Netflix's One Piece: Luffy's Spirit Betrayed?!
Warning: Spoilers, spoilers, everywhere!
There are deaths! Blood! F-bombs! Helmeppo's smooth, round bottom! After months of baiting us with teaser trailers, wanted posters, and interviews with the cast, Netflix's live action One Piece has finally arrived with some marked differences from the original source material. As a fan of the manga/anime, I would likely not have bothered to watch it but for the creator Eiichiro Oda's blessing and creative input in this interpretation of his work. So, how did it do? I have some thoughts:
Casting and characterization. The success of this live action stems first and foremost from its overall casting choices. Mackenyu's Zoro and Steven Ward's Mihawk in particular incarnate the spirit of their anime counterparts with panache. Emily Rudd's Nami here delivers her lines with dry irony and fights like a pro from the start, even as her lust for money remains subtler than that of her anime counterpart. Iñaki Godoy's Luffy and Jacob Romero's Usopp are solid. Less believable is Taz Skylar's Sanji, unfortunately. The casting directors missed the mark on how much funnier Sanji's lines would have been delivered in a flirty, French accent ("something for zee beautiful lady?") to say nothing of shouting the names of his moves. Morgan Davies' Koby, acting the hell out of his skittish eyes, has more screen time than expected, but it mainly works. His standing up to Garp, on the other hand, does not seem in line with his character. On the subject of Garp, wouldn't a Latino Garp, like Luffy, have been amazing?
Camera work/direction. The most striking stylistic choice of the live action is the wanted poster introduction of each villain with a signature move that destroys it on screen. Bravo. The fishbowl lens and low angles, however, were off putting. Even though I am not a fan of the camera work, it does impart a certain style to the live action that enables its own distinctive vision. The gray scale on the Marine ship is a bit forced as an obvious choice to signify authoritarianism and severity. Many scenes throughout the season take place either indoors or at night, which sometimes feels claustrophobic, particularly in a show about venturing off into the open ocean.
Pacing. While the source material provides the solid impetus for each crew member's eventual decision to sail away, the live action doesn't leave the space for their coming together in a credible way. The plot moves at such a quick pace that Usopp's decision to leave his kissin' Kaya, for example, seems bewildering. Does one night battling a feline villain suffice to sail off with a group of strangers and leave behind his wealthy and generous beloved? Usopp overall receives less screen time in terms of character development and background story. His merry band of youthful followers' absence means his declarations of captainship render him more narcissistic than he actually is.
Plot. The changes in the plot are enough to keep an anime fan interested to see how this alternate reality of Oda's vision comes together. The changes, among those Buggy-related, make sense and are logical transitions that unite the Buggy-Arlong connection. The fight scenes generally look nice, particularly those with Zoro. But the Arlong-Luffy combat remains underwhelming. I loved the nose regeneration in the anime, but none of that is here; only his teeth. Neither are Arlong's aquatic feats of fighting present; the specificity of being a fishman does not extend to his fighting style. Abridged fight scenes mean that the viewer does not grow to appreciate or believe in Luffy's strength, which, at least for me, is one of the charms of the anime. Don't you want to see Luffy grow into the man who will likely become the king of the pirates? In the anime, it's a journey full of struggles and growth; in the live action, it feels more like an inevitability. In the live action, it turns out that the main "villain" is not Arlong, but Granddaddy Garp himself, in an anticlimactic reveal, as I explore below.
Differing spirits. Why anticlimactic? With the early revelation that Garp is Luffy's grandfather, Garp's relentless pursuit of Luffy throughout the season sets him up as Luffy's main antagonist. Why does Garp insist on pursuing his grandson so earnestly? Well, this is one of two threads that betrays the spirit of the original—threads that, at least to me, suggest that the story has been Westernized to fit a more American palate. Yes, ladies and gentleman, Garp justifies his relentless pursuit of Luffy as a way to prepare his grandson for the trials and tribulations of the Grand Line. Garp did this? Monkey D. Garp?! Really?
The second thread is live action Luffy's insistence on being a good pirate, despite anime Luffy's avowed aversion to heroics. Let's not forget his thievery in Skipeia, after all. He's a pirate, as he reminds us. Let the boy joyfully inhabit a more ambiguous zone. While the live action certainly seems to wish to respect the source material, it also seems to infuse it with a certain Marvel sensibility, even so far as leaving us with a pseudo post-credit scene that hints at Smoker's presence as an antagonist in a possible second season.
All in all, the adaptation is successful insofar that it is possibly the best live action anime to date. In other words, it levels off as an average fantasy show. So much of what makes anime special—the epic world building, the fantastical elements, the over-exuberant emotions, the exaggerated expressions—does not translate well into live human interaction. In a live action version, anime ebullience must level off to match more authentic human reactions. I watched one of the episodes with the original Japanese voice actors, which proved to be a strange experience. While I was happy to hear their voices, they sounded subdued and slower to speak, in comparison to the anime where they speak with more vim and verve. I encourage any viewers enthusiastic about the live action and new to the story to check out the anime to embark on the greatest adventure they will ever know. That said, if there is a second season of the live action One Piece, I will watch it, if only to see how truly frightening a CG Chopper might actually be.