English Dub Review: One Piece Film: Gold

Find out what we thought of Funimation’s first theaterical release of 2017.

Some Spoilers Below

One of the interesting trends of the last almost three years or so is the growth of English dub anime as both an industry and in its popularity and rightfully so. Companies like Funimation, Amazon, Netflix, and others have definitely noted that people paying $70, $80, and $90 for home releases that you have to read has little value when going up say a subscription service that has English dub adaptations for only a few dollars a month depending on which streaming service you prefer. As a result, the market has been flooded with a bunch of new content that has also helped reinvigorate an industry that was much maligned and an assist in bringing to light classic franchises like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and more to those who are just now getting into some of the content available.

Nobody knows this better than Funimation who has invested way more in English dub adaptations of anime than anyone after seeing the success of Space Dandy on Adult Swim’s Toonami way back when and realizing that there is definitely a market for first-run English speaking content here in the states. That same status quo is not just becoming viable for streaming services, but for feature films as well as each passing year sees Funimation increase its slate of films usually tied to the more established franchises, though isn’t afraid to try some new franchises as well.

Enter, One Piece Film: Gold, the latest chapter in the One Piece saga that has spanned numerous TV series and movies. But, for those worrying that Toei Animation’s latest effort is any indication that this franchise is slowing down, I’m here to tell you that it’s as good now as it has ever been.

The premise revolves around our fabled straw hats stopping by a huge ship made out of gold that’s so big that it’s been designated a neutral country. Lead by Gild Tesaro, the city doesn’t seem so bad until we learn that Gild is an old-fashioned scam artist that has a bunch of fun in performing “ruses” on any visitors simply for entertainment purposes. This comes to a head when Luffy and his crew lose big in a game of dice and have only a couple of days to pay back Gild in exchange for the life of Zoro who is captured and put up for public execution. Because of this, the team has to team up with some of the cities disgruntled residents, prisoners, and even old foes to try and defeat Gild.

While clocking in at two hours, the film, for the most part, moves at a brisk pace which I think suits this franchise best. By far and large, One Piece is one of the guiltiest parties in using filler episodes over the course of TV-arcs, so when we have a film where you really can’t get away with that, I think it makes for a better-paced story. That said, the film isn’t without its drips of drab, as random ancillary characters show up and provide little more than cameo fair that leads us to some small story lines that really don’t go anywhere. I also think we could’ve done a bit less with the flashback scenes that I think we were inundated with near the end.

Fortunately, the meat and potatoes (or in Luffy’s case, the meat and the meat) of the film is still very good. The golden ship of Gran Tesoro is an animation wonder in its presentation and the fight scenes are effing intense right until the end. Speaking of the end? If you’re not tied up in pretzel twists as a result of how the ending comes to a head, then you may not be human, because it’s the best part of the film. Obviously, I’m not going to give anything away, but there’s a LOT of payoff at the end that any One Piece fan will appreciate and is quite enthralling on the big screen.