ONE PIECE FILM Z SPOILERS[]
WARNING[]
The following are spoilers for One Piece Film: Z. If you do not wish to know any spoilers before seeing the film please exit from this page. []
The day before I left to return to my home country from my study abroad semester in Osaka Japan, I was lucky enough to be able to see the new One Piece Movie Film: Z on its opening day on December 15th. Regardless to say, it was awesome. I have been studying Japanese for over two and a half years and although my Japanese listening skills are much better than many of my fellow Japanese studying classmates, if I say so myself, my Japanese is still not at the point of fluency. And so, while I was able to understand most of the jokes that were said during the film, I wasn't sufficient enough to understand much of the heavy dialogue speaking between characters. On this page I will provided spoilers of what I can remember about the film about its plot, characters, and other interesting points discovered. It has been a while so the spoilers are all coming from memory. If you are skeptical about the legitimacy of these spoilers, then please wait for when the film is out for you to see and check whether or not my spoilers are accurate. Please enjoy.
Overall Plot
The beginning of the film opens up to the Neo Marines invading a Volcanic island that is occupied by a Marine base. Zephyr, Ain, and Bins wipe out several of the marines and make their way inside the base. Inside they steal the several Dyna Stones and bring them back to their ships. While bringing back the stones, Kizaru appears and destroys several Neo Marine ships. Then an epic battle between Zephyr and Kizaru begins, mostly evenly matched but Kizaru slowly pulls ahead. In a last resort move, Zephyr takes out one of the one of the Dyna Stones from the container, launches it at Kizaru, and shoots it with a blast from his Smasher fist. A giant purple light explosion engulfs the entire island and causes the volcano to massivley erupt. But Kizaru escapes unharmed.
The Straw Hat crew is acting silly and celebrating sakura blooming on the Thousand Sunny. They enter a cloud of raining ash, caused by the explosion. Later they find an unconscious Zephyr on some brink wood in the sea. Luffy and the others rescue him and Chopper nurses him back to health. After Zypher awakens, he talks to Luffy and Chopper but his time as a former Marine and his weapon Smasher, that has Kairoseki imbeded in it. But when Luffy mentions that they are all pirates and he is going to become Pirate King, Zypher attacks Luffy. He then begins to battle Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji in the Sunny kitchen. Then the Neo Marine ships arrive, Ain used a Vivre Card to locate where her captain was. Ain and Bins board the Sunny. Bin uses his Mosa Mosa no Mi powers to entrap Franky in vines. He is fast enough to dodge Robin's Hana Hana no Mi sprouting arms. Usopp, Brook and Chopper join in on the fight, hop down to the grass floor of Sunny, only to be trapped by vines too. Nami tries to attack Ain but where she uses her Modo Modo no Mi powers to seeminly make Nami dissapear. Chopper frees himself from the vines by changing to Heavy Point and attacks Ain but she uses her powers on Chopper to make him dissapear. She then walks up to Brook and uses her power on him too. Robin grapples Ain with her sprouting arms but is able to use her Modo Modo no Mi affects on her attached arms that also effects Robin. And so, Robin turns back (what I believe I heard to be) into a 19 years old. Smaller children versions of Nami and Chopper reapear from their clothes. Zephyr defeats the straw hats and insults Luffy. The three Neo Marines then board their ship and proceed to fire a flurry of cannon balls at the Thousand Sunny. Franky finally escapes from the vines and uses Coup de Burst to escape.
We see the brand new Marine Ford base newly located in the New World. New Fleet Admiral Akainu is discussing with Kizaru and all of the Vice-Admirals about the destruction of the island that had the marine base with the Dyna Stones and their need to stop Zephyr's plan. Throughout the scene, we actually do not see Akainu's face; we only see his chest and arms.
The Straw Hats arrive at an old pirate's docking island. (Forgot the name) The local retired pirate takes them in. There Franky begins repairing Sunny. The Straw Hats discuss their next move; they need to locate Zephyr and Ain so that they may return Nami, Chopper and Robin into their original ages. (Funny Note: Brook was affected too by Ain but expectedly experiences no change) In order to find information about the Neo Marines, the Straw Hats, except for Franky staying behind to continue to repain Sunny, board the water train to a near by island. (Sorry I forgotten the name of the island)
The island is known for their hot spring resorts. Nami, Usopp, Chopper and Robin go to a bar with many marines to try and find any information; Robin is a dancer, Nami is a waitress and Usopp plus Chopper are questioning in disguise. Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Brook all head to the hot springs. It is there where the four surprisingly meet Aokiji. He calms the Straw Hats that he is not here to fight; he tells them about his fight with Akainu, his injury, and his leaving the Marines. He also begins to tell them about Zephyr's past as a Marine: Zephyr was once the close friends of both Garp and Sengoku, as well as rising within the ranks of the Marines along with them. He quit the Marines after a pirate that had killed his family was promoted to Shichibukai. We learn that Zephyr blowing up the volcanic island with the Dyna Stone was his original intent and he also plans on blowing up this volcanic island as well. Nami, Chopper, Robin and Brook warn the villagers of the island and escape to the water train platform waiting for the others. At the top of the Volcano mountain the others meet the tree Neo Marines. Zoro battles Ain, Sanji battles Bins, and Luffy battles Zephyr. Zoro's and Sanji's battles end with Ain and Bins retreating. At the end of Luffy's and Zephyr's battle, Zephyr shoots Luffy with a gun that had a Kairoseki bullet. Usopp retrieves Luffy and Zephyr proceeds to blow up the top of the volcano using the Dyna Stones. Usopp picks up Luffy and the four of them quickly try to escape from the molten crashing avalanche down the mountain. The four of them slide down the streets of the city in the pop green banana boat that Usopp shot. They are only saved by Aokiji, that freezes the entire avalanche around the entire island. The 8 Straw Hats then return to water train.
