The much anticipated live action take on anime and manga series One Piece is now on Netflix, but how loyal does the adaptation stay to the original source content?
Adapted from the long-running manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece tells the story of young pirate Monkey D. Luffy, who goes on an epic quest of exotic islands and endless oceans, in search of the world's ultimate treasure to become the next Pirate King.
The good news for purist fans is that the original writer and illustrator Eiichiro Oda is on board as an executive producer, alongside Matt Owens and Steven Maeda, who wrote and executive produced One Piece, as well as acting as showrunners. Tessa Verfuss edited the project.
The original writer and artist fed back on everything
Throughout the whole process, Eiichiro was extremely involved, and had oversight on everything. As Tessa told Screen Rant, "Oda had this overarching presence over the whole thing, our team was all like, 'Cool, we're feeling like we're in a good space. Let's get his feedback, and do what we need to do to make him happy.' Because, obviously, having his blessing is absolutely critical to delivering the show the way the fans want it done.."
He was also "tough" on showrunners at the beginning
Matt Owens, showrunner, writer and executive producer, told GamesRadar+ he was very "nervous" about pitching his ideas to Eiichiro, but that he started to trust their adaptation.
"I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous for anything in my entire life. Here was this person who has created this story I hold so much love and reverence for, and I’m asking him to trust me with his baby. I’m not going to lie, he was tough in the beginning – this wasn’t the first attempt at a live-action One Piece, and we weren’t the first people to try to express it in a new way.
"But I think once he realised we were coming from the right place – trying to protect this series and create a new avenue for even more people to fall in love with it – he started to trust us."
The production house learned from previous adaptation mistakes
Fans of anime programme Cowboy Bebop were disappointed by the Netflix adaptation that came out in 2021, criticising its writing, special effects, editing and action sequences. The production house, Tomorrow Studios, also produced One Piece, with executive producer Marty Adelstein insisting they had learned from the mistakes and changes they made previously.
"What we learned is the fans are expecting you to be true to the source material," he told Variety. "As we read the comments [for Cowboy Bebop], it was always, ‘Well, they didn’t do this character the same as this and that.’ … It really taught us a lot of what we needed to do with this one."
Tomorrow Studios president Becky Clements added, "It became everyone’s goal to make sure that when you looked at the show, you thought this was a live-action version of the manga that just felt like another feather in the legacy of Oda."
Sounds like fans will be impressed, then.
One Piece is now streaming on Netflix.
