Ok. Before I dive in, this is not a kids show despite the fact that anime could pass as one. Making a live action pirate based story which has any degree of relatability kind of kills that. It has violence, swearing, some scary scenes and some emotionally complex topics to cover.
With that out of the way; I have actively avoided One Piece as an anime for YEARS. I've tried on numerous occasions to get into it and every time something just pulled me away; the animation style, the voices, the insanity. I could not fathom, for the life of me, how this thing was SO FREAKIN' popular.
Then I saw that it was getting a live action adaption. So, I tried a different angle. I read the manga. I started about 150 chapters in thinking it was just that the beginning of the series was terrible. This dropped me in right before the Alabasta Arc (exact naming dependent up your source medium). Incidentally, I went looking around the internet for suggestion on where to start and a lot of people said this exact arc for the reason that it is the first time they really have difficulty in winning.
But, now I've read up to the latest and watched the live action. And what I would say is this; One Piece is not a story about the fights. It is a story which contains fights, but is ultimately about being true to yourself and pursuing your dreams. And it is about intricate, long term story telling. In the manga the fights are quick. Unlike something like Dragonball or Naruto where some individual fights can last several chapter, One Piece has most fights wrap up in a single chapter. The story may weave a bunch of story lines and fights together in an arc. But, the fights themselves often don't take up much time or space.
And this goes a long way to explaining, I think, why a live action adaptation is able to work so well. You can take a lot of artistic liberties with the actual fights and not ruin the story. So, even though you need to deal with something as absurd as Devil Fruits and their powers, there is a lot of flexibility there as long as you stick to the story.
I digress however. Back to the review part, my rough ratings are as follows:
- Quality: 7/10*
- Story: 8/10
- Message: 8/10
- Overall: 7/10*
Quality
This IS the best live action adaptation I have ever seen of an anime or manga. Period. Which is a little mind blowing because it could also be one of the hardest I've seen attempted. The Devil Fruit powers require careful consideration on how to bring them to life, and then there are characters life Luffy, or the interactions between Sanji and literally any female character, or between Zoro and Sanji, or anything with Usopp. And yet somehow, everything works (most of the time) despite being live action.
I had started with a rating of 9 and wanted to bump it to 10. And instead I put it at 7 and tossed a good ole * on the end. Why? If you're familiar with the source material (anime, mange or both) you will likely blown away. If you're not coming into it from that perspective however, I think you will naturally see it as a lower quality. And so I'm going to call that 7 the "unbiased" rating. I'm sure some people will point to things like the Mihawk intro scene and argue that it should go lower. And you may be right. But there are depths to how low I'm willing to rate this on a few minor indiscretions alone.
I also have some issues with casting and costumes. Shanks for instance is terrible for both. The red hair is too fake looking and the actor, while great, is too "not pirate-y" looking. There are red headed humans already. And no need to go THAT fake looking on the hair dye. By contrast, Zoro's hair looks fine. As does Nami's. Koby's hear is only slightly off-putting. But, Shanks is... wrong looking. To me at least.
Buggy on the other hand, sheer perfection.
Some of the fishman extras looked more fake than others and Zeff at times broke the illusion. But, the budget was there and it pulls together this world more often than not.
Lastly, the flashbacks with the child actors and extras often tend to be the weakest on the acting and noticeably so. Young Zoro, Luffy, the bar owner and so on. Those scenes often don't do much to progress the story line. Aside from Luffy's past which I feel needs the flashbacks, I think I would have preferred a manufactured opportunity for the other characters to talk about their past.
Story:
The story sticks well enough to the source material. And that is certainly a good thing given how big the fan following is. I do feel however like, having completed as much of the manga as I have that this first couple of arcs are just exposition for the later arcs. The movie does a good job. But, it isn't a fully fleshed story yet, and the build up isn't at its prime yet either. What is there is more than passable. But, it definitely is not a standalone story.
Message:
As I said before, One Piece isn't really about the fights. Fights are more of a necessary element to the story. They are pirates after all. And at least 2 of them have goals directly aligned with taking out people much stronger than they currently are. So, the fighting is more of a byproduct than anything in my opinion. The story is about Luffy's quest to claim the One Piece and help his crew realize their dreams. And I think that comes through. The three characters which do the best at progressing this message are Luffy, Koby and Garp.
I think Zoro's near death battle with Dracule Mihawk gives the real challenge of the season. And I do wish that Luffy's story involved more of a struggle with his decision not to interfere with Zoro's fight. But, that moment where he stood by as Zoro lay unconscious after clearly being troubled with the state of the first mate and proclaim that he would do "anything" to save his friends. Anything BUT get in the way of their dreams. That is what really solidified the message of the story. And it was great timing to go from there and into the Arlong Park arc where Luffy could take that message further and save Nami while helping her fulfill one of her dreams.
And in a lot of ways Luffy's message IS the story. And to tie in Story and Quality, this is perhaps one of the biggest reasons that a One Piece live action seemed so difficult to me. Luffy's character in the anime is very much a standard anime trope that is common to see in Japanese animation but doesn't really exist in North America. He is a high pitched, annoying sounding oaf who can some times get serious. And it can be really hard to see through the goofy-ness.
In the live action, in the English acting he is presented much more as he comes off to me as a "Westerner". Which is, he doesn't come off goofy so much as carefree. But carefree for a reason. He knows who he is and what he is doing. He really only gets serious when something threatens his way of life or when someone tries to threaten someone else's way of life. Luffy's sole motivator is being able to live the life he chooses. Little else matters.
Overall:
If you're new to the series my ratings probably seem a bit on the high side. There are quality issues. Some of the scripting falls flat. Some of the acting is weak. Some of the effects and costumes don't work as well as others. But, the overwhelming majority of the time it does work and can suck you in. And, beyond that, I think most complaints from people who don't already know One Piece would be a result of not understanding what the story is.
However, like the quality, I would rate this one higher if I were JUST rating it in the context anime of adaptations. In that sense it is still, easily the gold standard. I suspect if you're coming into this with no idea what One Piece is you might tend closer to 6 and if you're a fan closer to 10. So, I'm willing to cut that in the middle and call it 8.
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