Recently I sat down with my family to watch the first+ episode of Netflix’s One Piece. Film night (or TV binge night) is a family tradition at mine, and I was anxious that my choice of this much-hyped anime adaptation would fly over my parents’ heads. A story about a young pirate boy with a body made of rubber stretch who fights alongside a green-haired samurai might be a bit of a stretch for my mother, so I was pretty shocked to hear her call for the second episode to roll on.
I will admit, I had absolutely no expectations for this show. That’s what sort of what happens when you live through both Avatar: The Last Airbender (2010) and Netflix’s Death Note (2017) as a teenager. Announcements of live-action adaptations of beloved books and comic series used to be met with excitement and thrill at what the lights-camera-action of film could offer. Today, it’s met with groans and Tweets of “why do we need this?” and “no one asked for this!” —especially in response to adaptation news of great Manga and Anime series. And, sadly, it is an understandable response. The track record of Anime-to-live-action film and TV adaptations is, well, abysmal.
When Netflix announced it was in early stages of developing a live-action adaptation of One Piece, reactions were mixed at best and extremely negative at worst. Fans were prepared to do exactly what they had done with previous live-action adaptations: ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. That is until One Piece was released and, was, well, pretty great.
Written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece was first published in July 1997 and quickly became a global phenomenon. The story follows said pirate boy (Monkey D Luffy) as he journeys the seas to find a hidden treasure called the ‘One Piece’ and become King of the Pirates, rounding up an unlikely crew along the way: Nami the thief, Zoro the samurai, Usopp the sniper, and Sanji the cook. So far, so anime.
Where previous live-action Anime adaptations have failed, One Piece excels. Unlike its Netflix predecessors, Death Note and Cowboy Bebop (2021), One Piece feels like it has a genuine grasp of its source material’s charms and weaknesses, fully embracing the former and comfortably adjusting the latter. Luffy’s unwavering optimism, the found family dynamic between the main rag-tag ensemble, and the high-stakes adventures they embark on are joyfully leaned into. Outdated racial and gender stereotypes are pushed aside in favour of more flushed out, fully realized depictions of characters.
While cultural differences can play a large role in why Hollywood adaptations of Japanese Anime feel off, the differences in how animation as a medium is perceived and respected tend to doom Hollywood adaptations from the get-go. Animation in the West isn’t considered a “serious” medium, unfortunately, with Hollywood often labeling animated projects as “cartoons for kids”. And yet, the 2010s saw Hollywood rush to capitalize off of the growing popularity of Japanese Manga and Anime without attempting to understand what these stories, characters, and visuals mean to their audiences. Beyond the West, animation is a deeply respected storytelling and art form, amassing massive fanbases of all ages and demographics. One Piece’s showrunners treat both the source material and it’s audience with enough respect and maturity to deliver a well-produced, well-written adaptation.
Perhaps showrunner and writer Matt Owens’ greatest achievement is this: knowing how to work within the limitations of the medium, not against them. There is a whole lot you can achieve with animation that you simply can’t in live-action, in part due to the ease of suspending one’s disbelief with animation.
“Nothing was changed or left out because we thought we could do better than Oda or because we didn’t like something,” Owens recently explained to Netflix. He mentions that any changes to the script were “to put Oda’s story out there as faithfully as possible, but in a live-action show format that lives in 2023.” A lot credit also falls to the cast.
With no big-name lead actor attached to the project, Iñaki Godoy delivers an endearing and mature-yet-comedic performance as Luffy, matched in turn by his co-stars Emily Rudd (Nami), Taz Skylar (Sanji), each equally impressive in their own right.
With both Godoy and Skylar headlining Abu Dhabi’s Middle East Film and Comic Con this month, and the show quickly green-lit for Season 2, it is clear that One Piece has discovered the treasure map that many others have sought. Here’s hoping that that map will help form part of a blueprint.
Middle East Film and Comic Con, Feb 9 to 11, ADNEC, Abu Dhabi. mefcc.com