ONE PIECE: STAMPEDE

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

The ONE PIECE manga series, the TV show, and (I assume) all the movies, even those I haven't seen, are first and foremost big noisy shonen spectacles. They possess mythicity only when the creators put all the gob-smacking action in some sort of context-- the cosmological innovations of the pirate-world's biological sphere, the sociological conflicts of the lawless and the law-abiding.

Of the five movies I've reviewed here, the aptly named STAMPEDE just thunders past any epistemological context, and fairly runs over the viewer with action, action, action. Probably insiders who know the OP universe inside-out will have no objections. But even though I'm reasonably well grounded in the OP cosmos-- having read 78 tankobon collections of this wack-a-doodle manga-- I found that so much concentration on action left me enervated.

The setup is that the Straw Hats attend the planet's first "Pirate Fest," on a remote island supposedly shielded from the World Navy. Though a lot of the other pirates seem to have been designed (poorly) for this cartoon movie, a fair number of characters from earlier manga-storylines pop up here.  Some are rogues who challenged Luffy and company in the past, like Buggy the Clown and Crocodile, while others are loosely affiliated with the law, like Smoker and Boa Hancock. But none of them get any introductions, so you'd better bring your own scorecard.

The festival is quickly broken up by the Navy, when someone finks to them, and by the Menace of the Day: a colossus named Douglas Bullet. He may deserve the distinction of ONE PIECE's worst villain, being just another sorehead with a grudge who tapped into some ultimate power, which nevertheless can be surpassed by the incredible tenacity of Monkey D. Luffy.

Aside from the mostly forgettable crossovers, STAMPEDE has one other small distinction. The organizing premise of ONE PIECE is that prior to the start of the Grand Pirate Era, a superb pirate left behind a hidden treasure, "One Piece," before he was executed. However, though the allure of the treasure supposedly spurs the multifarious pirates to seek it out, One Piece is never the actual subject of a plot in the 78 volumes I've read. STAMPEDE does depart from that tendency in that the prize of Pirate Fest is a device that can guide one to the desired goal. But since such a contingency could interfere with the continuity of the still-ongoing manga series, the device is naturally disposed of.      

     

ONE PIECE: GOLD (2016)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

A Marxist critic would probably view GOLD as a commentary on the corrosive power of the cash nexus upon human beings. I doubt that the writer had anything ideological in mind when he invented the villain Gild Tesoro (roughly, "golden treasure"), but one could certainly argue that he's one of many evildoers who seeks to hold a godlike control over his subjects, and even explicitly calls himself a god three or four times.

 Gild Tesoro manages Gran Tesoro, a mammoth ship that hosts its own Vegas-like community, entirely organized around the activities of his casino. The Straw Hat Pirates initially view the city-at-sea as a beguiling place of fun and adventure, and they even show off their powers by kicking the asses of some sore-loser pirates who try to rob the casino. Tesoro's lovely henchwoman Baccarat then invites the Straw Hats to enjoy the gambling activities and extends to them a munificent line of credit. However, Baccarat also possesses "luck-luck" powers, and she messes with Luffy's luck to cause the Straw Hats to lose all their credits, putting them in debt to Gran Tesoro.

Tesoro himself is the epitome of the "gladhander" villain: the type who pretends to offer everyone a good time. In truth one of the evildoer's showy stunts is to shower newcomers with gold dust-- dust with which he can then control them, thanks to his "gold-gold power." Everyone, except perhaps Tesoro's henchmen and casino guards, become Tesoro's slaves as soon as they enter the city, and that includes the hero-pirates. To provide his customers with "bread and circuses," he contrives a game to challenge the Hats to absolve their debts before Tesoro executes Zoro. 

 The Straw Hats get some timely assistance from a more landbound type of pirate: professional thief Carina. She's also an old acquaintance of Nami, who has her own larcenous past, and the joined allies try to heist the vast treasures of Gran Tesoro in order to ransom Zoro. Happily, the script doesn't allow the heroes to waste time in a reprise of "Ocean's Eleven," but instead finds a clever way to counteract Tesoro's gold-controlling power. In the big splashy climax, Luffy squares off against Tesoro, Zoro against a big goon, and Baccarat is taken down by three of the generally weaker members of the crew: Usopp, Chopper and Brooke. There's a belated flashback to Tesoro's early life, showing how he became attached to the idea of gaining gold and owning people, but it doesn't make him any more sympathetic, in contrast to Zephyr from the Z movie.

Curiously, though, all of the online sources credit the script to one Tsutomu Kuroiwa, the credits for GOLD assert that the film was based on an original story by series-creator Eichiro Oda. In addition, the brief appearance of a character called Spandam, a villain from an unrelated manga-arc, makes GOLD an example of a villain-crossover.          

