One Piece: Romance Dawn Story

The Romance Dawn anime retells the story of the first one-shot titled Romance Dawn (version 1), a predecessor to the one seen in One Piece. This remake occurs after the Thriller Bark Arc and before the Sabaody Archipelago Arc in the anime series. As such, 9 members of the Straw Hat crew are present, as opposed to the original story, which only featured Luffy. It was released for the 40th JUMP Super Anime Tour on November 24, 2008. The DVD released on January 31, 2009 was available for order by email only.

Plot
The Straw Hat Pirates run out of food, and Luffy was sent out on the Mini-Merry, only to get lost and drift off course. Luffy arrives at an island and ventures out in search of replenishing their provisions. He encounters a girl named Silk, who has mistaken Luffy as a pirate from Crescent-Moon Gally's crew. Gally, who was tied up on his ship by Luffy, has threatened Silk's town and Luffy promises Silk that he will help her defeat him. After a short fight, Luffy makes short work of the Crescent-Moon Gally, while explaining to Silk about his abilities. After Gally runs off, Luffy remembers he left the Mini-Merry tied to Gally's ship. On his way back, the Mayor and various townspeople mistake Luffy for Gally. They proceed to subdue him and tie him up. As he tries to explain himself, Gally interferes and attacks Silk. Gally, Silk and Luffy trade words about the meaning of treasure. Gally proceeds to throw Luffy's straw hat into the ocean. Luffy stretches to get it by extending his head, but falls short and into the water. Silk dives in, rescues him, and curses Gally for sailing away. As they leave, Gally orders an attack on the island, destroying several buildings. Luffy slingshots himself toward Gally's ship, only to be shot out of the air by a cannon ball.

Falling towards the water, Luffy is saved by the Thousand Sunny and the other Straw Hats. Usopp, Sanji, Nami, and Zoro berate Luffy for being lost, while a fight breaks out on Gally's ship. After some fighting, Gally is given a wanted poster of Luffy, comparing Luffy's 300,000,000 to his small 5,000,000. Luffy proceeds to wreck Gally's ship with his Gear 3rd, Giganto Axe (oddly he does not shrink afterwards like he usually does after using Gear 3). Luffy then grabs Gally and lands on a piece of his wrecked ship while his crew sails away with the Crescent Moon's provisions and treasure. Gally swears he will kill Luffy someday, who ignores him and hits him with Gomu Gomu no Pistol, sending Gally flying into the distance. After the battle, the Straw Hats give the townspeople the treasure they took from Gally's ship to rebuild their town while the crew sails on. Silk paints a Straw Hat next to a rainbow on her rebuilt diner in honor of Luffy as the special ends.

Trivia

 * Several fight scenes are closely matched to original scenes in the first We Are! opening, particularly Zoro and Sanji's.
 * Luffy's Gear 3 does not have the after-effect of shrinking on this OVA.
 * As this keeps up with the manga, not the anime, the Straw Hats already have Brook on board with them, and Roger's face is completely seen during the introduction.
 * During the credits, a couple of Oda's joke characters appear rebuilding Silk's village, including Pandaman, Minatomo, Sam, and Motzel.
 * In Romance Dawn, Gally's pirate ship is similar to the previous pirate ship of the Red Hair Pirates as seen in the original Romance Dawn for the series, but in this OVA, it was replaced with a different ship that has a purple snake-like beast on the front.
 * Luffy used "Gomu Gomu no Gigant Axe" to smash Gally's ship, while in Romance Dawn V1, he just used "Gomu Gomu no Axe" because Eiichiro Oda had not created Gear 3 or any of Luffy's "Gear" techniques yet.

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