"One Piece," Year One (For Fans)

Mild spoilers ahead.

I got to know "One Piece" through the anime series.  I watched over 300 episodes, up to the end of "Thriller Bark," before I decided to take a break and never got back to the show.  When I heard that Netflix was going to make a live-action adaptation, I was expecting the worst.  If they couldn't adapt more accessible IP like "Death Note" and  "Cowboy Bebop" right, surely "One Piece" was going to be a mess.  I'd followed all the drama around the terrible localization of the "One Piece" anime that FOX Kids put out in 2004.  "One Piece" is a smash hit just about everywhere besides the U.S. because American studios kept fumbling the franchise.

Fortunately, this time they got it right.  Netflix put a significant budget behind the show, let a couple of die-hard fans and "One Piece" creator Eiichiro Oda have major input, and committed to giving the fans what they wanted.  The Netflix series loses some characters and condenses many events, but this is a far more faithful adaptation of "One Piece" than I thought we were ever going to see.  We don't just get a perfectly cast Luffy (Iñaki Godoy), Zoro (Mackenyu), Nami (Emily Rudd), Usopp (Jacob Romero Gibson), and Sanji (Taz Skyler), but a slew of familiar side characters and villains brought to screen with the same amount of care.  The highlights include a lovable Shanks (Peter Gadiot), a gruff Zeff (Craig Fairbass), a chaotic Buggy (Jeff Ward), and a very intimidating Garp (Vincent Regan).   

Even better is the look and the feel of the show, which leans into how wacky and exaggerated the "One Piece" universe is.  We get all the crazy costuming, fluorescent hair colors, animal-human hybrids, and walking sight gags you could ever hope for.  The Den Den Mushi not only show up, but the production designers came up with megaphone and earbud variations.  Nobody ever explains what they are, and nobody ever needs to.  I love that the show is so action-heavy, and all manner of crazy stunts and effects sequences are brought to life.  And a lot of it is done practically, which makes a big difference.  We get to watch Luffy do all the Gum Gum attacks.  We get to watch Mihawk (Steven Ward) literally cut a ship in half.  There are so many fun little nods for the fans, like the villains' character introductions being done with their wanted posters, and "We Are!" playing when the Going Merry sets sail at last.  

One thing I felt was a little rough was the cinematography, full of low-angle shots and close-ups, maybe intended to mimic the original manga panels.  However, I got used to it quickly.  The show's pacing was harder to deal with, since the writers stuffed everyone's backstories into the show and let some of them run longer than they should have.  The biggest departure from the manga is Garp showing up so early, and making appearances in most episodes with Koby (Morgan Davies) and Helmeppo (Aidan Scott).  The extra material works because the characters are genuinely fun to watch, and it helps to fill in narrative gaps in the Straw Hats' story.  It's nice to see Koby and Helmeppo becoming friends, and Garp reminiscing about the old days with Zeff, while laying the groundwork for some of the big clashes coming in future storylines.  However, I think some of that time would have been better spent fleshing out some of the antagonists.  Why not give Buggy a few flashbacks?  

In short, as much as I enjoy the show, there's plenty of room for improvement.  You can tell that they're still working some of the kinks out, and hopefully the success of this season will inspire some improvements in the second.  There are some characters and concepts that honestly work better in live action, like a surprisingly nuanced Helmeppo, while others just end up looking like the CGI nightmares from Disney's worst animation-turned-live-action dreck.  Hatchan, the octopus guy from Arlong's crew, is one of the characters who got cut, and I'm glad.  There's a good chance he would have come out badly, and I still have no idea how they're going to handle Chopper or Brooke down the line.  The cast, however, has turned out to be the show's biggest asset - the wonderfully diverse performers do a lot to flesh out their characters, and have helped distract from some of the weaker parts of the production.    

I think that fans should be satisfied with the live action adaptation overall, but its real value is in providing a gateway for newcomers to "One Piece" who might balk at the anime and manga versions.  It also proves that live action adaptations of manga and anime can be successful, no matter how wild or unlikely they are, provided they have the right creative talent involved.  I doubt we'll see too many more shows in this vein, however, because "One Piece" was an extremely risky venture, and so easily could have turned out badly.  But if this does turn out to be the exception that proves the rule, it couldn't have happened to a nicer franchise.

---