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.