One Piece Live Action (TV series)

Recently, Netflix released eight episodes of a One Piece live action series. This follows an unfortunate history of flops when attempting to translate anime into live action. However, this time it was being done with the guidance of the original creator and promotional material showed a strong financial investment. As the most popular anime series globally and one of the longest running, if ever a live action was going to work, it would be now.

Not only is it popular, One Piece is also extremely long running, being an ongoing series published 26 years ago, and presently consisting of over 1000 chapters of manga and 20 seasons of animation. The live action wisely chose not to try and make a complete story, instead covering the Strawhats adventures in the East Blue. 

I follow the One Piece manga but I don't have the dogged devotion that so many fans seem to. I have my criticisms, but clearly I consider it a series worth following. I've never watched any of the notorious attempts at adapting animes to live action before, but this one piqued my interest.

I just finished all eight of the episodes, so let's get into it.

We get to see Gold Roger's execution, and it's mostly faithful except he never says "I left everything in one piece". Felt like a bad omission, since this is how the legend of the One Piece was formed. I think it was implied, because they cut away to the title card "One Piece", but it's a little too artsy for my liking. I would have preferred they played it straight.

Alvida felt like an appropriate introduction to piracy. The actress felt menacing, powerful, cruel, and ambitious, unlike her original portrayal, which was goofy and pathetic. I appreciated the change in tone and I hope they don't replace her with a thinner actress when she gains the power of the Slip-Slip Fruit, which in the source material causes her to lose weight. Despite being more fearsome, she isn't more powerful and loses handily to Luffy, which I think is okay because this is the first time we see Luffy showcase his powers.

 I liked Coby too. The actor is good at portraying his delicateness combined with his sense of honour. 

A big worry for me was how they would handle Luffy's stretching. As a power, elasticity has never been done well in a live action. It looked goofy, but it suits his character so I think they did the best that they could with it. So this could potentially be two milestones for live action: the first adequate anime adaptation, and also the first competent demonstration of stretching powers.

Seeing Zoro put on the rack irked me. If he were the type to get in bar fights with corrupt Navy officials and then fall for fake promises, it doesn't seem like he would have survived this long. However, we see later in the series that he frequently risks his life over foolish things. He's my least favourite Strawhat, so it makes sense that his story would rub me the wrong way. Portrayal is fairly accurate.

Nami gets introduced earlier. She's after the map of the Grandline, same as Luffy, and they wind up allying. Out of necessity, they, along with Zoro, escape on the same ship. This makes sense when we look at how they modified Buggy's arc.

They buffed Axe Hand Morgan. In the original, he's a loser that only thinks he's strong because he falsely believes he's the one that killed Kuro. This is still true, but in the show he manages to put up a decent fight against both Luffy and Zoro. Zoro even says "It's not just his hand, his whole body's a weapon".

The Buggy arc was changed significantly. No Buggy Balls. Chouchou is only seen as a cameo at the end. Mohji is only seen briefly and Richie is only referenced. I'd guess that getting an actual lion would be pricey, but they managed the Sea King that bit off Shanks' arm so who knows. Instead of confronting Buggy, the three of them are captured and it becomes an escape arc. In general, the live action doesn't follow the pattern of the Strawhats getting into one-on-one fights, which is fine by me.

Going into Syrup Village, Usopp doesn't have the pointy nose which is supposed to resemble Pinocchio, and his lips are thinner, but the actor still does a good job of showcasing him. It was probably a good decision to take away his more iconic features, as they wouldn't translate well to an actual human. 

I liked Kaya's actress too. In my opinion, they did a better job of making her feel frail and sickly than the source material did. In the illustrated versions, there is an annoying trend of making the female characters look extremely similar, and every time the live action avoids this feels gratifying.

Biggest changes to the Syrup Village arc are that Sham and Buchi get more shine, but at the expense of Django, who is completely omitted. Garp, Coby and Helmeppo get an extra bit of story too. There are also no Usopp Pirates.

I enjoyed Coby's expanded role. He had enough shine at the beginning that it wouldn't feel right to drop him. It's nice to watch his developing dynamic with Helmeppo, since we see that they become friends in the illustrated versions, but we don't see how they get there. The way it was shown felt natural and earned.

Zoro getting knocked out with a bottle by Sham was annoying. Not him being knocked out, but the fact that Kuro referred to him as a "body" and has him thrown down a well before ensuring he was dead. Most unrealistic bit of the entire season. Not very smart of "Thousand Plans" Kuro. 

It was interesting that they decided to expand on Zoro's backstory with Kuina's insecurity about being a female fighter, and in the same episode they had Sham fighting Zoro. She is by no means the top cat on her crew, but still a relevant and capable fighter in her own right. I wonder if that was intentional. She's gender-swapped from the original Sham.

They actually let Usopp and Kaya kiss!

Maybe I'll mention here that Gaimon's story is omitted entirely. He got Tom Bombadill'd

There were significant changes to the Baratie arc as well. Krieg is no longer the main antagonist, instead it's Arlong as kind of a prelude to the Arlong Park arc. I feel kind of bittersweet about this choice. Krieg was a good introduction to the perils of the Grandline. He does appear in Mihawk's introduction, but since he doesn't get to showcase his power against the Strawhats, it doesn't give as good an indication of what they're up against going forward. 

