Oh boy, here we go again. On July 21, Netflix dropped the second trailer for their live-action adaptation of One Piece, and I have to ask: Why? It’s hard to put into words just how much of a pop culture juggernaut One Piece is. The manga, created by Eiichiro Oda in 1997, has gone on to be one of Japan’s greatest cultural exports. It is not only the best-selling manga of all time, but has sales numbers that compete with Marvel and DC comics. There’s even a McDonald’s crossover.
So when I, like many others, first heard the news of a live-action adaptation by Netflix, I was immediately skeptical. This is the same Netflix that produced the disastrous live-action adaptations of both Death Note and Cowboy Bebop to flatulent reception. It has proven itself incapable of adequately adapting beloved anime series—a goal that might be near-impossible to achieve.
Animation and manga are unique mediums that are quite difficult to translate to live action. It’s hard to capture much of the elastic, explosive energy that Shonen battle series can put out. One Piece relies on this squash-and-stretch principle to convey its frenetic excitement and sell the weighty violence of each punch. The Netflix trailer lacks this fluidity, coming off as stilted and strange.
Even weirder is the color palette. The One Piece anime is bursting with color and life, capturing the vivid imagination of Oda’s original designs while also giving a strong sense of big blooming adventure off on the horizon. The colors of the Netflix trailer appear somewhat muted and gritty; there are playful hues here and there, but something is off. Of course, this very well could be a technical problem or something to do with YouTube, but given how ugly their previous live-action adaptations looked, I don’t have high hopes.
The whole thing, down to its lighting and composition, has a cheap, low-rent look, especially in the CGI department. In one scene from the trailer, Luffy stretches his cheeks back far to show off his cursed elastic body, and somehow it looks more fake than the jumpscare scene in Inland Empire. It looks and feels more like a YoutTube fan project than it does a million-dollar production.
So, why are we here yet again? Business as usual. There’s always going to be potential money in reviving the same established IPs over and over. I wish this weren’t the case, especially from a company with a long history of angering fans of beloved series. But who knows? Maybe I’m being too harsh on it. After all, it’s just a trailer, and the show hasn’t been released yet. Will it be good? As Spike Spiegel once said: Whatever happens, happens.
(featured image: Netflix / Eiichiro Oda)
Published: Jul 25, 2023 11:16 am