I've been reading manga and watching anime of One Piece close to 15 years. I care about fidelity, and the new adaptation staying true to the source material. I understand there are certain unavoidable changes when adapting a show for the new medium, especially if it's as cartoony as One Piece when making a live action. Still, I demand consistency. And I hate Netflix. That takes care of my biases.
From this point onward, there might be spoilers for manga, anime and live action. If you have any interest in One Piece, and wish to experience any of the listed versions for yourself, consider yourself warned.
First, the things that bothered me, or I did not like:
- Koby is played by a woman.
- Luffy is more prone to stress, but also more inventive.
- Because they made Luffy more inventive, they made Nami more of a bruiser.
- Making Nami a damsel in distress for no reason.
- Casting Nami's adopted sister as black is a catastrophy.
- They changed Usopp's nose.
- Kaya kissed Usopp.
- They killed Merry.
- Netflix making stuff up, especially the Marine side of the story.
All in all, the show gets a passing grade. It's enjoyable. Especially parts where they tried to be as true to the source as possible. And those parts outnumber the instances where Netflix took its poetic liberty to try and force some of their diversity agenda down the watcher's throat.
What is more, it is visible from the get go, at every instance where Netflix followed the source material, and where they veered in their own direction. The difference in quality is that obvious.
The decision to keep the cartoonish elements of the manga was a correct one. It gives the show a breath of authenticity, and separates it from any other show currently available.
Now for the things that bothered me.
The idea behind making Luffy more inventive and prone to stress was probably done with the goal of making him more relatable. But this just makes him weird. What makes Luffy entertaining is that he's an aspirational hero. He wants to bcome King of the pirates, sail the Grand Line and find the One Piece. He cares about his nakama, his crew, but that doesn't mean he ever reaches the point of freezing up because of doubts and denials. He's a man f action. If anyone wrongs his nakama, or anyboy he took an instant liking to, then Luffy gets angry, and then he gets even. There is never "What should we do now?" with Luffy. He's goofy, likes to eat, laugh, and take it easy. He's not the one to overthink things.
Netflix took the liberty to force Nami join Strawhats a lot sooner then in source material. This was another thing that took away from Nami's character development, and was completely redundant storywise. When we first meet Nami in the source material she is a cat burglar. She hates pirates, and she justifies her thievery by saying she steals only from pirates. And then she infiltrates a marine base in order to steal a map. When she first comes accross Luffy and Zoro, it is a convenience. She uses the two in order to get herself out of trouble. And after both Luffy and Zoro survive the troubles she got them in, she's roped into fleeing the town together with them. She's sticking with the two because it is profitable to her. There's a whole arc that comes after that where Nami's story is revealed, and she actually wants to become one of the Strawhats. That connects us to the Netflix's changes in story to make Nami a damsel in distress. It was done in order not to maka Nami a despicable thief who is willing to betray her friends at the first opportunity she gets. Meaning, her character development was sacrificed in order she wouldn't look bad.
Usopp's nose in manga is inspired by Pinocchio. And just like the wooden puppet, Usopp is a grand liar extrodinaire. It's part of who and what Usopp is. Like Luffy's hat, like Zoro's three katanas, like Sanji's curly eyebrows and a cigarette, and Nami's cheeky faces, when she pulls a fast one on a villain.
In normal circumstances, I'd agree, that the nose probably had no chance to survive transition to live action. But then, the noses of Buggy the Clown and Arlong did. So if those two could have their signature noses, why couldn't Usopp?
Merry was Kaya's butler. In the source material Merry survived the attack of Black Cat pirates. In live action, they killed him. His death was meaningless. It's not like they did it for the story. Merry and Kaya appear sporadically. Only to show how people who knew Usopp before he became a pirate react to his adventure on the Grand Line. This arc in general is the one where Netflix felt like they know better, they started changing thing, and then never stopped.
Kaya kissing Usopp is downright betrayal of the source material. The very reason why Usopp decides to join Strawhats, and venture to the Grand Line is to become "great warrior of the sea". In other words, Usopp knows he is inferior to Kaya, and could never be anything more than the childhood friend who entertained a rich sickly girl by playing pretend games and making up stories. So her kiss actually robs him of any purpose of why he should go with Strawhats.
Nami's sister Nojiko is another problem. In the source material she has a tan skin. In the Netflix adaptation, she's black. In the source material Nojiko is hot. In Netflix adaptation, she's ugly. This is unfortunate, because it affect's Sanji, who is incorrigible womanizer. What looks like Sanji being a charming young man in the source material, looks like a sarcasm in Netflix adaptation. And Sanji cares only for beauties.
I'l admit there were some good ideas, like streamlining the fights to just one location, and having them take a relatively short amount of time in comparison to manga or anime, where fights can take awhile. They did it with Buggy, Kuro, and Arlong. I should also add that visually, the live action tried to stay true to the source material as much as possible. The costumes, the ships, even the scenes are at times uncanny in their resemblance to anime or manga.
As for the Marine sidestory. I believe the decision to cast a woman to play Koby was Netflix trying to fill some of their diversity quotas. Morgan Davies does a good job playing a young insecure boy who wants to become a marine, but I'm left wondering, if they really couldn't find any other male teenager to play the part. The whole Marine sidestory seems to exist only to develop Koby's character, and have us see Luffy's grandfather. Both are things we could do without at this point. I guess they did it in order to add an element of chase in the series. Which could be spent on staying true to the source material.
I would speculate that had they stayed true to the source, the first season would finish with escape from Loguetown. But this way, Loguetown will have to wait for season 2.
But what can be said about the series, is that it serves as a gateway drug to the anime for people who probably had no intention of watching it before they saw the Netflix show.
