Meet One Piece Film: Red, One Piece in musical form. The next Broadway hit. I guess after 10+ movies, they needed to spice it up and make an anime musical, which is pretty rare in anime from what I’ve seen.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED this movie. I also love musicals, so this was like the crossroads of two of my favorite types of movies.

One Piece Film: Red introduces a new character, Uta, who’s basically a pop idol sensation that’s hidden her true identity until now, where she’s hosting a gigantic concert, and streaming to everyone around the world.

Uta is voiced by Jpop sensation Ado, which is a funny coincidence (or not, considering how good Eiichiro Oda is at story writing) because Ado never shows her face either, even at her concerts. Her rendition of the widely known Tokyo Ghoul opening “Unravel” is ridiculous. I’ll just say that when she screams in that song, holy shit it sends chills down my spine. Scream at me please. This movie got me into Ado and she’s now my current favorite Jpop artist.

That’s just the musical part. Uta’s character design is so cute, I even bought her TCG set. I don’t even play, I just want the pretty cards. And since it’s One Piece, hell yeah I’ll eat it up. This movie’s ranks probably first for me of all the One Piece movies (which says a lot considering there’s 15 so far). It’s not canon (as expected), but is probably the closest to being canon given Uta’s the daughter of Shanks, an important plot character who we’ve yet to really learn all the secrets about. Despite it being a movie for one of the longest running animes out there, I think this movie is pretty beginner friendly. It focuses a lot on Uta, her ideals, and her childhood with Luffy, which really doesn’t require knowledge of the story. You really just need to know the basics of what One Piece is about.

In One Piece Film: Red, Uta has the power to bring people who hear her sing into a ‘dream world’. Uta was sheltered her whole life, and hears stories from her fans about how her music helps others escape from the harsh reality of the killing and pillaging from pirates and criminals all over the world. Because of that, she hatches a plan to essentially bring the world and all her fans into this utopia dream world where everything is fun and games and pirates are no longer able to wreck havoc. Sounds nice right? Well, her plan is to trap them in there forever. For good intention though, so it’s okay!

It may be nice for a bit, but people start wanting to leave. Uta doesn’t understand why they would want to leave given how much they talk about the horrors of reality, but that’s partially because she’s so sheltered. Some kids start saying that their normal routine isn’t THAT bad, and they enjoy the balance of their chores. Basically kids are getting bored of having too much fun. Damn is this foreshadowing for Gen Alpha culture?

There wouldn’t really be a plot if Uta just let em go, so it basically turns into an attempted escapism genocide. What makes this movie so great and different than other One Piece movies is that Uta is simply a naive, hurt child who’s trying to use her talents and powers to do right by the world and save others. Of course what she’s trying to do isn’t justified, but when you see her backstory and everything she went through, it’s hard to blame just her.

The Life Lesson

Life’s not fair. Life’s not easy. It’s not all fun & games.

You can’t practice escapism (using an activity or behavior to routinely escape reality) and expect to be truly content and happy.

If you never deal with the hardships of reality and only escape into your version of Uta’s ‘dream world’, you:

• don’t grow as a person
• miss out on a lot of great things in life
• may end up having regrets
• may be trapped in a world with Uta forever

Well, that last one might not be so bad.

Years ago, I realized a lot of… suppressed internal conflict with a family member. I would start to get anxiety from visiting them, even if nothing happened at all. Every time it happened, I would escape by taking an edible, playing games, passing out, and waking up to a new day. Call it ‘high world’. Super healthy. Eventually, I finally decided to address it in therapy, and put in a more conscious effort to address not only the root issue but also present day moving forward. It wasn’t just a 3 therapy session thing. Even now a few years later, it’s something I actively practice. Now having significantly improved my relationship with them, I feel that I’ve not only grown as a person, but have filled a void in my life, and am happier at home.

It’s the same with all of life’s other hardships: people problems, work stress, and physical or mental health issues. Sometimes we just need a distraction, but many other times, we need to face these hardships head-on. It’s in tackling these issues and not escaping them where we truly grow.

In addition, if everything’s always rosy and fun and games, that becomes your baseline. And as hard it is to go against human nature, it’s what’s relative that affects us most, not what’s absolute.

Happiness can’t exist without sadness. There’s a spectrum for everything, with extremes at each end. I felt that I truly understood the feelings of fulfillment, happiness, and contentment only after I understood and felt despair and hopelessness. It’s just a matter of relativity. Not being in a ‘going through the motions’ state is already a great improvement. That’s why the little things are so important sometimes. And the world is full of so many more little things than huge milestones.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but sometimes I have a really great day once I get some sleep after a really depressing night.

Also if everything was easy and stress free, it’d be boring after a while. As my brother once said, life isn’t fair. The point of life is to make it fair. Isn’t it so much more fun and exhilarating when you solve or improve something with your own power? Or when you find a really pretty leaf on the ground YOURSELF. Now that’s a great feeling.