Uploaded on October 9th, 2023
Updated on July, 5th 2024
Oh, adaptations… Some are success and others in the contrary, are (very) often poorly received by fans. A year earlier, when One Piece adaptation was announced, reactions went to very pessimistic to negative. However, after a week of release —or should I say a day, the show has became the number 1 on Netflix. One could put this on the account of curiosity, but in terms of quality, One piece place could very be well deserved.
Two decades of One Piece
Mangas fans or not, you surely have heard of ‘One piece” even one time in your life. 106 volumes, more than a thousand episodes, about twenty arcs and so many characters with crazy names to make you confused… One piece has since 1997 come from a long way which includes many filmography adaptations (always animated). The phenomena has also crossed generations by defining many people childhood. Therefore, to this day, it’s still embarking more and more fans to this epic adventure. And the hype is well deserved ! One piece’s world and story has been incredibly thought and designed by one single man whose imagination is today brought to the screen.
So the “One Piece”… What is it ?
Actually, nobody knows for sure but popularly, the “One piece” is supposed to be a treasure. And it’s little to say that it fascinates both pirates AND fans. Of course, theories and speculations about it have multiplied. Between the one saying that the One Piece is not about the money, but friendship and the others suggesting that there is no treasure… You could probably choose your favorite ending until Eiichirō Oda breaks or not (who knows ?) your expectations. However, to this day, the most popular theory remains the one saying that Luffy’s hat might be the treasure, and thus in front of us since episode 1 (frustrating, isn’t it ?).
Now, let’s talk about the live action :
An elastic boy, a pirate hunter with three blades, a pro of sailing, a king of snipers, a cook with a crazy leg… Those are only the half of the straw hat crew, and yet ! The onscreen interprets of Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) Zoro (Mackenyu), Nami (Emily Rudd), Usopp (Jacob Gibson) and Sanji (Taz Skylar) have already charmed and convinced most of Netflix subscribers. One Piece, the live action, has succeeded where many manga’s adaptations have failed. Based only on results, movies like the Knights of the Zodiac or Death Note unfortunately didn’t win the public. So how did Eiichirō Oda’s world succeed so well on screen ?
1. The choice of a tv-show instead of a movie
One Piece world is so dense that it would have been just about impossible to reduce everything the tv-show has covered in a single movie. The eight episodes had indeed given more screen time to characters like Garp or Koby (who, if we follow the anime, was only supposed to make a fast appearance in episode 1) over the fight scene which were faster and more expeditive to what we we’re used to in the manga. In a way, it’s not that bad of an approach. One piece’s fight has the tendency to extend for more than a hundred of episodes, but in the other, the final fight (Luffy vs. Arlong) were maybe too easy and deserved more time.
2. The actors are the alter ego of their respective characters
Whether it’s a movie, a book, or a tv-show, the characters are the keys for a good story. In the case of an adaptation -precisely one who was so long awaited, the difficulty is to respect the essence of the characters, to concretize the project on the screen and all that, without disappointing the fanbase.
As for One piece, the casting crew has been swimming into troubled and dangerous water to satisfy the fans as far as possible : small details such as Luffy’s scar(very present but attenuated) or Zorro’s green hair far from looking like a cactus contrast with the biggest changes such as Usopp’s nose (which looks less like Pinichio’s) and Sanji’s eyebrows which didn’t look as funny as in the manga… but in the end, the result is rather good ; the actors of the straw hat crew seem to come straight out of the pages of the manga and has an incredible chemistry (so much that some people are starting to ship Nami and Zorro, but that’s an other story, and one that would probably never happen).
3. Some cheesy scene yes, but ones that suit perfectly the dynamic.
Another challenge : while some dialogue fits perfectly in the manga and in the anime, it can be difficult to make humans characters delivers specific dialogues without it to seem embarrassing. And yet… Challenge met ! Were there cheesy scenes ? Yes. But let’s say that most of them were delivered by characters like Luffy or Buggy, the kind you excuse immediately when they say something weird out of nowhere. Luffy, who yells to who wants to hear (and don’t want to, seriously) that he want to be king of the pirates, Buggy who doesn’t want the n-word to be pronounced in his presence (and it’s not even what you’re thinking, I’m talking about the letter “n” in the word “nose”) … So many examples that prove that the actors were so convincing in their role that we put everything past them !
4. The secondary characters and the nostalgia
We’ve already talked about Buggy, the hard-skin pirates who’ve became a new favorite of the fans. But in general, it’s always fun to see how are represented the characters of the first arcs. I mean, Arlong, Koby, Klahadore, the merry (not a character, but you got me) and emblematic characters like Minhawk, Shanks or Garp.
Conclusion
My binge watch of the entire season ended up with a success in almost every point.
With the current hype around the show, One Piece has already been renewed for several more seasons. Season 2 start of production and plot was even annunced in the beginning of july. Destination : South Africa, a clash with the Baroque Works members and the meeting of Nico Robin !
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