Okay, look. I guess something is to be said for trying something different. I can't fault the animators of Toei for the work they put in. There are facets of this that look really great as the studio tried their hand at pure 3D digital rendering, often directly informed by the 2D sensibilities of the anime or at least majorly inspired by them. The problem is that some facets look really great, and others look really awful - the visuals here cover an enormous spectrum, and the simple fact of the matter is that it never looks as good as it would have if it were just animated in 2D in the first place. Detail and texture is completely lost in some instances of both environments and backgrounds, and active elements ranging from characters to water to fire, and even in the action. In some cases the artists try to make up for that loss of detail and texture by making small minutiae like an old man's wrinkles, or strands of hair, appear raised against the rest of the body they are a part of, but it doesn't look good. Movement sometimes appears less fluid and natural than it has before in 2D, or in the 3D productions of other studios. Some cross-sections of the animation do look pretty fantastic overall, such as when Luffy is swinging through a veritable obstacle course in pursuit of his beloved hat - but then, we've seen sequences of a similar thrust animated in 2D, and they look at least as good there if not better. Accentuating the point, the visuals in 'Straw hat chase' are at their best when they most closely mirror the classic 2D art style, and this begs the question of why the short wasn't just animated in 2D to begin with.
I guess it was an experiment. That's fine. But it's an experiment that was no more than a partial success. The music of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra may be sprightly and invigorating, the cast might give reliably able voice performances, and the writing for this thirty-minute ride may be just swell. It's a terrific idea, fashioning a story in miniature entirely around Luffy and his nakama chasing after his hat when it's stolen by a bird; some splendid ideas went into the scenes to follow, ensuring that this tiny flick would be full of a sense of adventure, with action and comedy just behind, in this big fantasy world. And still, it simply is not a picture I'm likely to revisit, because the visual experience is a far cry from the resplendence we know and love and expect. Even at that, while I'm inclined to admire the gumption, I don't know how it is that this came about, and maybe I should be instead chastizing some studio head for forcing a dubious creative decision. Whatever the case may be, it's not that I dislike 'Straw hat chase' - it's that the result is deficient if not at times outright garish, and there's just not enough value herein to bother revisiting it. Both on its own merits and as a point of comparison it's worth watching, but once will do, and one should probably temper their expectations before sitting for it.