   

ONE PIECE: HEART OF GOLD (2016)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

HEART OF GOLD, though a TV special, looks as good in terms of design and animation quality as any of the movies. In fact, HEART directly leads into the next OP movie, GOLD.

I don't know how often the regular series used the "treasure-hunt" theme, but that's the theme at the heart of HEART. In this case, Acier, a brilliant scientist living on an island with the patently obvious name of "Alchemi," invents a substance called "Pure Gold," more priceless than any other treasure in the world. However, a giant fish named Bonbonri swallowed the island, along with both Acier and his grade-schooler daughter Olga. The two get separated and then live within the stomach of Bonbonri for the next 200 years, and they don't age because the Pure Gold also bestows agelessness upon those exposed to it. However, at some point Olga is accidentally vomited out of the giant fish's belly, along with a tame beastie, a lizard able to skim the surface of the ocean. Olga and her riding-lizard are taken into the custody of Marines, but she has to flee when the Marine ship is assaulted by a seeker of the Pure Gold, Mad Treasure. Her flight leads her into the hands of the Straw Hat Pirates, who for once would like to gain the treasure of the Pure Gold as well as helping the helpless.

The exploration of the various environments in Bonbori's belly is amusing, and the action is kept at the usual high levels. Mad Treasure is a pleasing "bully-boy" type of foe, endowed with a colorful Devil Fruit power: the ability to extend endlessly-stretchable chains from his body, and he's aided by two other henchmen, one of whom is a lady who practices what might be called "drunk-archer-fu."

If HEART has a downside, it's Olga. She's a type often seen in sentimental anime: a kid who acts in a bratty manner to cover up her insecurities. Naturally, the good-hearted pirates take her under their wing, and she learns the value of comradeship, as well as reconciling with her father, whom she hated for having brought chaos into their lives. Still, I admired one affecting image at the climax. After all of the good guys have defeated Mad Treasure and escaped the stomach of the big beast, it consumes the Pure Gold and somehow transforms the metal into a light hanging from its brow, like that of the real-world angler-fish. HEART is another decent take on the ONE PIECE formula; no more, no less.            

THE SKULL (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Many years ago, I read Robert Bloch's short story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade," in which a collector of rare objects gets hold of said skeletal remnant. It was a good, rousing story, even though I recognized that its premise-- that the skull was haunted by the Marquis' evil spirit, due to his having been a demon-worshipping sorcerer-- was nonsense. The prose story worked because so much of it took place within the head of the protagonist, slowly becoming aware of his curio's threat. 

There are many good short stories that can be fruitfully expanded into feature-length movies, but "Skull" was not one of them. The studio Amicus had some luck with anthology movies, and I suspect that SKULL might have started out with someone tagging the Bloch story for anthology-adaptation. But someone else decided that it could be expanded into the feature-film and even hired Bloch to turn his tale into a screenplay, with input from Amicus producer Milton Subotsky.

But the story "Skull" has nothing to it beyond another iteration of "He meddled with forbidden things," and if you take away the intensity of the protagonist's growing fear of the growing menace, what you have is a talky story about art collectors putzing around looking for objets d'art, and sometimes dealing with skeevy, illicit dealers. Collector Maitland (Peter Cushing) has no particular reason for collecting occult objects; he does so just because the story says that he does so. The script might have worked had the Skull manipulated Maitland into becoming a pitiless murderer, anxious to protect his "precious." But in one of the few moments where Maitland commits murder-- killing an old friend (Christopher Lee) -- director Freddie Francis seems to underplay the scene, robbing it of any emotional intensity.

SKULL's only good scene appears halfway through the film. For some reason the Skull, apparently possessed of its late owner's malevolent intelligence, puts Maitland through a nightmare in which he's arrested by policemen and taken before a judge who forces the collector to play a game of Russian roulette. But this one scene is not enough to pull THE SKULL out of its slough of despond.

                             

THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS**

Roughly four years after the international success of Bava's BLACK SUNDAY, director/co-writer Antonio Margheriti made two 1964 horror films with Bsrbara Steele. Of the two, I've always thought the less heralded LONG HAIR OF DEATH the better offering. HAIR seems designed to be the obverse of SUNDAY, as in "sympathy for the witches," though in comparison to that film, Margheriti's is replete with a lot more twisty melodrama. 