There is a scene where Aokiji and Zephyr meeting on top of a mountain with a pirate grave. I am sorry to say much of it I didn't understand. We learn that the two are old friends, Aokiji gives him a bottle of alcohol but Zephyr throws it back. The two seemed like they were about to fight, but Aokiji stops. What I did understand was Aokiji said that he knows Zephyr plans to die.
Back at the pirate dock island, Chopper removes the Kairoseki bullet out Luffy. All of the Straw Hats then meets Aokiji again where he tells all of them Zephyr's plans: There are three volcanic islands that are called the End Points that are all linked together under the sea, the two of which were already blown up by Zephyr. If all three were to be blown up, the magma canal that connects them would over flow and (I am regrettably unsure what the exact effects are. Sorry) a rising towering line of spewing magma will cross the New World making it impossible for any more pirate to enter the new world and destroy much of the New World.
The Straw Hats all dress up in their old-school pirate outfits and travel on the fixed Sunny to the last End Point Volcano. The Straw Hats battle hundreds of Neo Marines. At the top the volcano, Luffy meets a waiting Zephyr and the two commence to fight. Sanji finds and fights Bins again and Zoro fights and finds Ain again. After Nami, Usopp, Chopper, Robin and Brook defeat the rest of the Neo Marines they are attacked by the arriving White PX-Zs. Franky, piloting the Iron Pirate, fights the PX-Zs and destroys them with his Franky Radical Beam. Sanji defeats Bins with his “burning love for Nami’s sexiness” (Mimic’s Sanji’s Hell Memories) and Zoro defeats Ain with a demonic dragon aura attack. After Ain was defeated, Nami, Chopper and Robin all returned to their normal selves… and Brook did as well…. The fight between Luffy and Zephyr continues. The two are extremely beaten and reach the end of their fight; Zephyr’s Smasher right arm falls of and it is revealed that his right arm was not sliced off and cloaked in armament haki. The Straw Hats and a wounded Ain and Bins witness Luffy and Zephyr, both with black armament haki on the arms and brutally boxing brawl with each other. Tired and beaten, the two of them collapse. After words exchanged between the two, Zephyr gives up on his plans to destroy the final End Point. Then Kizaru arrives at the top of the summit behind him dozens of Vice-Admirals and an army of Marines behind him. Zephyr stands and proclaims that he will handle them by himself and tells the Straw Hats and his comrades to escape. He charges attacks the army of Marines. Ain panicly tries to go to his aid but is blocked by a giant wall of ice created by Aokiji off in the distance, that divided the Marines and Zephyr from the Straw Hats and Ain and Bins. Zephyr takes a direct hit from Kizaru’s Yasakani no Magatama. Severely damaged but survives and continues to fight the Marines.
At the pirates grave where Aokiji and Zephyr met is now the remains of Zephyr’s Smasher with Ain and Bins mourning, Aokiji behind them with the bottle of alcohol in his hand. The film ends with a scene of Zephyr as a kid, real name Zetto now, playing as a super hero, a hero of justice, and the hero’s name is Zephyr.
I would like to make my apologies again since I am recalling from memory that is a week ago and also my Japanese is yet to the ability to understand the film completely. I hope you enjoyed the spoilers and I answered many of your questions about the film
The following is now additional points about the film and its characters.
Zetto
As said before, Zephyr’s name is not actually Zephyr but instead Zetto. Zephyr is the name of a super hero he use to dress up as and idolize when he was a kid.
Another important point to mention: that thing in Zephyr's mouth that looks like a crooked cigar is not actually a cigar but actually an inhaler. I didn't understand much of this part but I think Zephyr was just very sick and that inhaler was a temporary subduing medicine. Before the final fight against Luffy, Zephyr crushes his inhaler in his hand.
Bins
Bins was actually an interesting and quite funny character. He keep on saying the sound of his devil fruit, “mosaaaa mosaaaaa mosaaaaa” His facial expressions a lot of the time were really hilarious with excessively huge puckered lips.
Animation
Being a One Piece movie the animation was really quite incredible in comparison to the regular anime. However it is also worthy to mention that they film also uses fast paced computer animation for some scenes. The three scenes that comes to mention that uses obvious computer animation are the scenes of; sliding down streets of the bath house city in the banana boat, Sanji’s final fight against Bins, and Zoro’s final fight against Ain. It was quite different from the normal animation, sometimes too fast to follow, but very cool.
Aokiji
If I hadn’t made it clear in my plot summary, Aokiji plays a major role within the film.
A very interesting point is that in one of the commercials for the film is Zepher, non-diegetic, singing a sailor’s song. But in reality, it is in fact AOKIJI that sings the song.
It will be interesting to see later on in the running Canon series if the Straw Hat crew will see Aokiji again and if they do will there experience within the Movie Z universe would be mentioned or will it be ignored like it was a filler.
Avril Lavigne
There have been a lot of complaints over Oda and the producers of the One Piece film using Avril Lavigne songs in the film. It might ease those people to tell them that those songs are only present at the ending credits of the film.
Intro to Nami
Just a funny point that I thought worth was mentioning: the first shot we see of Nami is but of course a direct shot to her bikini wearing boobies. Thank you fan service market.
Please leave comments if you’d like.