One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 – DLC Pack 5 PS4 [DLC REVIEW]

Before the final reveal in december, i honestly hoped this would have been a One Piece “Film Villains “DLC packs, but nope, the “reveal” (the silhouette gave it away since we knew of the this second Season Pass existing in trailer announcement form) of Uta was simply to indicate this was gonna be a One Piece Film Red DLC characters pack.

Which makes sense, since Film Red was beyond successful at the box office, it was arguably the goddamn best One Piece film since Film Z, and it also big a vehicle for j-pop singer Ado helped it making it the 6th grossing anime (and japanese) film of ALL TIME so far, so yeah, you bet your ass the production committees and suits were gonna push it into related One Piece products.

Still, it’s a shame because i do think a One Piece film villains DLC characters pack would have also sold really well if it picked some fan favourites like Zephyr or Shiki, but alas, this is not the case. Maybe in Pirate Warriors 5, whenever will that materialize.

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[One Piece Film Retrospective] #15: One Piece Film Red (2022)

Yeah, bringing back the One Piece retrospective…. kinda, more like continuing it, with a full, detailed review of the last released One Piece movie, Film Red, that hit theathers in 2022, after the EXPRESSO review done at the time it released in theathers here.

For context, that year i was able to see the tie-in episodes of the series during the yearly Lucca Comics & Games convention in Italy, sadly i missed the early projection of the movie itself, but i did see the aforementioned episodes meant to tie-in to Film Red that detailed a young Rufy meeting a young Uta in Fusha Town when Shanks and his crew set anchor there.

Which are cute but as you would expect they’re not mandatory viewing in order to understand the plot of Film Red, it’s a big popular franchise, they’re not gonna risk alienating people who don’t watch or follow the TV series but do follow the manga, for example.

Who’s Uta, you might ask? But she’s the new character and protagonist of Film Red, a world famous livestreamer and renowed singer that is finally having a concert on the island of Elegia, ammassing a huge amounts of fans coming from all walks of life, be it Goverment soldiers, Navy officers or pirate ships, and of course the Straw Hats come too, as Luffy arrives there and reveals he and Uta were childhood friends.

And then he drops the bombshell that Uta is Shanks’ daughter.

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[EXPRESSO] One Piece Film Red (2022) | Idol Live Stream

Managed to catch a subbed preview screening in cinemas here, and actually catched another esclusive screening for the tie-in anime episodes meant to complement One Piece Film Red.

Not that you really need to see those going into the new One Piece movie, you don’t.

As the marketing and title (logo included) strongly implied, it’s a movie that involves series fan favourite Shanks, indirectly, as it’s about the pirate crew reaching a mysterious island where the first live event of the world’s most popular singer, Uta, will take place.

The Straw Hats come to party, Luffy it’s revealed not only being a childhood friend of Uta, but girl herself being the daughter of Shanks, one of the Four Emperors Of The Sea, which attracts other pirates – as well as the Marines – on the island of music, Elegia.

And despite the obvious fact this is also a vehicle for rising j-pop singer Ado, whom provides all the soundtracks (giving Kohei Tanaka some well deserved rest)… it’s also a surpringly good script, with Uta being a very good original character, some intriguing surprises that also justify in terms of narrative the many musical pieces, which are also very intriguing visually and incredibly well animated, while the songs themselves are quite catchy.

Definitely a more original and interesting script than the all-stars extravaganza of 2019’s Stampede (while it’s also the first film appearance for many relatively newer characters like Katakuri), and a fitting return for Goro Taniguchi (Code Geass, Gun X Sword, Planetes) to the series, decades after his One Piece Ganzack’s OVA by Production IG.

Sure, it leverages Shanks’ legacy/importance in the series to rope in fans, but it does not overrely on nostalgia alone, at all, making Film Red a surprisingly strong (and varied) entry in One Piece’s filmography.

This Summer: One Piece Films Retrospective

As you might now, the new One Piece film, titled One Piece Film: Red, was announced in November 2012 set for a summer 2022 release. Which isn’t really “new” as from One Piece Film Gold in 2016 Toei makes a new movie every 3 years, but i’m finally ready to review all One Piece films… again.

As in – like i previosly told – i previously reviewed them to accompany the release of One Piece Stampede back in 2019 on the original italian version of the blog, so in the previous years i’ve reviewed the One Piece OVAs and the TV Specials, as i wanted to make some time pass, as i’m rewatching them all and writing the reviews from scratch, instead of translating, reworking, polishing the old ones.

Who knows, in time i might have changed my opinions on some…. and i mean “some”, there’s one in particular than i might have even harsher words for, but we’ll see.

One Piece TV SP 6: Episode Of Luffy – Adventure On Hand Island (2012) [REVIEW]

Director: Hiroyuki Morita, Mitsuru Hongo

Writer: Yasuyuki Tsutumi

Runtime: 102 Minutes

Worry not, this time we don’t have another recap special.. kinda.

It’s not totally uncommon, as in 2008 they already did a similar thing with the 9^th One Piece movie about retelling the Drum Island Arc… while making it happen after Water 7, and adding some new characters that change the story a bit. We’ll get to talk in more detail about that… next year.

Well, this special doesn’t actually go that far, as it is an originaly story, but also has extensive flashback sequences retelling the very beginning of the series, with Luffy meeting Shanks for the first time to his first encounter with Coby. The story sees Luffy befriend a wax sculptor called Diego and helping him save his son Regis, imprisoned by the corrupt Marine Commodore Bilic.

This after witnessing a “Straw Hat fashion show” held by Usop, meant to present all the crew members… for reasons, most likely padding out the special by 6 minutes, as if you don’t know anything about these characters while deciding to watch a TV special about their series.

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