At the end of the 15th century, tyrannical Euro-noble Count Humboldt orders the burning of an accused witch, Adele Karnstein. (The last name is certainly borrowed from LeFanu's central character in CARMILLA, though it doesn't carry any special symbolism.) Humboldt believes that Adele cast a spell that killed his brother Franz, though some years later the noble will learn that his own grown son Kurt killed his uncle to secure the family's power. I bring this up because some reviews claim that Humboldt is executing Adele out of lust for her body. The confusion may stem from the fact that on the night scheduled for Adele's execution, the accused's grown daughter Helen (Steele)-- also suspected of witchcraft-- sneaks into the count's castle to plead for her mother's life. Humboldt offers to delay the execution while the two of them make love, having told Kurt not to proceed until he's present. But Kurt is in a hurry to knock off his patsy and orders the witch killed. Adele dies amid threats of supernatural vengeance while her pre-teen daughter Elizabeth looks on. Helen learns that her sacrifice was for nothing, and she flees the castle, but the count doesn't want her spreading nasty rumors, so he tosses her off a waterfall. But as if inviting a serpent into his own bower, Humboldt also adopts Elizabeth as his own ward.     

Roughly a decade passes, during which Elizabeth grows into young womanhood (Halina Zalewska, who also plays Adele). She's first seen mourning at the grave of her sister Helen, and then vaguely menaced by Kurt, who wants to marry her despite what his father says about her "witchy" looks. Clearly any supernatural vengeance is going to be channeled through innocent-seeming Elizabeth, the same way Katya, descendant of evil Asa in SUNDAY. was the medium through which the evil witch worked her will. However, Elizabeth apparently doesn't have any conscious magic mojo, because Kurt uses his royal power to force her into marriage. So even though Kurt doesn't know that his father deflowered Helen, here we have the makings of a cross-generational incestual pattern. 

Time passes, and in line with Adele's final curse, plague strikes the land. Elizabeth prays to her sister's grave for counsel, which may lead to the next big event: lightning strikes the grave and restores life to Helen-- though when she appears at the Humboldt's door, she pretends to be an amnesiac stranger named Mary. The sight of the woman he killed strikes Humboldt dead, putting Kurt fully in charge.

At this point one might expect a pretty linear path in which Helen/Mary (who also in a sense Adele as well) takes vengrance on Kurt, who caused Adele's death and who violated Elizabeth, albeit under the auspices of formal marriage. However, the script takes an odd turn in that Elizabeth-- who may have brought Helen back in the first place-- has become possessive, if not actually enamored, of her husband, and doesn't like it when Kurt starts moving in on Mary. History seems to repeat itself as Kurt makes love to the Helen-Doppelganger even as his father made love to the original. Elizabeth, far from collaborating with her sister-semblance, considers stabbing Kurt from behind but can't pull it off.

Kurt plans to kill off his wife in order to possess Mary. who has continued to sleep with the evil ruler but doesn't seem in a big hurry to knock him off. Then she changes her mind and conspires to drug Elizabeth and entomb her alive. This section feels like the scripters trying to extend the run-time with a meandering salute to Poe's "Premature Burial," and it has the consequence of crippling the momentum of the plot. Kurt goes through the whole rigamarole of wife-murder, and the next day, his courtiers act like she's still walking around healthy as a horse, though Kurt never catches sight of her.

Then things get freakier still, as Kurt conveniently finds a document left behind by Franz, the uncle he murdered. The paper tells him that Franz left provisions to acknowledge that he left behind a bastard daughter by the witch Adele, who is none other than Elizabeth. Therefore not only did Kurt sleep with two women who were his half-sister and her sister, Humboldt slept with a woman in a sibling relationship to his niece. These revelations upset Kurt's sense of control as the court prepares for the ritual sacrifice of a human-sized effigy by fire-- but when the supernatural vengeance finally falls, guess who winds up inside the effigy?

There's a lot of good potential in the script, which was also co-written by Ernesto Gastaldi, one of the premiere giallo writers. The problem with HAIR-- whose title makes no sense whatever-- is that it takes too long to deliver the vengeance, and that, when it does come, it seems a routine turnabout at best, with none of the personal touches of a really great revenge-dish.

           

ONE PIECE: Z (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

This OP movie draws more than did STRONG WORLD upon the social matrix created in Eichiro Oda's manga. Said matrix isn't concerned very much with anything but the ongoing contest between the seemingly endless pirates preying upon shipping in this predominantly aqueous environment, and the dedicated forces of the Navy, who seek to end all piracy. Both groups include a number of powerful people, some of whom have "Devil Fruit" powers-- all to furnish the nine "Straw Hat Pirates," the world's only "heroic pirates," with as many colorful opponents as you could shake a shonen at.     

