[Netflix] ONE PIECE Live Action Series

[Old_Nash_II]

trailer 2

Well, I never likes OP, and I will pass this series

 

[TangledThorns]

Though I hadn't seen the anime series its best they leave the anime wackiness to the anime.

[Raikkonen]

Myself too never got into OP, and thankfully as I don't have the memory bank to fully digest so many episodes. 

That aside, I suspect this might hit strong with younger audiences, or get cancelled as some Anime's no matter how talented the crew and big the budget,  just cannot translate into live action. 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Raikkonen

[Scyla]

I think the Arlong from the trailer emphasizes what is wrong with the visuals: many One Piece characters have a unique physique that don’t translate well to live action.

It is just too odd. So either you tone that element down quite a bit and reimagine a lot about the world.

Or, you go all out on the designs (which is probably too expensive for Netflix).

At the moment the world depicted in the trailers sits somewhere in the middle.

It looks super awkward.

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah... I am heavily leaning towards predicting a one-season-and-done beautiful disaster of a series.

I feel like Netflix's One Piece will land in "so bad it's good" territory because One Piece is inherently comedic and silly and they're trying to grim it up.  Where they screwed up with the adaptation of Cowboy Bebop was that they tried to make a normally serious noir story lighter by injecting unneeded and unwanted comedy.  Trying to grim up One Piece and make it into a serious action/adventure series should provide lots of fodder for unintentional hilarity.

My one real complaint with the trailer is that... well... Luffy feels too articulate in this trailer.  The Luffy of the manga and anime is the quintessential dumbass protagonist.  He's got a dream he's chasing, but outside of that he's kind of a morally gray agent of chaos and idiot savant driven by an enormous appetite and severe ADHD.  He runs on cartoon logic at most times, and his whims are frequently nonsensical even to the people who know him best.  Manga and anime Luffy is a heroic cryptid who pops out of the woodwork to do the most incomprehensible or illogical things, befriend people seemingly at random, and then disappear after beating up anyone who threatens the people he decided were friends or are just stronger than him and dumb enough to flex about it in front of him.  Live action Luffy feels more like a slightly exciteable standard action/adventure protagonist than the Leeroy Jenkins dumbass that Luffy is supposed to be.

 

That said, they're clearly getting a bit ambitious with this one.  If this trailer is to be believed, they're compressing all six story arcs from the East Blue Saga into just eight episodes if we assume Wikipedia lists the right episode count.  We see snippets of at least five of those story arcs in this trailer alone:

• Romance Dawn Arc - we see Shanks give Luffy the hat and the Sea King that bites his arm off, Alvida and Coby, and Zoro joining the crew.
• Orange Town Arc - we see the first encounter with Buggy the Clown and Nami.
• Syrup Village Arc - we see Kaya's butler and the claws belonging to Captain Kuro and Usopp joins the crew.
• Baratie Arc - we see multiple shots of Baratie and someone who is presumably meant to be Don Krieg.
• Arlong Park Arc - we see the final fight between Luffy and Arlong and the destroyed Arlong Park headquarters of Arlong's pirates.

The only one we don't see anything from is the Loguetown Arc, unless the detailed depiction of Roger's execution is from that.  That's one hundred chapters of material that they're squeezing into eight episodes, with six separate major battles (Alvida, Axe-Hand Morgan, Buggy, Kuro, Don Krieg, and Arlong).  

[Raikkonen]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

My one real complaint with the trailer is that... well... Luffy feels too articulate in this trailer.  The Luffy of the manga and anime is the quintessential dumbass protagonist.  He's got a dream he's chasing, but outside of that he's kind of a morally gray agent of chaos and idiot savant driven by an enormous appetite and severe ADHD.  He runs on cartoon logic at most times, and his whims are frequently nonsensical even to the people who know him best.  Manga and anime Luffy is a heroic cryptid who pops out of the woodwork to do the most incomprehensible or illogical things, befriend people seemingly at random, and then disappear after beating up anyone who threatens the people he decided were friends or are just stronger than him and dumb enough to flex about it in front of him.  Live action Luffy feels more like a slightly exciteable standard action/adventure protagonist than the Leeroy Jenkins dumbass that Luffy is supposed to be.  

This type of character generally only works well with animation exaggerations. 

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's one hundred chapters of material that they're squeezing into eight episodes, with six separate major battles.

