh, and I guess this is a nice time to bring out the best part of the movie -- Usopp. Film: Gold was Nami's movie and Cursed Sword was Zoro's movie, but this is undoubtedly Usopp's movie, which is surprising except it really shouldn't be. Usopp is a cool character, and his coolness is exactly the reason why Bullet hates him so much. The movie highlights it pretty well, with Bullet tossing the broken Usopp to the ground and mocking Luffy for keeping such a weakling around. Get it? Cause Usopp is the weakest member of the Straw Hats, while Bullet is all about strength and power?

And then we have the huge brawl. The huge, huge brawl that I have rewatched maybe twenty times. We get all the Worst Generation fighting against Bullet, and the action is just so fast. From characters like Hawkins and Capone engaging their respective super modes, to Bullet speed-blitzing characters and bashing Kid and Killer's heads onto each other, to seeing Bullet just tank everything from Big Father cannonballs to Apoo's kaboom-boom music to tossing around Drake's dinosaur mode to just deflecting an Elephant Gun and Kid's giant metal arm against each other... this is one of the two super-smooth action scenes in this movie I can just watch over and over and over again. Bullet just absolutely overwhelms and knocks down every single combatant tossed against him.

And eventually this leads to the second super-smooth action scene, where Luffy goes Snakeman and... it's not as long or as elaborate as the beautiful chaos of Bullet fighting the Supernovas, but damn if it's impressive. BRRRRRAAAKKK MAMBA!!! KING COBRAAAAAAAA!

It's just the halfway point of the movie so of course Bullet overwhelms Luffy, and... and I think this is where the movie becomes visually a bit less appealing because Bullet uses his Gasha Gasha no Mi -- the 'Clank Clank Fruit' -- and fuses with his war-submarine into a robot. The still-animated robot fight is still kinda cool as Bullet curb-stomps the Supernovas, and we get that cool scene of Usopp fighting against someone he cannot possibly defeat, as he shoots little seeds that just plink uselessly against Bullet's robotic form. Bullet, again, lays the smackdown on the weakling and gives his 'rah rah me stronk you weak' speech. 

Oh, yeah, while all of this is going on, Law, Robin, Sanji and the rest of the characters with them discover that Buena Festa has betrayed all the other pirates by summoning a Marine Buster Call. The Marines want to wipe out the pirates, Bullet wants to prove his strength by tanking a Buster Call and defeating a Marine fleet, while Festa just wants to see the world burn by leaking the Eternal Pose that leads to the One Piece and tossing it into the hands of all the pirates. 

Now the idea of Festa's character would be great if we're given more than just a single movie to explore him. But we move so quickly to get back to the actual canon characters fighting that poor Festa is such an afternote that feels even more underbaked than Bullet, and I wonder that with the limited time that the movie has, if it wouldn't be better to fuse Festa and Bullet into a single character instead. Oh well. 

Which leads to a fun, chaotic moment as Sentomaru, a bunch of Vice Admirals and an army of Pacifistas start shooting up the pirates. And then we get a very awesome scene of Zoro fighting against Fujitora, which is also brilliantly animated with the animations of Fujitora's gravity powers and the personifications of giant ki tigers attacking each other. Fujitoria ultimately summons a giant meteor, which Zoro ichidai sanzen daisen sekai's into half... but then motherfucking Mihawk unleashes a slash that atomizes the remnants of the meteor. It's just super-epic scenes that I bet drives any theater of One Piece fans wild. 

Also, yeah, Hancock and Mihawk and Perona and Coby and Sentomaru and Hina and all these other characters just keep showing one after the other and I'm just excited, you know?

And then the movie becomes a lot less interesting because Bullet activates his awakening, and... becomes a giant CGI junk monster. We did get a CGI giant form with Gild Tesoro last movie, and it's not like the CGI monster isn't bad looking in and of itself. It's just that it clashes with the otherwise beautifully-and-sleekly-animated characters, and it really doesn't do anything interesting but stand in the middle of the island and wave his hands around. He beats the Vice Admirals, then seals all the Marines and pirates in and this trigges Akainu to order a Buster Call. 

Which... is like... so last season, I guess? The idea of a cannonball bombardment isn't really any more impressive than, say, telling Fujitora to summon meteors or some shit, so it really doesn't feel like there's too much of a threat beyond Smoker, Tashigi and the good marines panicking about how their bosses are happy to wipe them out.

Meanwhile, in probably the best-acted and most dramatic scene in the movie, we get Usopp, barely injured and practically broken, dragging Luffy's unconscious body and Usopp has to give it his all to prevent a burning log from crushing Luffy. Sure, Brook and Chopper show up to rescue them, and it's such a well voice-acted scene as Usopp just begs Chopper to treat Luffy first, before tearfully apologizing for being so weak and being unable to contribute in the fight. I really do want something equivalent to this to happen in the canon of the manga, actually, to contrast the scene in Water Seven where Luffy and Usopp fought. 

