The first episode of Netflix’s “One Piece,” an English live-action adaptation of the long-running Japanese manga series from artist Eiichiro Oda, begins off the identical means that the primary 47 installments of stated manga’s anime adaptation begins. The franchise is about in an unnamed world coated nearly fully by sea, the place piracy runs rampant thanks partly to the execution of the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger. Before his demise, Roger informed onlookers that his life’s treasure, the so-called “One Piece,” was hidden away someplace, and whoever discovered it will be his worthy successor.
In the anime model of this second, Roger’s closing second is dealt with through a roughly 20-second intro to the present’s credit sequence, portrayed as a collection of finely-detailed drawings on a protracted piece of parchment paper. The Netflix collection, which releases all eight of its episodes on Thursday, opts to completely dramatize the execution: Roger is performed (inexplicably) by Michael Dorman of “For All Mankind” fame, caked in make-up and a pretend mustache meant to resemble Oda’s unique character design. The scene begins by swooping via a bay stuffed with CGI ships, earlier than deciding on a city sq. stuffed with a CGI viewers to the execution. After some onlookers pester him for his treasure’s location, Roger offers his speech concerning the One Piece, and he’s stabbed to demise about three and a half minutes into the episode. Essentially, it’s the identical factor followers of the anime are accustomed to — besides longer, uglier, and never as enjoyable.
Taking an animated property into live-action is nothing new. Disney first did it in the ’90s, when their basic ’60s movies “The Jungle Book” and “101 Dalmatians” have been was big-budget, starry household movies that includes the likes of Glenn Close. But within the trendy age of streaming, the place firms aggressively adapts IP and types to fill glutted content material libraries, animation generally feels prefer it’s being handled much less as a totally separate unbiased medium and extra as supply materials for inevitable live-action collection.
Since roughly 2015’s “Cinderella,” Disney has ramped up the discharge of live-action remakes for his or her iconic animated films significantly, burning via so a lot of their well-known classics like “The Little Mermaid” that they’re now producing a live-action model of “Moana,” a movie that’s barely seven years previous. Earlier this month, the corporate debuted the brand new “Star Wars” streaming series “Ahsoka.” Ostensibly, it’s a derivative of “The Mandalorian,” however in observe it features as a sequel to animated collection “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels,” which launched the title character and the vast majority of its ensemble, all now portrayed by totally different actors (Lars Mikkelsen, who performed menacingly horny blue baddie Thrawn in “Rebels,” is the only real voice actor to outlive the bounce to live-action). The costumes and prosthetics make-up are rigorously crafted to mould actors like Rosario Dawson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead within the picture of the CGI cartoons, which is presumably meant to be fan service. It as a substitute has a much more miserable impact, sending an odd message that the animated renditions of those characters, so energetic and vibrant, have been mere check runs for the “real” variations seen within the present.
Netflix, as a relative beginner to the content material sport, doesn’t have the legacy of cartoons to plunger for remakes; they should outsource their money grabs. Increasingly, their technique has been to choose up a few of beloved anime and manga properties and repurpose them in live-action for audiences who presumably aren’t accustomed to the unique. In 2017, the streamer launched “Death Note,” an nearly immediately forgotten teen movie that sanded off the darkish edges of the favored manga collection that it was tailored from. In 2021, there was “Cowboy Bebop,” a live-action remake of arguably essentially the most acclaimed anime of all time, at the very least within the United States. The present, led by a robust John Cho, acquired savage reviews from critics and followers alike, and was canned by the streamer a mere month after it premiered.
Despite these failures, the corporate is seemingly nonetheless satisfied that live-action anime diversifications have some form of viewers on the platform, as a result of they’re persevering with to go full-steam forward on this technique. In addition to “One Piece,” subsequent 12 months will convey us a (second, after the maligned M. Night Shyamalan film) remake of “Avatar: the Last Airbender” — an American collection that aired on Nickelodeon, however one that’s closely indebted to and styled after Japanese animation.
“One Piece” isn’t fairly the catastrophe on the par of “Cowboy Bebop,” partly as a result of it at the very least makes a concentrated effort to embrace its animated roots. Oda’s collection is, possibly greater than “Cowboy Bebop,” too large to disrespect: working constantly since 1997, the manga is the best-selling comedian e-book of all time, with over 516.5 million volumes bought worldwide. It’s additionally a collection that very a lot thrives on the truth that it’s a cartoon, with wacky character designs and powers, like important hero Luffy’s potential to make use of his physique like rubber, that usually make it resemble “Looney Tunes” greater than an motion collection.
The live-action collection tries, to the very best of its potential, to place the world of the manga in an actual life surroundings. The ships are faithfully outlandish; early villain Alvida (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino) instructions a pink vessel with pink hearts on its sails, whereas Luffy and his crew of Straw Hat pirates finally purchase the Going Merry, a ship with a braying sheep carved out of marble for a figurehead. Actors put on costumes correct to the unique manga, with outlandish hairstyles to match; minor character Merry nonetheless inexplicably has ram horns protruding of his head. In one enjoyable visible contact, a number of of the villainous pirates are launched by their wished posters fluttering briefly onto display screen.