This is why it will likely get cancelled and then the general media who never read the Manga, will blame the Manga story for being poor. 

[no3Ljm]

My expectations is low. I didn't watch the anime. Looks like fun. So why not? 

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

This, right here, is pretty much an encapsulation of my thoughts on the series so far.

I can hardly wait for this beautiful disaster.

[Big s]

On 7/21/2023 at 7:11 PM, Old_Nash_II said:

trailer 2

Well, I never likes OP, and I will pass this series

 

I’m the same. I did really try to like it, but it was a terrible show. I think I checked out when they had that deer creature. Everyone that I knew that had seen it at the time kept telling me it was great, but I just thought it was trash.

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, Big s said:

I’m the same. I did really try to like it, but it was a terrible show. I think I checked out when they had that deer creature. Everyone that I knew that had seen it at the time kept telling me it was great, but I just thought it was trash.

Shonen anime isn't for everyone.  Mainly, it's for kids as the name would imply.  

I don't blame anyone for struggling with One Piece though.  Its art style and writing style is... pretty out there even by shonen anime standards.  I have a feeling that's probably a big part of why it's so popular and has lasted so long.  It's so incredibly distinctive.  Probably also gonna be a significant part of why the live action series will bomb.

 

21 hours ago, Big s said:

I think I checked out when they had that deer creature.

Gotta admit, I did get a chuckle out of this part in "Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?" terms...

Tony Tony Chopper's been a recurring character since chapter 134 of the manga and episode 81 of the anime.  954 chapters and 990 episodes ago.

I could feel my hair greying writing that... that was twenty-three years ago!

Edited July 27, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Shonen anime isn't for everyone.  Mainly, it's for kids as the name would imply.  

I don't blame anyone for struggling with One Piece though.  Its art style and writing style is... pretty out there even by shonen anime standards.  I have a feeling that's probably a big part of why it's so popular and has lasted so long.  It's so incredibly distinctive.  Probably also gonna be a significant part of why the live action series will bomb.

 

Gotta admit, I did get a chuckle out of this part in "Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?" terms...

Tony Tony Chopper's been a recurring character since chapter 134 of the manga and episode 81 of the anime.  954 chapters and 990 episodes ago.

I could feel my hair greying writing that... that was twenty-three years ago!

I didn’t realize that I must’ve watched 80 something episodes before giving up. I really wasn’t enjoying the show, but I gave it a shot and I don’t think I’d have watched the 1000 or so episodes after that 

[sh9000]

Japanese Trailer.

[no3Ljm]

Behind the Scenes: Inside the Story.

 

Teen Vogue's How Iñaki Godoy became Luffy.

 

WIRED's One Piece Cast Answer 50 of the Most Googled Questions About the Anime & Manga.

 

One Piece Netflix Premiere Drone Show.

 

Japanese Reaction one piece Trailer Netflix.

 

LOO-FEE.

 

[Tking22]

I really like the cast. I've never seen or read One Piece so I feel even if audience reactions aren't strong I should be able to enjoy this anyway, no real connection going in. 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I really like the cast. I've never seen or read One Piece so I feel even if audience reactions aren't strong I should be able to enjoy this anyway, no real connection going in. 

The anime is so bad that even if the live action is a disappointment, it might be an improvement 

[no3Ljm]

Behind the Scenes: Eiichiro Oda meets Iñaki Godoy.

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by no3Ljm

[Old_Nash_II]

Final trailer

[Bolt]

It's really happening. My word, i think i can already hear the sound of screeching metal. I better make some popcorn for this train wreck. 

[Raikkonen]

On 8/26/2023 at 2:42 AM, Big s said:

The anime is so bad that even if the live action is a disappointment, it might be an improvement 

Majority of anime fans apparently disagree with you... but I, agree with you!

[Raikkonen]

1 hour ago, Old_Nash_II said:

Final trailer

Does the anime have this much "follow you dreams" and "Believe" beaten to death cliches? 

[Bolt]

4 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Majority of anime fans apparently disagree with you... but I, agree with you!

It's true. One Piece is very popular. Even here in the states with (mostly) the younger crowd. Like pre teens. My kid loves the anime and the manga. But wants nothing to do with the live action. 

 

4 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Does the anime have this much "follow you dreams" and "Believe" beaten to death cliches? 

Overall, no. But it does have a few moments like that. Then it remembers itself and gets back to the outrageousness.