It was kind of weird how Luffy had to do dishes to pay off his debt at the Baratie and then the rest of the crew kept eating and drinking. They can pay, but their captain can't?

It was a shame to see Gin's role reduced. Sanji still gets to save him from starvation, but Gin not being able to kill him later because of the kindness he had shown was a solid way of demonstrating how Sanji's values impact people.

Coby's squad gets a live action-exclusive role again. Garp asks Mihawk to handle Luffy, which leads to him and Coby having a conversation about the Warlord System and its relevancy. Although Garp calling in Mihawk, one of the strongest pirates in the world, notoriously brutal even among pirates, and with only a very tenuous sense of obligation to the World Government, to capture Luffy seemed excessive on Garp's part, especially since we later learn that in his mind he's looking out for Luffy's well-being.

I cringed when Zoro made his vow to never lose again after his defeat by Mihawk. They had to include it because it's integral to his story, but I just never liked it. It makes all his fights boring, because you know he can't lose without breaking his vow. Besides, he does lose after that. He at least loses to Enel and Kuma. Even if you say those weren't sword fights, it makes swordsmen look weaker because Zoro only feels vulnerable against foes that don't use blades.

I like the fact that Zoro is officially called the First Mate. His ambiguous role on the ship is in contention with fans, so it was nice to have it made clear, at least in the live action.

Buggy is brought back as a tool for Arlong to track down the Strawhats and subsequently their map to the Grandline. In general, Buggy's role is expanded, both here and later as he helps the Strawhats find Arlong Park. 

When he's initially captured by Kuroobi, I felt it might be confusing to people who've only seen the live action. Buggy was demonstrated to be invulnerable against physical attacks when he fought Luffy, but Kuroobi beats him down with Fishman Karate. If you follow the source material, this can be explained away with Haki, although Kuroobi was never confirmed to have it.

I was disappointed to see Zeff willing to feed the Arlong Pirates without a fight, since the Fighting Cooks are named such because they're supposed to be able to protect their restaurant. Seeing Sanji fight Kuroobi, then later seeing Kuroobi come to back up Arlong, and after that Sanji showing up to save Luffy looking no worse for where leads questions as to how that fight panned out.

Sanji's eyebrows are not swirly. I feel like they could have kept his swirly brows with a little bit of quick makeup. I understand that they wouldn't be able to keep one eye covered at all times, and since his eyebrows swirl in the 99 pattern to contrast his siblings, which swirl 66, I think having his brows swirl in opposite directions would have been better than omitting them entirely. If they ever get to Germa 66, they could just have the eyebrow difference be an outer vs inner swirl.

Sanji's accent is British, not French. To be honest, it never made sense for him to be French, since his family is German. He still shouts his attack names in French though, which to be fair is based on French cuisine, him being a chef. Still quite the blend of cultural references.

In Arlong Park, they omitted Momoo and Hachi. Both these characters have later relevance, especially Hachi who introduces the Sabaody Archipelago arc and was heavily involved with Fishman Island arc. I guess they figured he'd be too difficult to adapt, although if the multiple arms thing is a deterrent, I don't know how they're going to handle Robin, whose ability most commonly manifests as sprouting arms. I don't really know what they're going to do without Hachi. Maybe they'll replace his role with Kuroobi, who seems to have been repurposed as Arlong's #2.

They let Usopp get his matchup with Chew, and without Hachi, this means Sanji and Zoro have to share Kuroobi. Since it takes two to take him down while Luffy solos Arlong, weirdly Kuroobi feels stronger than his captain.

Arlong gets defeated halfway through the last episode. I always find it awkward when there's so much time left after a story's climax. I kind of wish they didn't finish with a showdown between Garp and Luffy. I don't think Garp ever accepts Luffy to the point that he does in the live action. The marines should have arrived to capture the Arlong Pirates and not have crossed paths with the Strawhats, in my opinion.

That's it as far as the story goes. In addition, I like that they mention Bogard by name. He's Garp's second in command, but he isn't named in either the manga or anime. He's only referred to as "Bogard" in the credits of the anime, so the live action is the first to name him in the story.

I loved seeing Nami refer to her sea charts all the time. Her stated dream in the source material is to chart the first map of the world, which in my opinion is one of the cooler ambitions. But we don't see her doing it outside her story in Arlong Park. It's easy to imagine her working on them behind the scenes, and I understand it's not the most exciting thing to show, but in my opinion her dream is more impactful when you see her working toward it.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty good adaptation. I agreed with most of the creative decisions in altering the plot. My biggest complaint was replacing Krieg for Arlong as lead antagonist on the Baratie. It made for good continuity in establishing Arlong before his main arc, and it brought Buggy back, but I don't think it was worth sacrificing Krieg's contribution to hyping up the Grandline and Gin's contribution in establishing Sanji's character.

So, subtracting the Baratie arc would mean that I approve of six out of eight of the episodes.