Z is named for its villain and does a good job of inserting a cool new character into OP's ongoing continuity. The fellow's real name is Zephyr, and I'll call him that from now on. to distinguish the character from the movie's title. As a young man, Zephyr joins the Navy and distinguishes himself as a brave comrade and a master planner. He grows old in the Navy's service and becomes a trainer for many younger marines. But tragedy strikes, when a pirate with Devil Fruit powers kills Zephyr's family. Zephyr does his best to knuckle down and continue the law-abiding ways of the Navy. But a second tragedy strikes, when pirates massacre a ship at sea. Only Zephyr and two other officers, Ain and Binz, survive. And so Zephyr becomes devoted to a new cause: to eradicate the evil of the pirates, even if it means eradicating the world that pirates, marines, and civilians hold in common. To this end he arms himself with an artificial arm made of a material that's like kryptonite to Devil Fruit users. However, he oddly encourages his two officers to take on such powers, so they can raid a naval base for a special weapon. 

Their attack backfires, and Zephyr is hurled out to sea by an explosion. The Straw Hats find him, and he receives medical care from the ship's doctor, Tony Chopper. (I'm still not going to hold forth on the qualities of all nine crewmembers, but Tony's a good example of the manga's wacky inventiveness, for he's an anthropomorphic reindeer who varies between a "little cute form" and a "big brawny form.") Zephyr's two henchmen show up right about the time Zephyr wakes up and realizes he's among pirates. Zephyr, Ain and Binz fight the Straw Hats, who are wanted for various crimes though they never actually commit acts of piracy. Zephyr and company escape, but Ain's Devil Fruit power ensures that the Straw Hats will have to follow, for she causes four members of the crew-- Robin, Nami, Brook and Chopper-- to de-age by twelve years each. This development furnishes most of the movie's humorous byplay, of course.

Z does feel weightier than many other OP excursions, and that's probably because the script consistently elucidates that all the seekers in Oda's world, even merciless pirates, are pursuing "dreams" of some sort, and that even evil dreams are part of existence-- while the justice Zephyr seeks would eliminate all dreams, and all life. Yet Zephyr remains a mighty, admirable figure in his destructive quest for justice, and he and the Straw Hats' leader Luffy have a particularly strong battle at the climax. This is much more Luffy's film than anyone's, though everyone in the heavy ensemble does get some time, and there are various appearances of other characters whom a viewer will be expected to know from the comics. I can't quite claim that Z's theme reaches into very deep sociological resonance, but it's not just another wildly violent/wacky shonen either.      

          

ONE PIECE: STRONG WORLD (2009)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

I'd never attempt to review the multitudinous productions of ONE PIECE, the still-running manga and anime, any more than I'd take a shot at DRAGONBALL, the 1980s shonen that PIECE essentially superseded in popularity. Both are just too much of a time-commitment. But I can take a shot at the various movies and TV specials.

Phenomenality in ONE PIECE is problematic at best. It's not science fiction, nor what I call magical-era fantasy. The portmanteau term "science fantasy" is best, for it represents a world where all sorts of bizarre creatures and environments exist according to whatever phenomena the author wants to introduce-- much like the Mars books of Burroughs. Some characters in the PIECE universe use technology of a sort, but it's tech-gear filtered through the lens of historical fiction-- in this case, that of the Golden Age of Piracy. To further complicate the universe, there's some entity that scatters so-called "Devil Fruits" throughout the endless islands, and each fruit can bestow a particular, unique power on whoever eats one. So PIECE crosses the worlds of Burroughsian science-fantasy with that of superhero comics.

STRONG WORLD takes place after the manga and anime had been running roughly a decade, and stars nine-- count 'em, nine-- do-gooder pirates who never seem to find time to do the sort of things real pirates do. Instead, they're forever stomping out evil tyrants, or avenging little girls who've had their dollies messed up by bandits, and that sort of thing. In this case the goody-good "Straw Hat Pirates," led by the courageous moron Monkey D. Luffy, pit themselves against Shiki the Golden Lion, a villain who plans to dominate the world with a horde of mutated animals. In addition, Shiki abducts the Straw Hats' lissome lady navigator Nami to serve in his crew and scatters the other eight heroes all over the place. Naturally, after various exploits, they converge and kick the evildoer's ass.

Manga-creator Eichiro Oda wrote the movie's original story, and those in the know can see him recycling a major trope for the character Nami. When she first appears, she's the virtual slave of a petty ruler, and the Straw Hats rescue her. So WORLD is a partial reprise of that trope, with Shiki defeating the Straw Hats at first, so that Nami has to agree to serve him to spare her friends. The various "caring moments" in the film never overwhelm the big noisy action-scenarios but do serve as a necessary counterpoint.

ONE PIECE, which has been a major success in the world manga market, arguably found a way to translate the appeal of "superhero powers" to a shonen science-fantasy universe, and more than any other manga, seems to have eclipsed the American superheroes with the younger generations. WORLD is a decent action-fantasy programmer, with the only debit being that Shiki is just your usual tinpot tyrant. But the animators did a bang-up job designing all of the Golden Lion's malicious monsters, who provide some of the film's best moments.