[Seto Kaiba]

43 minutes ago, Bolt said:

It's really happening. My word, i think i can already hear the sound of screeching metal. I better make some popcorn for this train wreck. 

It's really happening!

I can hardly wait... a once-in-a-lifetime beautiful disaster is about to unfold, and by the gods I shall have a front row seat and popcorn at the ready.  

 

36 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Does the anime have this much "follow you dreams" and "Believe" beaten to death cliches? 

It comes and goes.

It's much more common very early in the series since the first few story arcs mainly involve Luffy finding the core members of his pirate crew and convincing them to join him.  All of the members of the Straw Hat pirates are motivated to join the crew in order to pursue a particular dream or ambition of theirs that they're eventually convinced becoming part of Luffy's crew will help them achieve.  It gets much less pronounced as the story goes on, mainly since the gap between crew members joining expands from tens of chapters to hundreds.  Luffy's the only one who really goes on about their dream with any regularity, and almost never more than the single sentence declaration that he's going to be king of the pirates as a sort of boast in battle.

The story does sometimes go into exposition dumps that touch on the dreams of antagonists as a prelude to them being defeated, but that's generally only for the sympathetic ones.  

For the most part, Luffy's just an agent of chaos and the crew are people who were caught up in his wake as he rampages across the world like an unstoppable titan with ADHD and FAR too much sugar in his system.

[Raikkonen]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's really happening!

I can hardly wait... a once-in-a-lifetime beautiful disaster is about to unfold, and by the gods I shall have a front row seat and popcorn at the ready.  

 

It comes and goes.

It's much more common very early in the series since the first few story arcs mainly involve Luffy finding the core members of his pirate crew and convincing them to join him.  All of the members of the Straw Hat pirates are motivated to join the crew in order to pursue a particular dream or ambition of theirs that they're eventually convinced becoming part of Luffy's crew will help them achieve.  It gets much less pronounced as the story goes on, mainly since the gap between crew members joining expands from tens of chapters to hundreds.  Luffy's the only one who really goes on about their dream with any regularity, and almost never more than the single sentence declaration that he's going to be king of the pirates as a sort of boast in battle.

The story does sometimes go into exposition dumps that touch on the dreams of antagonists as a prelude to them being defeated, but that's generally only for the sympathetic ones.  

For the most part, Luffy's just an agent of chaos and the crew are people who were caught up in his wake as he rampages across the world like an unstoppable titan with ADHD and FAR too much sugar in his system.

I'm surprised how Bandai released figures in time with this series, there's a lot of faith there. 

Well, they you wrote it, you made the whole concept seem exciting... but after a few attempts of my own not too long ago, I couldn't get into the anime. 

But, I too will have the popcorn ready tomorrow as live action titanics are easier to digest. 

[Raikkonen]

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

It's true. One Piece is very popular. Even here in the states with (mostly) the younger crowd. Like pre teens. My kid loves the anime and the manga. But wants nothing to do with the live action. 

I'm still trying to figure out the whole DBZ phenomena, I have friends in the 40s, parents, and they still mortar themselves on behalf of Goku. 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

I'm surprised how Bandai released figures in time with this series, there's a lot of faith there. 

One Piece is one of the biggest cash cows around... it's only natural Bandai would put an amount of effort commensurate to the return behind it. 

 

2 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Well, they you wrote it, you made the whole concept seem exciting... but after a few attempts of my own not too long ago, I couldn't get into the anime. 

But, I too will have the popcorn ready tomorrow as live action titanics are easier to digest. 

No shame in that... One Piece is an odd title and a difficult title to get into for some because of its unique art style and the incredibly bizarre way the story presents itself thanks to its manic agent-of-chaos protagonist.

I wouldn't call myself a fan, but what I will say is that Oda has built a deceptively deep and complex world for his story... it's easy to get lost in it.  Especially now that there are over 1,000 chapters and episodes.

 

1 minute ago, Raikkonen said:

I'm still trying to figure out the whole DBZ phenomena, I have friends in the 40s, parents, and they still mortar themselves on behalf of Goku. 

It's kinda a "what you grew up with" thing... Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z was pretty much THE shounen title for the older millennials, thanks to being one of the anime titles that you could actually find on public access and cable.

One Piece has kinda become the 800lb gorilla of that, since it's been airing continuously since 1999.

[Raikkonen]

Season 1 all out now. 

