Straw Hat Chase (2011)

So... I'm finally catching up with old One Piece movies! Well, they're new to me. I was just recently made aware of their existence and thus I had to see them, and this in the exciting wake of a potential 13th movie celebrating fifteen years of the series (if they'd made one each year these latest two years it'd have been the 15th too)! But anyway, here goes the first one of my short reviews for the two: the 11th movie.. Also, beware of major spoilers with no latter notice. Warning! Spoilers. Warning!

It all starts normally. Luffy running rampant in the library, pulling down books, running in on Nami during her morning bath...

...running over Zoro during his morning acrobatics, bringing mayhem with him wherever he goes! You really only get a glimpse of these peaceful morning moments in the movies btw. Well, what's going on?

This bird stole his hat. They're going after it.

They run into the navy. They run through an underground labyrinth. They run into a pack of sea kings. Luffy flies off after the bird and...

...lands smack in the middle of Navy HQ.

Soon the rest of the crew arrives, starting with Zoro, and together they tackle the Navy giants.

Aaand that's it! Luffy gets his hat back. The bird turns out to be a dog. An old pirate had a fork in his throat but is now OK and they sail off in the sunset. The End.

Here's the guesting main characters of this movie, apart from the you-know-who crew: Schneider & Buzz, an old pirate and his dog who ate a Devil's fruit and gained the ability to fly, like an Eagle! Soaring through the sky is never boring won't you try?

Though this is classed as the 11th One Piece movie, it feels like more of a special, mainly because it's only half an hour long. The movie is crammed full of action, pretty much non-stop from start to finish (and plenty of chases - truthful to the title), but the plot development is very basic. We're introduced to the old man and the dog, we jump to the Strawhats - where Luffy's looking for his hat, we figure out the bird has it, they chase it, they get it, the old man and the dog reunite and they blast away a navy base in the process.

The 3D took a while to get used to, but once you do it's pretty cool - especially for chases! Or for any scenes that involve a lot of motion. Not for all scenes however, or for the characters themselves - who oddly enough feel more genuine in their 2D forms. Not just in appearance, but in how they move, which I assume boils down to how anime characters don't actually look real, and when they're made dimensional (AKA more 'real') they break that illusion of animated reality a bit. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to, but I definitely prefer the tradition style of animation, even if this was an entertaining experiment! An extra dimensional adventure.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle