One Piece didn't need a live action adaptation. I'm so glad it has one.
In spite of its flaws, Netflix's weird and wonderful adventure is full of passion and love
What does it mean to be a ‘fan’ in creative spaces?
I hope we all agree that a passionate adoration for source material alone does not qualify someone to be able to produce something brilliant adjacent to it. You need some aspect of talent or skill to accompany it.
Over the years, however, we’ve seen time and time again failed adaptations of beloved fables, often by directors and showrunners who claim to love the source material and yet don’t quite get it right.
A few weeks back when I was writing about Death Note I mentioned that i really like Adam Wingard’s live action film for how incredibly stupid and outlandish it is with the source material, but I have to concede that in spite of this it is most definitely not a good adaptation.
I’ve not seen the Cowboy Bebop series from a few years ago, but I also have not seen much in the way of praise for it. Unfortunately this does seem to be the rule not the exception.
Adaptation is a scary realm, a place that gingerly balances the desire for the freedom to tell a good story with the weight of expectation that comes from that story already being told well.
Theres no doubt in my mind that any attempt at this is a kind of sunk cost unless you have the right people at the helm, and I went into Netflix’s new adaptation of One Piece expecting something equally competent but lacking that extra oomph.
Reader, imagine my surprise that I absolutely fucking loved it.
One Piece is a triumph for many reasons but it’s far from perfect television. It has that awful streaming service cookie cutter cinematography, in the scenes shot at night you can barely see what’s going on because of the industry’s obsession with ‘natural lighting’ and a lot of the costume designs and sets feel very fake. It’s competent, but its no Pirates of the Caribbean.
Where it really sings, however, is in the casting. I don’t know how the fuck they’ve managed it but somehow every actor in the show captures beautifully the spirit of the character they are playing.
(Straw) hats off in particular to Iñaki Godoy who provides a dynamic, charming and impassioned performance as protagonist Monkey D Luffy. Taking the mantle of one of the manga world’s most iconic and outrageously cartoonish characters, he’s done an absolutely brilliant job of channeling Luffy while putting a little bit of himself into the role too. It’s not picture perfect, but in my eyes it’s something better.
Godoy is accompanied by a great group of actors, who all put something of themselves into these performances. A dry one-to-one approach just wouldn’t have felt as good to me, especially given the aesthetics of the show border on Lazytown the whole thing could so easily have felt cheap and throwaway.
It also helps that, as far as I can tell, everyone is using their native accents for their performances. They should do this more often, its not as immersion breaking as you would think.
This has been the thing that has impressed me the most about the show as I’ve been watching this past week. Role after role after role mantled, cherished and ate all the way up, the acting has proven to be the key to the show’s success for everyone involved. It’s as good a casting job as Lord of the Rings.
I’m not the biggest One Piece fan in the world, I read the manga about a decade ago up until the end of the Alabasta arc and then stopped because manga volumes at the time were £7-10 a pop and I had no money.
I did find with the show that I remembered a lot of what happened, and more importantly how it made me feel. Eichiro Oda, especially in those early chapters, is a masterful storyteller, breathing life into his characters in a way that makes you feel what they feel, and that’s what the cast of the Netflix show do too.
I don’t particularly care about Oda himself giving Godoy and the show his blessing, especially in light of the whole Nobuhiro Watsuki thing, but what I will say is that it is very clear that the showrunners and the cast really cared about doing this story jusice.
One Piece is an institution, beloved by millions, the most sold manga in the world. I cannot imagine that kind of pressure, especially in a post The Last Jedi world it’s something of a poisoned chalice, and yet they looked that job dead in the eyes and did it justice.
Live Action One Piece doesn’t quite nail everything perfectly, one could argue it really didn’t need to be made in the first place and I’m sure those with a keener passion for the manga have far more nuanced takes about the show than I, but I’m grateful to find something that has captured my heart so much.
Well done Straw Hats, you did good.