I thought they would have released this one weekly. 

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Season 1 all out now. 

I thought they would have released this one weekly. 

 

Come on fan editors... I'm waiting.  

Oh god, I kinda wanna play hooky and just binge this beautiful mess while it's fresh... 

Not surprised they dumped it all at once.  That's kind of been Netflix's particular thing.  Instead of drip feeding it like Disney+ they just toss it out all at once because they KNOW their service is for binge-watching... bless their hearts.  

[Raikkonen]

Surely it can't be worse than the live action adaption of Zom 100??? Or of Full Metal??? 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

28 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Surely it can't be worse than the live action adaption of Zom 100??? Or of Full Metal??? 

A bad adaptation of a classic is somehow worse/more offensive to the eye than a bad adaptation of a regular series or something new.

That's why Netflix's Cowboy Bebop got absolutely CRUCIFIED by the reviewers and audiences alike.  If Cowboy Bebop had not been so beloved and timeless, the Netflix adaptation would just have been a bad TV show instead of downright criminal. 

[Raikkonen]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's why Netflix's Cowboy Bebop got absolutely CRUCIFIED by the reviewers and audiences alike.  If Cowboy Bebop had not been so beloved and timeless, the Netflix adaptation would just have been a bad TV show instead of downright criminal. 

I was able to erase that horror... now the burns return... 

Criminal is too kind of word. 

[Raikkonen]

So... I tried the first 2 episodes. 

This live action take is rather bland and boring, the directing is very TV average while the acting is out of cheap commercials. 

I won't proceed further... 

[Big s]

10 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

So... I tried the first 2 episodes. 

This live action take is rather bland and boring, the directing is very TV average while the acting is out of cheap commercials. 

I won't proceed further... 

sounds about as good as the anime 

[Seto Kaiba]

All right!  It's the weekend and I'm going to sit down and see just how bad One Piece really is.

Over lunch I saw a news piece attempting to claim that One Piece broke the curse of bad anime adaptations, and my gut reaction was naturally "Bullsh*t", but we'll give this a fair shake and see...

 

OK, not gonna lie... I am weirdly disappointed that the opening narration isn't using the one from the One Piece anime that gives the gist of the story's premise.  The narrator in the anime is always rather overdramatic too, but the narration about how the new age of pirates began with the valediction of Gold Roger in which he told the crowd assembled to see his execution that he's left his treasure, which has everything the world has to offer, in one piece and that it was up for grabs.  This new opening narration is so much more generic and uninspiring.

Spoiler

After said narration, they do at least open on Gold Roger's execution... though with a terrible speech by someone with a terrible Scottish accent.

Good lord, is that meant to be Garp?  Garp is Scottish now?  I almost want to complain, but it would explain A LOT.

OK, I was originally going to complain about how Gold Roger's lacking a certain something without his trademark toothy grin in his execution scene... and then he started to laugh.  No, I'm sorry, 100% A+ fantastic casting choice.

THEY LEFT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, THOUGH!  The title - and the name of the titular treasure - comes from Gold Roger's valediction!  He promises his treasure contains all the world has to offer in one piece.  That's why the treasure is known as "the one piece" in the story.  THEY LEFT IT OUT!  Ugh!  You had ONE JOB Netflix! ONE!  Also, they got the method of execution wrong.  Gold Roger was beheaded, not stabbed.

They've put a couple extra faces into the crowd that I don't remember being there in the original though... Red-Haired Shanks and Dracule Mihawk.

Luffy's quirky so he has to break the fourth wall?  Go **** yourselves Netflix.

Spoiler

OK, seriously... we start with Luffy out in the middle of the ocean on his own bailing water out of his sh*tty little boat for some reason while ostensibly talking to the seagull that brought his newspaper.

I guess they felt the need to do this to show how Luffy ends up adrift in a barrel at the start of the story.  

OK, I have to give them points again for something...

Spoiler

Alvida's ship is a fairly faithful rendering of what she had in the manga... but as an extra, over-the-top touch, the cannonballs her crew are firing explode into clouds of pink, fluttering, paper hearts.  That is so incredibly on brand for Alvida and One Piece that I can't help but give them credit for it.

That said, it's ****ing weird seeing Alvida with actual human proportions.  I guess they backed down to avoid causing a stir, but in the original work Alvida was grotesquely obese, hideously ugly, and quite sensitive about both... whereas this version is merely a bit chubby.  She's also missing most of her bad boss tendencies.

