One Piece Review: Netflix’s Live-Action Adaptation Sets Sail Towards a Promising Future
The post One Piece Review: Netflix’s Live-Action Adaptation Sets Sail Towards a Promising Future appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: In the fantasy world of One Piece, pirates are a commonplace scourge on the high seas. And the young and eager Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) has a dream — to become king of the pirates. It’s a dream he believes will come true if he can track down the legendary One Piece, an infamous treasure left behind by the last pirate king.
Of course, a pirate needs not just a pirate ship but a crew, and Luffy’s fully committed to the cause of recruitment, first enlisting swordmaster Zoro (Mackenyu) and master thief Nami (Emily Rudd) — neither of whom want to be pirates or be on a pirate crew, but find themselves drawn in by Luffy’s confidence, especially after they successfully steal a map that could lead them to the aforementioned ultimate bounty.
While Luffy’s the nice kind of pirate, there are plenty of other pirates (with very high bounties on their heads) who are not so nice, and Luffy and his new friends have a real knack for stumbling across them. They’re also being hunted by the Marines, the sole force of law enforcement in this otherwise lawless world, as well as their respective pasts…
A Pirate’s Life for Them: People have been telling stories about pirates on screen for nearly as long as they’ve been telling stories of any kind on screen, starting with D.W. Griffith’s short film The Pirate’s Gold in 1908, and continuing forward through the silent era into sound. Dozens of pirate movies were made during the 20th century, including multiple adaptations of The Black Corsair and Treasure Island (with and without Muppets).
Since the 1995 disaster Cutthroat Island (Geena Davis innocent), though, the genre’s hit a downturn interest-wise, outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean films… and the One Piece animated series and movie spin-offs. Based on the epic manga series created by Eiichiro Oda, there have been 15 One Piece movies in addition to the 20-season/1,073-episode anime series, and in Netflix’s live-action adaptation, you can feel the weight of that vast media empire at the edges of the frame.
To the show’s credit, though, it’s careful about just how much information to throw at the viewer. Establishing (with narration by Ian McShane!) that this is a pirate story is a great place to start; most people have seen at least one Pirates of the Caribbean movie, after all. The first episode also establishes the legend of the One Piece and that Luffy, following his consumption of a “demon fruit” as a child, has stretchy superpowers similar to Mr. Fantastic or Mr. Incredible. All that, plus introducing a decent percentage of the show’s primary characters, is more than enough for a pilot.
One Piece (Netflix)
The thing with the demon fruit, though, is only the beginning of the weirdness. As the show progresses, the pirate action is entwined with more details about all of these characters’ lives, largely in the form of flashbacks. What’s impressive about the show’s flashbacks is that unlike other series which have made them a formalized part of their structure (specifically Lost), these mini-narratives about the past are incorporated more organically, and they often prove to be just as valuable in explaining more about this strange world.
Drink Up Me Hearties, Yo Ho: The pretty impressive production design does a lot to sell this specific strangeness of this world, leaning hard on pirate tropes but adding enough detail to make each location feel unique to the series. And director Marc Jobst (Daredevil, The Witcher), in the early episodes, uses bright colors and occasionally cartoon-y visual effects to invoke the spirit of the original anime, while not being afraid to push into darker tones for the show’s more violent moments.
The overall effect, oddly enough, makes it feel very similar to the recent Peacock series Twisted Metal — bright comedy in combination with wild action, and an irreverent tone that manages not to undercut the real character-driven elements of the story. (Both also feature a scary murder clown, but that’s a superficial coincidence.)
Luffy’s seemingly unstoppable cheer at the beginning of the series has the potential to prove a little grating (certainly you can emphasize with his reluctant new companions, who are quick to insist “we’re not a crew”), but as the show progresses Iñaki Godoy gets more opportunity to introduce some depth to the character. Meanwhile, Mackenyu brings a compelling aloofness to Zoro, and Emily Rudd sparks well off both of her initial compatriots; plus, the ensemble quickly gets larger and larger, as Luffy accumulates new friends by sheer force of personality.
One Piece (Netflix)
The Verdict: It’s impossible to write this review without at least mentioning Cowboy Bebop, Netflix’s last effort to adapt a beloved anime as a live-action series. Bebop, alas, was not a great success, with fans of the original show actively angry at the ways in which it failed to live up to the beloved classic — a fate Netflix very much hopes One Piece will escape.
It’s hard to say if Netflix’s take on One Piece will please the legions of rabid fans of the original — adaptations are always tricky in this way, because strict adherence to the original source material can sometimes do a story no favors in a different medium — but changing too much runs the risk of not just alienating the core fanbase, but losing the elements that made this a compelling premise in the first place.
As previously mentioned, it was in fact hard to escape the sense of just how big this universe is, how many spin-off stories and side quests must be possible given its premise. Because it’s not just a pirate story, but it’s not really a superhero story… At times it was tricky, to get my head around it. However, it wasn’t too hard to relate on some level to the characters or get a sense of how showrunners Steven Maeda and Matt Owens were approaching this story. Because One Piece is a lot of things all at once, in the end, but above all else an adventure. One which proves sea-worthy for newcomers, at least.
Where to Watch: The search for the One Piece is streaming now on Netflix.
Trailer:
One Piece Review: Netflix’s Live-Action Adaptation Sets Sail Towards a Promising Future
Liz Shannon Miller
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