QUICKIE -- One Piece Film: Red

One Piece Film: Red is the 15th One Piece movie, which was released on August 6, 2022. The film was first announced on November 21, 2021, in commemoration of Episode 1000's release. Eiichiro Oda served as a general producer and supervisor for the film.

Plot

** SPOILER WARNING **

The Straw Hat Pirates go to the island of Elegia to attend a concert by Uta, a world-famous singer. After Uta performs her first song, Luffy goes on stage to reunite with her, revealing that the two of them know each other because Uta is the daughter of "Red-Haired" Shanks. They met when Shanks was docked at Luffy's hometown 12 years ago, but one day he returned without her, claiming she had left to pursue a career as a singer. Some pirate crews then attempt to kidnap Uta, but she easily subdues them by conjuring whatever she wants through song. Afterwards, Uta tells Luffy that he should stop being a pirate, as she is going to make this concert last forever and create a world with only happiness and peace. When the Straw Hats resist the idea, Uta attacks and traps all of them except Luffy, who is rescued by Trafalgar Law and Bartolomeo. Meanwhile, the Five Elders ruling the World Government deem Uta's power a great threat to the world, and Marine Fleet Admiral Sakazuki orders a convoy of battleships led by Admirals Kizaru and Fujitora to go to Elegia and subdue her.

Luffy's group is pursued by Uta and the concertgoers, and they enter Elegia's castle where they meet Gordon, who is Uta's adoptive father and the former king of Elegia. Gordon reveals that he took in Uta after Elegia was destroyed, an incident attributed to Shanks and his crew, who by all accounts plundered the island for its treasure and abandoned Uta. He raised Uta to be a great musician and kept her sheltered from the outside world, but when she attained worldwide fame, she began to learn of the suffering inflicted on a great number of her fans by pirates. Uta then arrives and forces Luffy's group to escape, and Gordon pleads with her to not carry out her plan. However, Uta reveals she found an inscription of a song called "Tot Musica" that can unleash a great power, and immobilizes Gordon.

Luffy's group comes across Koby, Helmeppo, and Blueno who are operating undercover for the World Government. Koby reveals that Uta has the power of the Sing-Sing Fruit, which allows her to send people into a dream world known as the Sing-Sing World by singing to them. They and everyone else who watched the concert are trapped in this world, whose reality is completely controlled by Uta. The Sing-Sing World ceases to exist whenever Uta falls asleep; however, Uta has been consuming a drug called wake-shrooms that keeps her awake at all hours and drastically shortens her lifespan. If Uta were to die, everyone in the Sing-Sing World would be trapped there forever. In the real world, the Marine fleet arrives at Elegia to find the concertgoers all sleeping. They block their hearing to nullify Uta's singing, but Uta assumes control of the concertgoers to overwhelm the Marines and remove their hearing blockers. The Five Elders know that Uta has mere hours left to live and that if she dies, 70% of the world's population would be trapped in the Sing-Sing World.

The trapped Straw Hats manage to free themselves by singing the note they correspond to on the staff, and head to the castle to try to find a weakness in Uta's power. In the library, Robin discovers that there is a way to make the worlds converge by summoning Tot Musica, a demonic entity whose existence spans both worlds. If Tot Musica is attacked simultaneously in both worlds, those in the Sing-Sing World will return to reality. Uta resumes her concert in the Sing-Sing World, but her audience begins to resist the idea of living in her world forever. Growing more and more unstable, Uta transforms all of them into inanimate objects. Luffy then confronts Uta, and is told by Gordon that he has been joined by Shanks and the Red-Haired Pirates in the real world.

Shanks tries to help Uta, but Sakazuki orders for the Marines to fire on her without regard for the concertgoers, forcing Shanks and his crew to go on the defensive. Terrified at the slaughtering of her subjects and slipping into delirium from the wake-shrooms, Uta summons Tot Musica. When Luffy tries to get Uta to stop, she tries to kill him, but Gordon takes the blow instead. He reveals that Tot Musica was actually the one who destroyed Elegia 12 years ago after Uta accidentally summoned him, and Shanks left Uta on Elegia afterward so she could pursue a singing career without being a wanted pirate. Despite this confession, Uta ends up being consumed by Tot Musica as it moves to consume both versions of Elegia, easily overpowering the pirates and Marines. However, Usopp is able to attain a mental link with his father Yasopp via Observation Haki, and this allows the two of them to coordinate simultaneous attacks between the forces of both worlds. After a long and arduous battle, Luffy and Shanks strike the finishing blows to defeat Tot Musica. However, since it has already consumed everyone on Elegia, those in the Sing-Sing World do not return. Uta rejects a medicine from Shanks to cure the effects of the wake-shrooms in order to sing a song that will bring back everyone. Once she does this, the Marine forces move to seize her, but Shanks repels them with his Haki. As the Marines retreat, Shanks and Uta reconcile as father and daughter.