Spoiler

They've changed up the order of events a bit... Luffy now pops out of his barrel aboard Alvida's ship instead of aboard the passenger ship.  He's also WAY too articulate and together in this.  Luffy is a borderline heroic cryptid.  He moves through the story of One Piece as a borderline inscruitable agent of chaos with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a questionable idea of how "friendship" works, and the appetite of a black hole.  That would probably be impossible to properly adapt in any intelligible way, but for our purposes it means life-action Luffy feels too intelligent, too articulate, and too focused to be Luffy.

Like, he's taking the time to have an actual conversation with Coby to explain his motivations and backstory.  That is so wildly out of character for Luffy I can hardly express it.  

The set design is absolutely amazing though.  Just absolutely amazing.  You can really tell where the money went.

Spoiler

Of course, now that I've said that, we get a moment that's actually on-brand for Luffy... where he cluelessly admits he has no idea what direction is what, then introduces himself to Alvida with a goofy grin and announces his intention to be king of the pirates.

I love that they faithfully reproduced Alvida's club from the anime for the actual fight though.

But I was right when I assumed at the outset that Luffy's devil fruit powers were going to look like absolute crap.  Really, there was no chance that they were going to actually look good/impressive because it is a REALLY cartoony power set that kind of calls for late 90's The Mask-grade CG.  

Spoiler

I... I guess it makes sense that Roronoa Zoro would be more overtly Japanese in this since the manga revealed after something like 900 chapters that his family is from an island in the New World that's basically just feudal Japan.  It does feel rather out of place this early in the story though.

Baroque Works trying to recruit Zoro is a bit odd though, esp. since at this point in the story he's just a normal bounty hunter who is only really feared in the least dangerous part of the world (East Blue).

Him flipping off Mister Seven is, however, completely on brand.

OK, we could show Mister Seven getting bisected Darth Maul style but not the beheading of Gold Roger?  Why?!

... and it's back to the flashback...

Nice easter egg though... the music in the tavern is "Binks's sake", a song that becomes very important MUCH later in the story.

Spoiler

... about thirty volumes later, at the start of Thriller Bark, when the song is introduced being performed by the undead pirate Humming Brook.  It's his signature song.

Can't say I care for this version of Luffy getting his powers though.

Spoiler

Instead of Shanks showing off the Gum-Gum fruit and explaining it, Luffy just kind of finds it in an unattended pile of luggage and decides to take a bite of it even though it looks more like an artsy piece of lead shot.  He also eats the entire thing in bites, even though devil fruit tastes terrible and just one bite is enough to gain the curse.

They also kinda bungled the bandit's confrontation with Shanks... especially since it's one of the story's most hilarious-in-hindsight "Bullying a dragon" moments.

Spoiler

Since that bandit is a tiny small time criminal just barely making enough of a nuisance of himself to have a bounty on his head while Shanks was just a few years away from becoming one of the Four Emperors.

So, I knew this was a compressed adaptation... but we're not even thirty minutes into the first episode and they've already got rid of Alvida and are introducing Buggy, Nami, and Axe-Hand Morgan?  I hate to say it feels like we're rushing but we're RUSHING.

Spoiler

Zoro drags Mister Seven's bisected carcass into the bar for some reason?

Wow... Helmeppo looks even worse than I expected.  The bob cut he had in the original was bad, this is just... instead of looking like a spoiled brat with questionable fashion sense he's a ridiculous hat away from looking like a pimp.

Spoiler

Though it's undeniably satisfying to watch Zoro body him and half a dozen marines without trying.

It's like they spent all the money on the set design, CG ships, and fight choreography and forgot to hire anyone who knew how to write or act. 

The over-the-top acting is probably meant to be that way... and it's absolutely faithful to the original work where everyone is so hammy the production can't be called kosher... but combined with the loving rendered ships and sets it combines with Luffy's sh*tty CG to make the whole thing feel like a paradoxically bad FMV video game.

One Piece can't be called a serious story by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like two separate teams are working at cross purposes here.  The set design and prop teams were clearly told they were doing a pirate story and were going to play it laser straight and realistic, while the writers and actors were clearly told to be as cartoony as possible.  The end result is downright surreal.

Spoiler

"Get lost."
"I am lost."
is about the most Zoro exchange ever... which makes it weird that Luffy is the one delivering it.

