One Piece Film: Red

At this point, trying to keep up with One Piece is a daunting task. Eiichiro Oda's cartoony world spans over a thousand chapters in both manga and anime form with a similarly gigantic number of characters. Their latest film, One Piece Film: Red, is their fifteenth, made for the franchise's 25th anniversary. For those who came in late:

Just before his execution, Gold Roger, the King of the Pirates, announced that his treasure, the One Piece, and his title, were up for grabs. Our hero, Monkey D. Luffy, and many, many others, want what Roger left. Luffy and his wacky "Straw Hat" crew sail around looking for adventure and often fight corrupt noblemen, the navy, evil pirates and other bad folks.

The Straw Hats enjoy some downtime at the Island of Elegia, where the world's most popular singer, Uta, holds her first concert. Luffy immediately recognizes her as his childhood friend and outs her dad as being Captain Shanks, his pirate hero. The reunion turns sour when Uta announces her concert's going to last forever. That's because anyone who hears her sing is sent to dreamland. That includes around 70 percent of the planet. The Straw Hats and a few of their friends and rivals join forces to find a way out of there. That's the basic gist of it.

The film is directed by Goro Taniguchi, best known for the Code Geass series and this franchise's first anime incarnation, the short Defeat the Pirate Ganzack. Tsutomu Kuroiwa's screenplay gives the uninitiated enough backstory to understand its self-contained story. The numerous established characters in supporting or cameo roles barely impair that understanding. There's some stunning twists and turns as Uta's masterplan unfolds. One concerns some mushrooms and another concerns Tot Musica, an evil dream demon. You'll be on edge once you understand the ramifications. Its resolution is the only part its story felt stretched.

Uta makes for a memorable anti-villain. Her history with Luffy gives the film a great crux. We see them laugh and play and even engage in eating contests. Bring up pirates, and Shanks especially, and her good nature cracks. We gradually understand just how dangerous her plan is. But we still have some fun; her musical numbers are delightfully trippy music videos worthy of a Bond film. The film is available in both subbed and dubbed versions, though the latter still switches to the Japanese audio for Uta's songs (all sung by the enigmatic singer Ado). The language switch may strike some as odd, though let's focus on the positives. These numbers range from peppy to emotional to creepy; all are memorable.

How else does this film look and sound good? Uta's character design is as dazzling as her reality-bending powers. Her trapping people on music staffs like flies on flypaper is merely a sample. Tot Musica's full form and its screams make it a menacing final boss. Yasutaka Nakata's score perfectly punctuates whatever action Uta isn't part of. If this is your first exposure to One Piece, prepare yourself for an eclectic cast of characters consisting of ordinary-looking people, an afroed skeleton, a bulky cyborg, a polar bear and even a dead ringer for Cap'n Crunch. It's a weird world and they're part of why it's fun.

One Piece Film: Red gives a musical twist to the Straw Hats' high-seas hijinks. Its central new character is menacing, entertaining and sympathetic all at once. Her story is compelling whether you've experienced 100 or zero percent of the franchise. Either way, you'll get 115 minutes of wackiness, action, music and drama. It's a weird mix, but the franchise is too. See it and you might get the appeal.