One Piece: Episode of Sorajima

Alright, I'm going to give a general overview and highlight all the stuff this special did good/bad:
- First, animation is pretty solid, but you can see they really did not want to waste their fighting animators (Good sign for Luffy VS Katakuri) because there's barely any fighting in it. The only fights they even adapted somewhat fully were:
- Luffy's Group VS Satori
- Ganfall/Wiper VS Shura
- Luffy VS Enel
The rest were just either images in a montage or the very end of the fights, like:
- Luffy VS Wiper
- Enel VS Kamakiri
- Chopper VS Gedatsu
- Zoro VS Ohm (Though this got a bit of the beginning for ... context)
So If you wanted to watch this 1 Hour 45 minute special for the fights I recommend just waiting for Youtube clips.
- Only the key elements of Jaya (Mainly the exposition) are added to I think the first 20 minutes or so, so we really only get to meet Cricket, the Saruyama Brothers barely even speak. So no, Mock ---Town, No BB (In Jaya at least), no Bounties, no South Bird, just ship falls, meet Cricket, learn about Sky Island/Knock Up Stream, and ride the current into the Sky.
- The crew is barely in the White Sea for long, and they changed it to Enel sensing them with Mantra instead of the the gate with Amazon. Because of this, we meet Ganfall relaxing on a Beach while the Waver they found in the shipwreck is just one Conis rides.
- The almighty Pagaya (Conis' Father) does not appear at all, so he doesn't die, so, I guess that's a plus?
- The Monster Trio still fight the sky fish, just the fish were chasing Conis not the Merry.
- Instead of the Trials, Enel sends Satori to fight the "invaders" on the beach, where Chopper and Suu are kidnapped by a lobster with the merry and become the sacrifice.
- Because of this, Zoro and Robin with Conis have to take a random Dial Boat (Explained by having Luffy send Zoro to protect them) while Nami takes the Waver Conis left. This is weird because Usopp just stays with Luffy and Sanji and does nothing, without the reasoning of being stuck in the forest like the original.
- Also, Ganfall never gives out a whistle, so instead of the iconic whistle scene with Chopper, Ganfall just hears our reindeer friend yell very loudly in pain.
- Instead of having the Noland Flashback in one go like the original, they split up about three times. -Also, they did NOT reanimate the Noland Flashback, they just cleaned up the original and made it fit to the new aspect ratio, so a majority of this special is stock footage from 2 episodes.
- Shandians are just there really, they only one of importance here is Wiper. Aisa is barely in this and doesn't even venture to Upper Yard since Conis is already there.
- Because of the changes, so many inconsistencies.
- Enel VS the Five Survivors is trimmed, but the important bits are there I guess.
- Enel Face is on point.
- The biggest crime of this special, No Usopp Spell.
- Sanji get's his sacrifice scene reanimated, looks pretty good.
- Though fast, the ascension of Giant Jack is good, it's nice to have that and Luffy's fireworks and golden rifle in one big scene.
- Special ends with Luffy's final blow on Enel, Cricket sees the shadow, Ganfall and the Shandian Chief say the war is over, and Luffy and Nami sitting on the cloud after Enel's defeat. I mean, you didn't even include the giant party or even the Merry falling from the sky, like come on?
- They added Ace VS BB to the end credits for some reason, looks good, just randomly there.
- They threw in the animation from Namie Amuro's tour for when she sang Hope as well in the credits, which is pretty nice.
- Soundtrack was nice, filled with the classics, but there might have been one new one for Luffy's fight with Enel.
Overall, I wouldn't say the special is bad persay, there's is just no substance whatsoever. I mean, if you were going to adapt Skypiea as a Special this isn't the worst thing they could have done, but it's not the best either. Like Episode of East Blue, this is not a substitute for the original Arc in the Anime and is more like a way to experience key moments with the modern animation. There is only one positive from this special, from the lack of fights and the heavy use of stock footage I can tell that Toei is not going to shit on the Luffy VS Katakuri fight since it seems pretty obvious they're saving their best animators for that and needed to cobble together something for the yearly requirement of an OP Special.
Final rating: Just go rewatch the Skypiea Arc because I know some of you skipped it, trust me, the Skypiea Saga is good and this special doesn't really do it justice.

**minor spoilers ahead**
I've been an advent fan of One Piece up to the end of Dressrosa, where I decided to take a break. Hearing a new recap movie on the horizon got me skeptical as usual. Recap movies don't always work out well. And I was right.

But this movie actually surprised me somewhat. Watching some of the scenes, I couldn't help get this craving to rewatch One Piece. the scenes they did include were phenomenal. The animation was well done, and the music stayed true to the old One Piece. I felt like a kid a again every now and then.

But the rest of the ... time, I was just confused. It really felt like the story was exponentially shorter than I can recall. They just removed so many of the iconic moments that made this arc so great. I mean, barely any of the crew had any growth, or proper fights.

So they got the wonder. But none of the suspense was there. This movie just reminded me of a time way back, when the Straw Hats weren't as unstoppable as they'd one day be. I mean pre-haki, where they were basically just fodder for even what we today consider mid-tier. This movie made it felt like Skypeia was a literal breeze to them. Take the ship, go to the cloud, beat a god and sail along merrily. Sure, that's basically what happened in the series , but it wasn't nearly as easy then.

In short, this reminded me of the adventures I so dearly miss years ago, but just left me craving for more then a simple drop of the ocean.

Overall, I give it a 6.

Includes spoiler, but idk why you would be watching this movie without watching the original first

Toei does a bang up job on ruining the source material, somehow in 2018 they managed to make the animation worse than it did 10+ years ago, the major fights within the arc ,including chopper, zoro, and luffy getting literally 1 still image of them defeating there opponents, or the animation was awful. the final attack that finished the arc 10+ years ago(Luffy punching Eneru into the bell) had so much weight and impact, but this movie made it look very choppy and had way less frames of animation.