... and again, Luffy is way too coherent and articulate.  Inaki Godoy at least seems to realize what kind of show he's in and is 100% not taking this seriously.

Spoiler

... and we get an astonishingly creepy scene of Helmeppo in the nude, playing with Zoro's swords and admiring himself in the mirror, until Zoro walks in on him.

The sheer amount of "I forgot I had superpowers" going on here for Luffy is kind of impressive.  I guess the CG is just too expensive to use on a regular basis.

I'm also unaccountably disappointed that Morgan wasn't crushed under his own statue like in the original.  

Spoiler

So they DID give Helmeppo his original hair... but as a punishment.  Zoro apparently cut it for him.

They also left out some rather important character development in a few places...

Spoiler

For instance, the Marines don't get depicted as fundamentally decent people who believe in justice and just have a jerk for a boss since they never get the chance to explain that Axe-Hand Morgan was a complete tyrant or thank Luffy for defeating him so he could be punished for his crimes by his superiors.  Coby isn't shown joining the Marines then and there either.

... and then the episode ends with one of Buggy's men explaining the theft of the map to Buggy, who vows to steal it himself.

 

 

All in all... as of the end of the first episode, it's not terrible it's just all over the place.  "Indecisive", in a word.

It feels like the creative team working on Netflix's One Piece were really struggling to reconcile the original One Piece's heavy emphasis on comedy with its nature as an adventure series about pirates.  The original work is unapologetically comedic 99% of the time with attack names full of puns and overreactions and idiot behavior.  Here, it sort of flip-flops frequently between pure comedy and pure seriousness in a way that doesn't feel quite natural.  Like channel surfing back and forth between James Bond and Johnny English.  It's kind of the opposite problem Cowboy Bebop had, where they kept trying to inject comedy into a serious noir story... in One Piece they don't know how to make the comedy that is supposed to be there work with the parts of the story that aren't inherently comedic in nature.

It's not So Bad It's Good, So Bad It's Awful, or So Bad It's Exiting The Critical Spectrum at Velocities Exceeding C yet... but it's not good either.  It's... mediocre?  Unremarkable?  Inoffensive?  Like, it's very pretty but it doesn't leave much of an impression.

 

EDIT: Next episode is presumably going to cover the fight with Buggy the Clown... and as he's my favorite One Piece character I really am somewhat anxious about that.  Partly because Buggy in the original is an ineffectual comic relief villain until Impel Down when he becomes the poster child for Imposter Syndrome, and partly because this version of Buggy seems to be going for a "scary clown" angle ala Heath Ledger's overhyped Joker.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All right!  It's the weekend and I'm going to sit down and see just how bad One Piece really is.

Over lunch I saw a news piece attempting to claim that One Piece broke the curse of bad anime adaptations, and my gut reaction was naturally "Bullsh*t", but we'll give this a fair shake and see...

 

OK, not gonna lie... I am weirdly disappointed that the opening narration isn't using the one from the One Piece anime that gives the gist of the story's premise.  The narrator in the anime is always rather overdramatic too, but the narration about how the new age of pirates began with the valediction of Gold Roger in which he told the crowd assembled to see his execution that he's left his treasure, which has everything the world has to offer, in one piece and that it was up for grabs.  This new opening narration is so much more generic and uninspiring.

  Reveal hidden contents

After said narration, they do at least open on Gold Roger's execution... though with a terrible speech by someone with a terrible Scottish accent.

Good lord, is that meant to be Garp?  Garp is Scottish now?  I almost want to complain, but it would explain A LOT.

OK, I was originally going to complain about how Gold Roger's lacking a certain something without his trademark toothy grin in his execution scene... and then he started to laugh.  No, I'm sorry, 100% A+ fantastic casting choice.

THEY LEFT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, THOUGH!  The title - and the name of the titular treasure - comes from Gold Roger's valediction!  He promises his treasure contains all the world has to offer in one piece.  That's why the treasure is known as "the one piece" in the story.  THEY LEFT IT OUT!  Ugh!  You had ONE JOB Netflix! ONE!  Also, they got the method of execution wrong.  Gold Roger was beheaded, not stabbed.

They've put a couple extra faces into the crowd that I don't remember being there in the original though... Red-Haired Shanks and Dracule Mihawk.

Luffy's quirky so he has to break the fourth wall?  Go **** yourselves Netflix.

