by Dasun Panapitiya ‘24

The live action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is a unique take on the original manga that maintains a lot of what makes it so loveable. One Piece follows Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) on his journey as a pirate, setting out to find the legendary One Piece, which is the treasure of the Pirate King named Gol D. Roger (Michael Dorman). Along the way, he recruits characters throughout the story to be part of his pirate crew. These characters include Roronoa Zoro (Mackenyu), Nami (Emily Rudd), Usopp (Jacob Gibson), and Sanji (Taz Skylar). They find opposition from Monkey D. Garp (Vincent Regan), Luffy’s grandfather and a member of the Marines. They are also antagonized by fellow pirates like Buggy the Clown (Jeff Ward) and Arlong the Fishman (McKinley Belcher III).

In the history of live action manga adaptations, One Piece is one of the most successful as it reached number one globally on Netflix. The casting, which Oda himself had a say in, is amazing and the characters were portrayed very well. Godoy as Luffy was the perfect casting and was depicted in a way that paid respect to the type of character Luffy was in the manga. Buggy was presented in a darker tone in this adaptation and it works to reflect the type of story that One Piece is while also changing a character for the best. On the other hand, Garp’s inclusion in the show felt unnecessary as his storyline had an equal focus to the main story, but he does nothing through the majority of his storyline which hurt the show’s pacing. 

The show takes some creative liberties when adapting the manga, like cutting certain scenes to fit the eight hour-long episode formula seen in recent shows, as well as establishing plot points from later on in the original series to push the story in a slightly different direction. While it maintains the charm of the original series, the cuts to some major story plotlines in the original series hurt the overall presentability of the show and rushes a lot of the plot points, whereas they could have added more episodes or cut any unnecessarily dragged out scenes involving the marines. One issue is the awkwardness of some emotional moments. This stems from the fact that it’s hard to recreate these scenes in live action in the same melodramatic nature of its source material. 

The quality of the CGI in this show was surprising. In One Piece, there are abilities known as devil fruit powers that give the person who eats them abilities in exchange for the ability to swim. There was concern by fans on how Luffy’s and Buggy’s powers would be presented, but the results did not disappoint. The abilities were perfectly adapted, especially Buggy’s ability to separate his limbs which had the potential to look strange in a live action format. One Piece is a successful adaptation of the Oda’s manga in the eyes of many fans, and is a good introduction to those who have never heard of it before.

Grade: B-