The Length of ‘One Piece’ Proves WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s Point
Most One Piece fans are scrambling to figure out how they’ll be arranging their weekends. For one, there’s a new manga chapter. The new episode of the anime was pushed back a week, so that’s off your plate. The biggest commitment, temporally, is Netflix’s live-action One Piece. After seven years of waiting, the first live-action (or, at least, non-stunt show) adaptation of One Piece will set sail. But how much time should you carve out to watch it?
Related: The 10 Best One Piece Characters on Attack of the Fanboy
The One Piece live-action adaptation is eight episodes long. The action covers the manga’s East Blue saga, which is the first saga of One Piece‘s epic story. It’s the tale of a teenage boy named Monkey D. Luffy, whose big dreams are to sail the seas and become king of the pirates. Also, his body is made of rubber because he ate something called a Devil Fruit.
As Luffy sails from his home village to the Grand Line, stopping at various islands (and free-floating restaurants), he assembles the first members of the Straw Hat Pirates: the swordsman, Zoro; the navigator, Nami; the sniper, Usopp; and the cook, Sanji.
It’s worth noting that these eight episodes cover the same ground as around 100 manga chapters. So expect shifts, omissions, and changes. Still, it’s not like these are short 20-some-minute episodes like the anime. Episodes of OPLA range from about 40 minutes to a little over an hour. In short: it’s a Netflix show.
It’s also worth noting that a major point of contention during the current, ongoing WGA strike is how seasons of television have become shorter and shorter. For a long time, conventional wisdom held that a season of TV was 12 episodes—an extra 50% longer than Netflix’s current favorite season length of 8 episodes. More episodes mean longer stretches of job security and employment for writers.
Netflix is absolutely playing an active part in this industry shift. Take Lady Dynamite, a very different show than One Piece in every regard except that it aired on and was produced by Netflix and that I love it very deeply. Season 1, which premiered in 2016, had 12 episodes. One year later, the shift had started occurring, because the second season had eight episodes. Some years later, Squid Game earned a now-whopping nine episodes.
Hopefully, One Piece gets a second season. And hopefully, that second season gets 12 episodes in a world in which the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are triumphant.
(featured image: Netflix / Eiichiro Oda)
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