  Reveal hidden contents

OK, seriously... we start with Luffy out in the middle of the ocean on his own bailing water out of his sh*tty little boat for some reason while ostensibly talking to the seagull that brought his newspaper.

I guess they felt the need to do this to show how Luffy ends up adrift in a barrel at the start of the story.  

OK, I have to give them points again for something...

  Reveal hidden contents

Alvida's ship is a fairly faithful rendering of what she had in the manga... but as an extra, over-the-top touch, the cannonballs her crew are firing explode into clouds of pink, fluttering, paper hearts.  That is so incredibly on brand for Alvida and One Piece that I can't help but give them credit for it.

That said, it's ****ing weird seeing Alvida with actual human proportions.  I guess they backed down to avoid causing a stir, but in the original work Alvida was grotesquely obese, hideously ugly, and quite sensitive about both... whereas this version is merely a bit chubby.  She's also missing most of her bad boss tendencies.

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They've changed up the order of events a bit... Luffy now pops out of his barrel aboard Alvida's ship instead of aboard the passenger ship.  He's also WAY too articulate and together in this.  Luffy is a borderline heroic cryptid.  He moves through the story of One Piece as a borderline inscruitable agent of chaos with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a questionable idea of how "friendship" works, and the appetite of a black hole.  That would probably be impossible to properly adapt in any intelligible way, but for our purposes it means life-action Luffy feels too intelligent, too articulate, and too focused to be Luffy.

Like, he's taking the time to have an actual conversation with Coby to explain his motivations and backstory.  That is so wildly out of character for Luffy I can hardly express it.  

The set design is absolutely amazing though.  Just absolutely amazing.  You can really tell where the money went.

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Of course, now that I've said that, we get a moment that's actually on-brand for Luffy... where he cluelessly admits he has no idea what direction is what, then introduces himself to Alvida with a goofy grin and announces his intention to be king of the pirates.

I love that they faithfully reproduced Alvida's club from the anime for the actual fight though.

But I was right when I assumed at the outset that Luffy's devil fruit powers were going to look like absolute crap.  Really, there was no chance that they were going to actually look good/impressive because it is a REALLY cartoony power set that kind of calls for late 90's The Mask-grade CG.  

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I... I guess it makes sense that Roronoa Zoro would be more overtly Japanese in this since the manga revealed after something like 900 chapters that his family is from an island in the New World that's basically just feudal Japan.  It does feel rather out of place this early in the story though.

Baroque Works trying to recruit Zoro is a bit odd though, esp. since at this point in the story he's just a normal bounty hunter who is only really feared in the least dangerous part of the world (East Blue).

Him flipping off Mister Seven is, however, completely on brand.

OK, we could show Mister Seven getting bisected Darth Maul style but not the beheading of Gold Roger?  Why?!

... and it's back to the flashback...

Nice easter egg though... the music in the tavern is "Binks's sake", a song that becomes very important MUCH later in the story.

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... about thirty volumes later, at the start of Thriller Bark, when the song is introduced being performed by the undead pirate Humming Brook.  It's his signature song.

Can't say I care for this version of Luffy getting his powers though.

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Instead of Shanks showing off the Gum-Gum fruit and explaining it, Luffy just kind of finds it in an unattended pile of luggage and decides to take a bite of it even though it looks more like an artsy piece of lead shot.  He also eats the entire thing in bites, even though devil fruit tastes terrible and just one bite is enough to gain the curse.

They also kinda bungled the bandit's confrontation with Shanks... especially since it's one of the story's most hilarious-in-hindsight "Bullying a dragon" moments.

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Since that bandit is a tiny small time criminal just barely making enough of a nuisance of himself to have a bounty on his head while Shanks was just a few years away from becoming one of the Four Emperors.

So, I knew this was a compressed adaptation... but we're not even thirty minutes into the first episode and they've already got rid of Alvida and are introducing Buggy, Nami, and Axe-Hand Morgan?  I hate to say it feels like we're rushing but we're RUSHING.

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Zoro drags Mister Seven's bisected carcass into the bar for some reason?

Wow... Helmeppo looks even worse than I expected.  The bob cut he had in the original was bad, this is just... instead of looking like a spoiled brat with questionable fashion sense he's a ridiculous hat away from looking like a pimp.

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Though it's undeniably satisfying to watch Zoro body him and half a dozen marines without trying.