The drawback, nonetheless, is that the present is unable to tug the mountains of CGI and unhealthy hairstyling collectively into one thing resembling a coherent inventive model. Anime-inspired movies that made the bounce between mediums easily embody the 2008 “Speed Racer” movie, and 2011’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” primarily based on a Canadian comedian that cribbed from Japanese manga and anime artists. Those tasks labored as a result of that they had the Wachowskis and Edgar Wright behind them, sturdy filmmakers with a watch for the best way to translate the hyperactivity of anime into the true world.
“One Piece” doesn’t have that; its showrunners Steven Maeda and Matt Owens are finest identified, respectively, for his or her work on collection like “CSI: Miami” and “Lost” and Marvel TV reveals like “Luke Cage” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Four totally different administrators, all strong TV journeymen, labored on the present’s first season. The lack of an actual aesthetic imaginative and prescient is constantly obvious, because the colourful units and costumes conflict towards the incessantly washed out and boring lighting. Luffy (performed by Iñaki Godoy, with satan could care allure that would use a greater showcase) and his stretchy limbs typically come throughout as extra horrifying than pleasant. Characters like fishman Arlong (McKinley Belcher III), hulking and singular in animation, are awkward and uninspiring within the flesh. Despite all of the loopy fight kinds that the collection faithfully retains from its supply materials, like bounty hunter Zorro (Mackenyu) utilizing a sword clenched between his tooth, the present by no means fairly manages to choreograph a single genuinely memorable battle scene.
Beyond the inevitable translation struggles from 2D worlds to 3D environments, there are elementary structural modifications that show troublesome for these remakes to surmount. “Cowboy Bebop” and “One Piece” are two very totally different reveals: one is a comparatively transient 26 episode single season with a case-of-the-week format, whereas the opposite is a sprawling epic that has aired a mind-boggling 1,000 episodes since its 1999 premiere. But on Netflix, each have to be molded to suit the limiting format of a streaming drama, the place 10 episodes is the cap for any season of TV and each episode wants to guide through cliffhanger into the following.
For “Cowboy Bebop,” that meant that the quick-paced 20 minute episodes have been traded for torturous hour-long slogs, and the principle character Spike’s famously ambiguous backstory was elaborated on through a draggy, uninteresting working subplot. “One Piece,” in the meantime, rushes via the portion of the manga the place the Straw Hats traverse the East Blue sea in voyage to the Grand Line, the strip of ocean believed to carry the One Piece. In live-action this occurs over eight hour-long episodes; the anime, in the meantime, spent 61 episodes rounding up the primary 5 Straw Hats earlier than setting them off to new waters (one wonders, ought to the present get a second season, how “One Piece” will deal with new additions to the crew that aren’t photogenic youngsters however as a substitute miniature talking reindeer, massive cyborgs, and animated skeletons).
Fan-favorite arcs, just like the battle with Arlong that concludes the season, get condensed significantly right down to an episode and a half if fortunate. To attempt to add some private stakes to Luffy’s story, his grandfather Garp (Vincent Regan), who first seems within the manga within the Grand Line, will get launched earlier as a recurring antagonist, and each episode incorporates a subplot involving him and the Navy cadets he instructions. The addition of Garp saps away valuable time from growing the relationships between the crew, making it exhausting to completely purchase in to their cathartic team-building celebration that closes the final episode.
Considering how a lot story “One Piece” condenses, it’s a light miracle the top outcome manages to be coherent and hit the important thing factors of the manga’s plot. The present, notably, has the help of its unique creator Oda, who served as an government producer on the primary season. By distinction, the creators of the unique “Avatar: the Last Airbender” deserted ship on the live-action remake throughout improvement on account of artistic variations, whereas “Cowboy Bebop” creator Shinichirō Watanabe publicly expressed his displeasure with the Netflix model.
At the identical time although, it’s exhausting to think about followers of the unique manga or anime discovering worth within the live-action “One Piece,” which tells the identical story in constantly lesser style. Its goal viewership feels wildly unsure, as non-anime followers appear unlikely to purchase in to a live-action present with all of the sensibilities and outlandishness of an animated cartoon. The closest factor to an viewers for the collection could also be these intrigued by the unique “One Piece” however intimidated by its size, and are unconcerned by the truth that Netflix will possible cancel the factor earlier than it ever manages to achieve the manga’s (nonetheless forthcoming) conclusion; whether or not there’s sufficient individuals who match that description for this present to succeed stays to be seen.
Live-action animation diversifications aren’t inherently doomed; “One Piece,” if nothing else, doesn’t really feel actively ashamed of what it’s primarily based on, which is a big leap in progress for Netflix’s efforts with anime remakes. But constancy to the supply materials can solely get you up to now when your entire work nonetheless seems like a model extension, a cliff notes model of a greater story, one which has 15 seasons additionally streaming on Netflix. Regardless of how the live-action “One Piece” does, Netflix will proceed to rummage via the pantheon of anime and manga classics for brand spanking new concepts: The Duffer Brothers’ are producing a brand new live-action “Death Note” collection, and a “Pokémon” present is seemingly in early improvement, though nothing’s been heard of that since 2021.
There’s an opportunity these reveals, or “Avatar,” might be good, even terrific; “Speed Racer” reveals it’s not unimaginable to create one thing exhilarating and unique however nonetheless loving to its animated supply materials. But primarily based on Netflix’s observe document with its diversifications, it’s most likely a lot safer simply to stay with the cartoons.
