TL;DR at bottom.
Yesterday I was at Best Buy and saw the Blu-ray on a shelf. I decided to buy it on a whim, as I'd heard of it before and remember it getting good reviews. I'm no stranger to anime, I've seen Lucky Star, KonoSuba, and two of the three My Hero Academia movies. In particular, I enjoyed the MHA movies because of their World of Ham tendencies, and everything there is so over-the-top. So I thought if this film is anything like MHA, I'm gonna end up loving this.
I watched it blind, with little knowledge of the One Piece franchise. All I know is that they're pirates and they ate some fruit that gave them powers (or something like that). Anyway, it had the same over-the-topness as MHA, so that I enjoyed. But I was really surprised at how emotional it was, especially with Uta's motivations and backstory. No spoilers, but there were some themes involving death and the afterlife. I almost cried at the ending, too.
Overall, great animation, great music, and unique story. I might actually watch the series lol. I heard it was the highest-grossing film in Japan in 2022, and I think that title is well-deserved.
Shame on me for not seeing this in theaters when I had the chance!
TL;DR: As a newcomer to One Piece, I enjoyed this film because of its heart, animation style, music, and similarities to MHA.
All spoilers must be tagged!
Yes, Vivi was great too. I like that after they win, there's still a good bit left of each arc where they take time to wrap things up and push the story forward. The boss fights are fun for sure, but the world building and the character development goes beyond whatever I would have ever expected for a story about a guy with rubber powers. The story feels real, even though everything is totally nuts.
Noland's story has probably been my favorite part so far. That everyone believed in their loved ones for so long despite all the bad things that happened, even with the big snake, I felt it was very powerful.
But more I keep remembering other moments like the guy that kept waiting for water in Alabasta and such. There's just so much good stuff in there!