It's like they spent all the money on the set design, CG ships, and fight choreography and forgot to hire anyone who knew how to write or act. 

The over-the-top acting is probably meant to be that way... and it's absolutely faithful to the original work where everyone is so hammy the production can't be called kosher... but combined with the loving rendered ships and sets it combines with Luffy's sh*tty CG to make the whole thing feel like a paradoxically bad FMV video game.

One Piece can't be called a serious story by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like two separate teams are working at cross purposes here.  The set design and prop teams were clearly told they were doing a pirate story and were going to play it laser straight and realistic, while the writers and actors were clearly told to be as cartoony as possible.  The end result is downright surreal.

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"Get lost."
"I am lost."
is about the most Zoro exchange ever... which makes it weird that Luffy is the one delivering it.

... and again, Luffy is way too coherent and articulate.  Inaki Godoy at least seems to realize what kind of show he's in and is 100% not taking this seriously.

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... and we get an astonishingly creepy scene of Helmeppo in the nude, playing with Zoro's swords and admiring himself in the mirror, until Zoro walks in on him.

The sheer amount of "I forgot I had superpowers" going on here for Luffy is kind of impressive.  I guess the CG is just too expensive to use on a regular basis.

I'm also unaccountably disappointed that Morgan wasn't crushed under his own statue like in the original.  

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So they DID give Helmeppo his original hair... but as a punishment.  Zoro apparently cut it for him.

They also left out some rather important character development in a few places...

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For instance, the Marines don't get depicted as fundamentally decent people who believe in justice and just have a jerk for a boss since they never get the chance to explain that Axe-Hand Morgan was a complete tyrant or thank Luffy for defeating him so he could be punished for his crimes by his superiors.  Coby isn't shown joining the Marines then and there either.

... and then the episode ends with one of Buggy's men explaining the theft of the map to Buggy, who vows to steal it himself.

 

 

All in all... as of the end of the first episode, it's not terrible it's just all over the place.  "Indecisive", in a word.

It feels like the creative team working on Netflix's One Piece were really struggling to reconcile the original One Piece's heavy emphasis on comedy with its nature as an adventure series about pirates.  The original work is unapologetically comedic 99% of the time with attack names full of puns and overreactions and idiot behavior.  Here, it sort of flip-flops frequently between pure comedy and pure seriousness in a way that doesn't feel quite natural.  Like channel surfing back and forth between James Bond and Johnny English.  It's kind of the opposite problem Cowboy Bebop had, where they kept trying to inject comedy into a serious noir story... in One Piece they don't know how to make the comedy that is supposed to be there work with the parts of the story that aren't inherently comedic in nature.

It's not So Bad It's Good, So Bad It's Awful, or So Bad It's Exiting The Critical Spectrum at Velocities Exceeding C yet... but it's not good either.  It's... mediocre?  Unremarkable?  Inoffensive?  Like, it's very pretty but it doesn't leave much of an impression.

 

EDIT: Next episode is presumably going to cover the fight with Buggy the Clown... and as he's my favorite One Piece character I really am somewhat anxious about that.  Partly because Buggy in the original is an ineffectual comic relief villain until Impel Down when he becomes the poster child for Imposter Syndrome, and partly because this version of Buggy seems to be going for a "scary clown" angle ala Heath Ledger's overhyped Joker.

Now if they can get this series together in one piece...

[jvmacross]

So I started watching One Piece because I'm still paying for Netflix and just finished S3 of The Witcher....so have to try and justify the monthly bill!

I have to say I am enjoying it so far....I couldn't get past 2 episodes of the original cartoon so was expecting the worst for the live-action (especially since I couldn't get past the first episode of the last "anime live-action" adaptation on Netflix)....I think I know why I am making it further on the live-action version...and it is mostly for the same reason I can't stand anime in general...the voice actors they use in the dubs are awful and just turn me off from continuing to watch pretty much all recent anime....i like the actors chosen for this show and somehow find myself liking Monkey!  He's a "simpleton" as one character described him, but somewhat likeable..and I look forward each time he warns his enemies when they "mess with his friends"....anyways, I think they have captured "enough" of the silliness of the "One Piece World" so it is not completely ridiculous, like the Snail Phone?  Can someone explain that....or better yet...don't!....It is just enough weirdness to allow me to suspend disbelief and still manage to enjoy visiting this strange world for an hour or so at a time...