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!
I'm fairly new to One Piece as well although I've watched anime for about 20 years. I generally avoid super long things because DBZ just made me feel anything that big had to have tons of filler, plus it's just a heck of a commitment. One of the guys at my work has read it and watched it all more than once and he says it's coming to an end in the near future, and he said as much of an anime fan as you are, you aren't curious to know what the One Piece is?
I looked at it, and the art didn't look great, and what bits I saw on Toonami just looked ridiculous and childish. I kept putting it off and putting it off. But I found a colored version of the manga and started reading from the beginning. It takes a good minute to get up to speed, but the characters are fun and you care about them, the world building is good. The battles have weight to them. It's really been a ton of fun. I'm excited to finish out this epic journey now, and I totally get why this is a classic.
Like Bleach
Lol exactly, another I never started for the same reason.