I just came home after watching the movie. It made me wish I had the chance to see Strong World or Z on the big screen.
! I loved the opening scene, each performer got an unique design and stood out yet still fited in. The song itself was a good introduction to Gran Tesoro and the general theme of the movie, although I didn't have much time to pay attention to the subs. The animation was too distracting in this scene.The Long Long pirates where hilarious during their short screen time, their captain's long, long name made me crack up. Other than that it wasn't my favorite introduction scene of the straw hats as many showed skills they didn't use in the movie. Nami's weather powers or Brook's sword fighting for example.
! Anyway, I'm surprised at how much I ended up liking Mr. Tanaka because I usually hate this kind of character. I disliked him when I saw the sketches but really enjoyed seeing him animated and voiced. Dice ended up being great, too. The audience started laughing every time Dice wanted more hits on his head and Robin's comment was the icing on the cake.
! Baccarat dissapointed me a little, at least Nami should have been able to realise how shady she was. Her armor in the finale was also pretty weird. Sure, they wouldn't let the chance pass to put her in a sexy fantasy outfit but why and where did she remove her dress. There was no room nearby in which she could have undressed herself, which means she stood in front of dozen of men in nothing but her undergarment. Talking about wandrobe changes, where did Zoro store his spare clothes? The speed in which he changed clothes (again in front of everyone else) was astonishing.
! The cameos were well-handled in most cases, I recognized Heraklsn and Absalom in the background. Lucci and Spandam made sense and helped showing the relationship between Tesoro and the world government. Sabo on the other hand was completely pointless and awful, they didn't even bother with a new costume and just recolored the old one. Raise being a revolutionary was irrelevant and felt extremely random and felt like an excuse to include characters that contributed nothing. It's kind of ironic that sabo ended up hindering Luffy since Lucci attacked Tesero before he interfered.
! The gags were funny and had a good timing. Brook and the owls were my favorite, albeit Brook only shined during gags. He and Chopper got the short end of the stick in this movie. Zoro and Sanji had the most beautiful attack animation, excluding Luffy. The animals were pretty cute and the turtle cars were interesting, although such vehicles look kinda out of place in One Piece in my opinion. The german name of these ended up being a clever pun on money, kudos to the translator.
! I liked Tesoro more than Shiki and can't decide wether I like Zephyr more or not. Zephyr is the better character in general, however I felt like Tesoro Gild was the better movie villian. His entertaiment theme is just perfect for a movie, he had me with the first line being "showtime". Unlike Zephyr, Tesoro's backstory was never told directly, so viewers who didn't look up extras like volume 777, might have a hard time figuring details out.This post ended up being longer than I intended.