Dragoness Eclectic's Journal

I have of course been a fan of the anime "One Piece" for a long time, following the often bonkers adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, the boy with rubber stretching powers who wants to be the Pirate King, and his crew of other oddballs: Roronoa Zoro, inventor of the Santoryu (three-sword-style) fighting technique, in which he uses one sword in each hand and one in his mouth, who wants to become the world's greatest swordsman; Nami, navigator and sometime thief whose ambition is to map the entire world; Usopp, tinkerer and absolutely inhumanly good sniper who wants to overcome his inherent cowardice and braggadocio to become a true warrior of the sea; Brook, a literally living skeleton who loves music as much as the sea, and has to complete a journey to reunite with an old, old friend; Sanji, fabulous cook with equally fabulous  combat footwork and the goal of reaching the legendary "All-Blue", a sea where every type of creature found in any of the multiple seas can be found; Robin, archaeologist and fugitive from the World Government for her forbidden knowledge, seeking the answer to what happened during the missing "Void Century"; Chopper, a reindeer who ate the "Human-Human" fruit that made him a freak in both human and reindeer worlds, who wants nothing more than to be a doctor who can cure any illness; and Franky, engineer and shipwright who follows in the footsteps of his mentor and wants the new Pirate King to be sailing a ship made by his hands. (more recently they added Jimbei, a former Warlord of the Sea who believes Luffy has the potential to change the world)

One Piece has been running pretty much continuously since 1999 (the manga started in 1997), having taken its first real break of several months just this year -- leading to the joke that now One Piece will have a second season, the first season having spanned 26 years and well over a thousand episodes (and additional movies and specials). 

Given all that, when I heard that Netflix was going to attempt a One Piece live action adaptation I was, well, *dubious* would be an understatement. As a general rule, live action adaptations of anime have ranged from okay (some of the Japanese live action adaptations of their own work) to abysmal (Dragonball Evolution, for instance), but Netflix? An adaptation of something so quirky and bizarre as One Piece? Something so HUGE as One Piece? If they were going to cover even a small FRACTION of the anime they'd have to compress the events and action. They'd need to find a way to make all the ridiculous elements of the show WORK on a live action stage. It would be insanely expensive to do right, and I was pretty sure it would suffer the same fate as Dragonball Evolution: the producers would shy away from the truly bonkers elements of the One Piece world and try to make it more "normal", and kill it. 

And if they DID somehow pull off a miracle, they'd never be able to MAINTAIN it.

I was, fortunately, dead wrong. 

One Piece Live Action is 99.99% perfect. The casting is fabulous, the acting excellent, and most importantly the world of One Piece is being brought to life in absolutely insanely loving detail, right down to the communications through "DenDen Mushi" snails -- snails that somehow are usable as radio-telephones in an otherwise mostly 1700s-1800s world. Oda, the creator of One Piece, has been directly involved in the production and casting, and it shows brilliantly. 

 Iñaki Godoy as Luffy hits every note flawlessly. The infectious smile, the innocent cluelessness that sometimes hides a sharp understanding, the stubborn mulish will, and his absolute loyalty shines through every scene. Whether he's dead serious protecting his friends or utterly clowning around at a party, Godoy's Luffy is exactly who he's supposed to be at every moment, and CONVINCING as such. You can believe that people end up following this sometimes-childish yet always reliable young man, and that he just may become King of the Pirates. 

Emily Rudd as Nami brings the sensibility and sometimes frustrated sharpness of the most PRACTICAL member of the Straw Hat crew into beautiful focus. More, she's able to bring the depth of emotions that Luffy often tries to skate over (not because he doesn't feel them, but because his spirit, like his body, is resilient and bounces back quickly). In particular, she absolutely SELLS one of the most moving and crucial scenes in all of early One Piece when Nami breaks down after the vicious and cruel Arlong shows that all her sacrifices to protect her home are useless, and then finally swallows her pride and fear enough to tearfully, uncertainly say to Luffy, "...help me.". 

Mackenyu's Roronoa Zoro is the perfect counterbalance, the quiet, serious, sometimes grim shadow to Luffy's erratic and brilliant light. He's not incapable of lighter moments, but his "serious swordsman" persona is vital to keeping the chaotic Luffy and some of the other crewmembers focused and on point when necessary. And he is, beyond doubt, serious about his art. The live-action show perfectly showcases this in another of the classic scenes, in which Zoro has his first duel with Dracule Mihawk, the acknowledged greatest living swordsman, and after he has been roundly defeated, accepts Mihawk's retributive strike head-on, for "wounds on the back are a swordsman's greatest shame". 

Taz Skylar brings the cultured gourmet Sanji to life, with his cooking skills vital to the crew and his brilliant kick-focused combat equally vital when they get into a pinch. It appears that Oda and Netflix agreed that one aspect of Sanji needed to be kept as it originally was and not allowed to "flanderize": that is, Sanji is not the occasional lech/out of control skirt chaser that he sometimes is in the anime. Instead, he is a gentleman, obviously highly appreciative of female company, but always respectful and in control of himself. This is, in my view, a vast improvement over the anime. 

Similarly, Jacob Gibson gives us a just slightly less comedic Usopp, which works beautifully in the live action context. I'm glad they didn't decide to mark him with a ludicrously long nose, as he has in the anime; that would've been a bit too much. Usopp wants to be a hero, but has less confidence than he needs and is, honestly, outclassed by the heavy hitters he's surrounded by. But he is far from useless, and the live action series gives him a chance to shine without changing his essential nature. 

Honestly, I could go through the entire cast, from Nico Robin to Smoker to Arlong and Dory and Brogy and all the rest and keep repeating how wonderfully they bring these characters -- often ridiculous characters -- to life on the screen. It's casting fully equal to that in the early MCU, where even the people you thought might not pull it off turned out to be perfect for their roles. 

There have been some people who complain about the individual casting choices; for myself, I think they're ... well, not to put too fine a point on it, idiots. I don't think I've EVER seen a better-cast show in my life. 

And Netflix and their crews have to be given absolutely MAD props for keeping every ridiculous element of the world right there on screen, from Luffy's stretchy arms to Zoro's stupid three-sword combat to "Baroque Works" agents with the men having numbers and the women being named for days of the week and each one having an increasingly dorky way of symbolizing it -- down to Mr. 3 literally having his hair standing up in a giant "3" on his head and making Rube Goldberg wax sculptures for executing people, to having the "Unluckies" -- the execution squad of Baroque Works -- be a team of a sentient otter and vulture equipped with machine guns.

And they somehow make it WORK. Some of these things simply SHOULD NOT work on screen, but even as you're thinking "okay, that's just so stupid" you're still following the action and enjoying the actual show. Which is, of course, the POINT of One Piece. 

Most importantly, they haven't removed the underlying anti-authoritarian, pro-humanity elements of the show, the ones that have always made One Piece a little bit more than just a shonen fighting series. It's still a show about caring for people over organizations, of protecting the weak rather than showing off strength, and so on. 

They've somehow managed to trim and compress about 90 episodes of anime into less than 20 episodes of live action, and done it brilliantly. 

Oh, the .01%? I wish they'd make use of a few more of the key pieces of music from the original show. They DO occasionally use part of "We Are", the original theme song, but I'd really like to hear a full-orchestral backed "Overtaken" or "The Very Very Very Strongest", too. 

Looking forward to the third season.