Luffy wakes up on the Thousand Sunny after his crew has already departed Elegia. He is able to see the Red-Haired Pirates' ship sailing away, and looks on at the crew standing over a laid-down Uta.

Voice Cast:

I thought Uta's songs and accompanying music videos were worth the price of admission alone. These sequences were beautifully animated sequences, enhanced by computer-generated effects. I would gladly watch this again just to see these scenes in IMAX if possible.

The plot of this film transforms what seems like a normal concert into a battle on two different fronts: one in the real world and another in Uta's dream world "paradise" (the Sing-Sing World) after Uta reveals her intentions to bring peace to the world by trapping everyone into her own personal paradise. The World Government deems Uta a threat after witnessing the catastrophic effect of her powers on anyone who listens to her singing, specifically the thousands of people who were in attendance to her concert. Red-Haired Shanks and the rest of the Red-Haired Pirates are quick to defend her and the people affected by Uta's music. Why you ask? It's because Uta is the "daughter" of Shanks, who knew Luffy when they were both children. I don't think Uta is directly related to Shanks by blood but an orphaned infant that he took in as his own who was left on his ship after one of their adventures of pillaging.

Uta's Sing-Sing World will cease to exist if Uta falls asleep so she has been eating wake-shrooms to force herself to stay awake at the cost of shortening her lifespan. Uta is convinced that she is "saving the world" with her actions since she believes that the pirates are all to blame for all of the pain and misery in the world that she is constantly told about from her fans around the world. Her sheltered upbringing in Elegia hasn't done this assumption any favors as the only contact that she has had with the outside world is via communications and recordings found via video transponder snails (Den Den Mushi). She firmly believes that pirates were responsible for wiping out all of the natives of Elegia other than herself and the former king of Elegia, Gordon, who has raising her as his adopted daughter. The truth of the matter is that Uta herself caused all of that destruction and bloodshed when she was a kid by accidentally releasing the demonic Tot Musica who used her as a vessel to ravage the island. Shanks and the Red-Haired Pirates were able to quell the demon after it expelled its strength trying to use the child-age Uta as a host and decided to take the blame of this incident onto themselves. Shanks asked Gordon to take care of Uta and to raise her as a great singer, while promising to never tell her the truth of that ordeal. Uta found out the truth all on her own from the recordings of the incident on one of the video transponder snails that she came across, but remained in denial about her actions. She convinced herself that pirates were to blame and set up this ordeal to bring peace to the world by her own means. Uta's mental state is deteriorating the longer she stays awake from eating the wake-shrooms, which allows her to succumb to Tot Musica and revive the ancient weapon once more. If the Straw Hats, Red-Haired Pirates, and Luffy's other assorted allies in this film didn't have enough on their plate in terms of dealing with Uta and the forces of the World Government coming to storm Elegia in the real world, they have to deal with this powerful foe as well.

In the film's finale, we got a pretty bad ass moment where we got to see Usopp reunite with his estranged father, Yasopp, who is a member of the Red-Haired Pirates coordinate attacks between the Sing-Sing World and the real world with Observation (Kenbunshoku) Haki. This proved to be a pivotal strategy that was the key in defeating Tot Musica since it couldn't be defeated until Usopp and Yasopp directed everyone's attacks to break down Tot Musica systematically piece by piece until both Shanks and Luffy dealt the killing blow with their final attacks. It should be noted that the attack used by Luffy in this final battle was the first animated appearance or rather a tease of the anime debut of Luffy sporting his Gear 5th technique/transformation.

If you're a fan of the other Straw Hats not named Luffy, then you might be a little disappointed in their lack of screen time in this film. The other Straw Hats are in for the action in the opening act, but are quickly captured and disposed of by Uta's powers for most of this film until they break out towards the start of the last act. Don't get me wrong, they all get to shine in the final battle, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I wished that they got a little more screen time here than focusing majority of this conflict around just Luffy and Shanks. After watching all of the Dressrosa arc that focuses a lot of time on just Luffy (and occasionally Law teaming up with him), I was ready to see more of the other Straw Hats here, but that was just my feeling going into this film. I'm sure other fans may feel different though. I'm sure that the newcomers were relieved to see that there weren't a large amount of characters to get to know within the span of two hours was highly beneficial for them coming into this film without any other prior One Piece knowledge.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

I don't see any harm in checking this film out as there's something for everyone, whether you're an One Piece fan or not. As a whole, One Piece Film: Red is a story that is mostly focused on Shanks and Luffy's past with Uta for better or worse, depending on what you are looking for out this film. On one hand, it makes for an easy to watch film for both old and new fans of the anime as it is (somewhat) easy to jump into and enjoy, even if you're not up to speed with the anime or manga nor familiar with all of the characters. On the other hand, it's like I mentioned earlier, some fans will come out of this expecting more, but there's more than enough to enjoy here to tide One Piece fans over until they can jump back into the weekly releases of the anime episodes if they are already caught up. Other fans and newcomers will be more inclined to give this anime a chance if they haven't already.