As everyone goes off and evacuates, we also get Rob Lucci and Crocodile showing up all for their own agendas. Eventually the battle is left to several combatants -- Luffy, Hancock, Law, Smoker, Sabo and, of course, good ol' Buggy. After some arguments between the combatants, they all decide to work together to fight Bullet's giant CGI kaiju form, mostly because they all have some sort of loyalty or respect to Luffy. Other than Buggy, obviously, who just keeps getting dragged on into epic scenes by Law's Room. We get probably the coolest shit Boa Hancock has ever done ever, which is running up a giant metal kaiju and kicking it so hard with a Perfume Femur Magna that it the force explodes off the other end. We get Crocodile interfering with the reformation with his Sables, Sabo and Smoker combining their Logia powers to slam onto Bullet, Lucci interfering from the side, and the epic four-way (plus Buggy) assault as Law brings in Hancock, Sabo and Smoker to blow up Bullet's torso. This allows Luffy, who's been building up his attack to create a King King King Kong Gun to beat the shit out of Bullet. Oh, and as a payoff to the major Usopp story, the seeds he uselessly launched at Bullet before activates, and vines wrap up around Bullet's inner mecha and immobilizes him. 

And... again, some great scenes, but ultimately I really would've rather had our heroes fight Bullet as basically 'evil Superman' that's just very powerful instead of a giant CGI robot. 

The Eternal Pose to Laugh Tale drops in full view of everyone and Hancock tells Luffy what it is. Crocodile and Lucci both zoom in to try and steal it, but Zoro and Sanji blocks them and makes the crowd goes wild. And just like Sabaody, Luffy smashes the Log Pose, saying that it wouldn't make his journey any more fun, and also denying the world the 'stampede' that Festa wants. (Also, Sabo beats up Festa, and gives a one-liner about how Festa will never be able to turn Luffy into his ally because Festa is scum).

The movie ends with all the other pirate ships attacking the Buster Call fleet, and Sabo creating a gigantic wall of fire to block Kizaru's attack. We even get a completely pointless but still pretty fucking fanservice-y moment of Ann, a character with illusion powers, creating an image of Ace doing a Hiken next to Sabo. 

And... and that's Stampede. It's really kind of frustrating because there are so many great moments. Genuinely well-scripted and well-acted moments involving Usopp, and the just epic action scenes especially when Bullet was still just a dude and not a CGI monstrosity. But the shallowness of Bullet's character, the lack of threat that the Buster Call possesses, the underwhelming CGI monster form does end up making Stampede feel incomplete. There's just too many moving pieces, but here's the thing -- there's so many moving fanservice pieces. At that point I just kind of forget about the inconsistencies about the movies and just squee at Fujitora and Zoro clashing swords or Sanji blocking Rob Lucci or Sabo and Smoker doing a combined attack or Mihawk atomizing a meteor or everything involving the Supernova-vs-Bullet and Gear-Fourth-vs-Bullet scenes. 

It's a fanwank movie, and I think every franchise is allowed to have fun with it, yeah?

Random Notes:

• Even moreso than the other movies, Stampede is absolutely impossible to slot or massage into the canon of the manga. 
• In addition to a hell lot of cameos from many canon (and some anime-exclusive) characters in crowd scenes, we get bounty posters for every single movie-exclusive villainous pirate in Buena Festa's room. 
• Ann, the lady in green dress that's able to create illusions, ate the Bijo Bijo no Mi and hails from a One Piece live show. I think this marks the first time someone from the live shows is acknowledged by the anime. 
• Ann hangs out with a robot-handed MC called Donald Moderate, but he's even more unmemorable compared to Buena Festa. 
• They hid twenty Pandamen in this movie, because it's the 20th anniversary of the animel. 
• Between Douglas Bullet and Byrnn D. World and probably a couple others I'm forgetting, I guess the other escaped Impel Down prisoners are just very convenient ways to explain a movie-only antagonist. 
• It's just a shame that the movie team only ends up working with pre-Onigashima stuff, so Kid and Apoo in particular don't quite get to show all the cool things that they would show in that arc. 
• ...yes, Bullet's (mostly unseen) backstory is what we eventually got for the (somewhat-partly-unseen) backstory for Kaido. 
• I guess the only reason why Fujitora and especially Kizaru not doing jack-diddly-squat against Bullet is because Akainu tells them to stand back? Even if power-scaling isn't a major part of this movie, I'm going to assume that some gravity meteors or light-beam lasers are going to do a fair bit of good against Bullet's giant Transformer form.