One Piece Live Action is an upcoming American-Japanese streaming television series developed by Matt Owens and Steven Maeda for Netflix. It is scheduled to premiere on August 31, 2023.
A well-known face in the One Piece community, Arthur Library of Ohara, not only saw the series before any other fan, but also actively participated in the creation of the work by providing his knowledge about the manga and its history.
On Twitter, the user announced the role he played for this live-action, also explaining his impressions of the final result obtained in a thread:
I got to travel to Los Angeles to see parts of the One Piece Live Action early, so here are my thoughts so far! Simply put, a couple complaints aside, it really is everything I could’ve ever wished for, it’s amazing!!
As a disclaimer, obviously I’m biased towards this project, but I also promised the staff I’d judge the show fairly, because it’d be disrespectful to their efforts if I only praised it blindly. This is also not a paid review, just my honest thoughts.
Above all, what really stood out to me about the One Piece Live Action is how incredibly fun it is to simply watch it. The series embraces the goofy and fun-loving nature One Piece has, to the point it had me with a dumb grin on my face during so many scenes.
To me this is a massive strength because it means that even if a scene or dialogue feels too cheesy, it works within the tone of the series and doesn’t feel out of place. However, this still doesn’t mean that a couple of the quips weren’t a bit too awkward and corny.
Though I wasn’t a fan of that, those cringey moments were thankfully rare, as I feel the script was otherwise so well written. Many of the jokes surprisingly made me laugh, and there were many well-written lines that gave more depth to the Straw Hats and who they are.
Part of the Straw Hats’ personas were slightly changed, but I like that they’re not being blindly faithful to the manga, but instead evolving them in a way that it fits live action. These Straw Hats feel like actual real people and real friends.
Luffy is just positively silly, Usopp pretends to be cool and smooth, Sanji is more flirty, etc. The chemistry between the main five in the cast can’t be put into words, it’s every bit as charming as you’ve seen them interacting in all the promo material.
There’s some things that have been changed from the manga. Zoro and Nami join concurrently at Shells Town, Luffy first meets Usopp by the Merry, etc., and yet every choice just makes so much sense. Can’t really think of anything they changed that felt like a downgrade.
You can feel that Oda had his hand in making sure these changes were faithful to the story. Little touches like Luffy feeling like he can “hear” something from the Merry when they first meet simply add to the magical feeling of this show for One Piece fans.
I’m happy to say however that one of my favorite things was the battles, as the choreography is legitimately INSANE. The show is really well directed, but in fights in particular the use of camerawork makes them an absolute joy to watch and cheer to.
The entire fight sequence of Luffy fighting Alvida for example reminded me of something like G5, it was so much fun with Luffy just jumping around and messing with her. I’m legitimately really happy that the fights will seem to be a strong point for this series.
The CGI within those fights I feel is good enough to be passable. Personally I’m not as frightful to CGI as some others are so I don’t give it as much importance, but basically what you see in the trailer is what you get (though the rubber looks way better in quick cuts).
Even when the CGI looks a bit weird, it fits within the tone they are trying to achieve of One Piece feeling so goofy that you don’t really feel that bothered by it. And besides, the CGI is fairly rarely used, there’s a heavy emphasis on practical effects.
The music was also a great highilght, it has a very piratey feeling, much akin to Pirates of the Caribbean, but in a way that it builds its own tone in a similar was as One Piece’s OST, making it really fun to listen within the scenes.
TL;DR: This is just my opinion, but despite the CGI and some of the campy dialogue, I’m happy to see how much they seem to be nailing the adaptation balance. But above all else, I just had so much fun watching this, which I feel is the core of what One Piece should be.
In the end it mostly matters where you’re coming into this from. If you’re expecting it to take itself very seriously, be identical to the manga, or have impeccable CGI, you won’t get it. But if you’re up to embrace its One Piece soul, you’re in for a real fun adventure!!
