I have not heard of the manga One Piece until I watched a movie adaptation of the manga. Naturally, I love anything that is Japanese. When I first saw the gigantic promotional poster displayed at one of our beloved cinemas, I said to our buddy TK, “Let’s watch this!” To that he replied, “On!”
Apparently, One Piece is a very popular manga series in Japan, for a very long time. In this particular movie One Piece Film: Z, there are pirates the supposedly protagonists (I think). There are the marines who hunt down the pirates. And there is Commander Z who was a marine, went rogue, and now rages war against the pirates as well as the marines that get into his way. Each pirate, meanwhile, seems to possess at least one unique power (think X-Men). As you can imagine, there are tons of combat scenes between the characters. More or less like a video game.
Unlike other more artistic Japanese animations Cynthia and I have seen, One Piece Film: Z does not require too much thinking. Just sit back and enjoy the humor and the action. I am not entirely convinced that the English subtitles convey the original essence well. I wish there were Chinese subtitles as well. Usually, for Japanese animation, Chinese subtitles work better than the English ones.
One Piece Film: Z is not a story exploring the abstractness of nature or the emotional vulnerability of character. It is a film with a decent amount of humor and action that entertains.