Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals

Opening in cinemas during March 2002, this 56-minute short puts Tony Tony Chopper front and center and takes place in a world set entirely apart from the main canon. Word of a hidden treasure lures the Straw Hats to O-Kan Island, a wild land where the beasts think and speak as humans do. When circumstance splits Chopper from his companions, he unwittingly fulfills an old prophecy and finds himself crowned the island's guardian. Across its theatrical and home-video runs, the picture was packaged together with the separate short Dream Soccer King.

Chasing an old map, the crew is thrown into the air when geysers batter the Going Merry beside O-Kan Island, and Chopper is tossed off into the woods. The rest of the Straw Hats wash up on shore and encounter the thinking animals, who are waiting on a successor to their golden-horned king, the Kirin Lion, now dead of old age. Chopper drops into the middle of their gathering, his cry of pain is mistaken for a call for a king, and the beasts crown him at once. Grieving over a father, a naturalist slain by a pirate, the human boy Mobanby pleads with Chopper to stay and rule.

The real threat surfaces in Count Battler, who commands armored Horn Eaters through a hypnotic violin and has been harvesting horns wholesale in search of a legendary treasure rumored to reside inside the Animal King's own horns. When his tune even hijacks Luffy's mind, the Straw Hats regroup with Chopper, only for Battler to strike hard. Chopper draws the Horn Eaters off, the crew peels away to battle Battler's brutal lieutenants Heaby and Hotdog, and Mobanby agonizes over whether to lift the Kirin Lion's sacred horn to lend aid.

Battler consumes every gathered horn and swells into a colossal golden beast, badly hurting Luffy and admitting he was the very pirate who murdered Mobanby's father. In a rare reversal of their usual matchups, Sanji bests Heaby while Zoro wears down Hotdog. Enraged, Luffy comes back to crush Battler's horns in his hands and hurls the count away with Gomu Gomu no Bazooka. Once calm returns, the sky molds the island's rising steam into a crown, recognizing Mobanby as the true new Animal King. Chopper says a tearful goodbye to his friend, and the crew sets sail once more.

Toei paired the film at its 2002 Spring Anime Fair with the unrelated Digimon Tamers: Runaway Locomon. Although the movie drew a smaller crowd than the entry before it, the combined program still helped bring in a gross of around two billion yen. Eiichiro Oda turned up at a preview screening and voiced his approval in Weekly Shonen Jump. Merchandise tied to the release ranged from exclusive Carddass cards to a soundtrack disc and a printed novelization. The picture also carries the distinction of being the first in the series to plainly break with canon, leaving out both Vivi and Robin and depicting Luffy skipping across water by inflating himself.