One Piece Film: Red
Year: 2022
Rating: PG-13
Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours
One challenge of making movies for such a long-running anime series like One Piece is that there are so many characters and aspects of the canon that it’s hard to make a film that includes fan-favorite characters in a way that makes sense with the overall story. With Eiichiro Oda on board for One Piece Film: Red (2022), we finally have a movie that could easily be part of the canon for the series while also having stakes high enough to warrant the characters who appear to save the world.
While I definitely enjoy One Piece movies that string together powerful moves from the best characters, like Stampede (2019) did, most of the time the villains for these movies are so separated from the series as to be completely inconsequential. For Red, including Shanks’ family was a smart way to make the story relevant to the wider One Piece world without having to ret-con much. This also allowed a variety of characters to make appearances, some of which haven’t been seen in the series since their arc ended years ago.
Perhaps the best part about Red is how the threat of the villain achieving their goal is significant enough to put the entire world in danger. We are finally at the part in the mainline series where world-ending events are likely to be common, so stepping this level of significance up for a movie makes sense here. It also allowed powerful characters to make appearances in this movie because the threat was so great—thus making their inclusion something that made sense. Overall, fans of One Piece will probably enjoy this film, and those who aren’t might enjoy the catchy songs included in it.
A One Piece film with significant characters and world-ending stakes, I give One Piece Film: Red 4.5 stars out of 5.
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