# Script
## Overview
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The One Piece Live Action! I’ve JUST finished binging all 8 episodes of it,
starting SECONDS after it came out and even though I swore to myself that I would get
some sleep first and then share my thoughts about it with all of you in the mornin—-yeah
i should have known that was not going to happen. We need to talk about this show and
if it ended up being another let down proving that live action just doesnt work for anime,
or if it somehow actually managed to live up to its hype and break the curse once and
for all. But of course if you haven't seen all 8 episodes yet, you hereby have been spoiler warned.
And we begin with the very first episode, arguably the single most important one, because if you
don’t like the pilot, you probably won’t keep watching, right? So how did it do? I think right
off the bat with the first opening sequence I let out a big sigh of relieve. Even though there was a
lot still to come, I knew that at least visually and music wise, this was not going to suck,
which with all things that might go wrong, was an important win. Fantastic animation right into
that beautiful long drone shot straight into Logue Town where of course we kick things off with the
execution of Gol D. Roger, just like in the manga and anime. And Garp blasting in a thick Scottish
accent was NOT was I expected to hear right out of the gate at all. And i did not expect how big
of a role this character would be playing in this series. Now we of course already saw a lot of this
sequence in the trailer, but there are still a few things that stood out to me right off the bat:
First of all, thank god they fixed the color grading of the entire show. In the trailers,
everything looked very fake and clean, but clearly they were still polishing things behind
the scenes, because the entire show had a really nice desaturated look with a lot of character and
they clearly also added in more smoke, fog and other visual elements to connect everything in
frame together. This was one of my biggest fears going into this show, and they luckily
ended up nailing it. Also, in this scene, but also throughout the series, the music was just
on point. A lot of tracks inspired by and mixed with the official one piece score, for example we
here binks sake during luffy’s flashback with shanks, but also a bunch of original music,
that was nicely inspired by the characters they included: A jazzy french-like tune in the baratie
or the spanish theme in the scene with Mihawk as a nod to him being based on a Spanish conquistador.
But anyways, what also became very clear within the first 3 minutes of watching: The One Piece
Live Action is BRUTAL. Like what the.. Just in this first episode alone, we get Roger
being executed pretty gruesomely, Alvida crushing someones head with her club and Zoro just straight
out cutting the Baroque Works agent Mr 7 in half. Which overall leads to this really strange mix of
gory seriousness, and the lighthearted comedy and look of many one piece characters that we know.
Which feels bizarre, but honestly is just exactly what i had been hoping for: Keeping the series’
fun side, while still appealing to an adult audience and making things a bit more mature,
though I didn’t quite expect things to go as mature as full on nude Helmeppo, playing with
his sword. [ play pornhub intro before scene with Zoro walking in on helmeppo] But going back to the
fights, the battles and choreographies were also insanely well done, the highlight for me being
Sanji’s and Zoro’s teamup in the last episode and the perfect copy of the Zoro Mihawk fight.
And speaking of visual elements, the special effects in this show were really spectacular.
Buggy’s CGI and that of the sea king were insanely well done, and just overall, there was a great
mix between physical and digital effects being used. Two notable exceptions to this, that stood
out really weirdly were Zoro’s swords shattering after his clash with Mihawk, only that it looked
like really bad CGI and the second time was Chu catching fire in his fight with Usopp, where it
looks like the just set a mannequin on fire and it suddenly keels over in the wrong direction. In
fact in contrast to all the fantastic and flawless effects up to this point, this scene made me
actually laugh out loud for how much it stood out. And another thing, that was consistently great
throughout the show were the locations and islands. Logue Town looked just insane.
luffy’s home fusha village looked perfect, same goes for the Marine base and syrup village. And
most importantly, the show really managed to bring these places to live, like the secret safe and the
map room inside Morgan’s marine base in this first episode. Really the only exception to this for me
was Nami’s hometown Cocoyashi village in the last 2 episodes. Even though all of these locations had
a unique and fresh take on them, Nami’s hometown missed that feeling of small village in paradise,
that is secretly tormented by Arlong. Whatever this is [show the village from episode 7 or 8]
that’s just a bit too rural for me. But speaking of the changes to the island, you probably also
noticed, that overall the entire one piece world has been a little bit modernized in this show. The
party bar in Luffy’s flashback has neon lights, electricity DOES seems to be a regular thing in
this version of One Piece, and many of the outfits in the series are just modern day cloths. Now I am
personally a little bit torn about this decision to be completely honest. On the one hand i do
really dig the overall aesthetic, plus there actually IS a large variety of technological
levels in the One Piece Manga. But at the same time, part of the original stories charm is that
most places in the one piece world are stuck in a pre or at max mid-industrialization era,
where only unique places in the Grandline have access to advanced technology with the exception
of the world government, who uses their technical knowledge to rule over the world. But again,
aesthetically it’s a really cool take on the world and i can roll with it.
And speaking of Luffy’s childhood flashback: I have very divided feelings. And I’ll start with
the negative this time: I personally don’t buy neither Shanks nor his first mate Ben Beckman.
For Ben Beckman, nothing against the actor, but this is one of the very few bad castings in my
opinion. This guy neither looks nor feels like the tall, chill and lean guy we know from the
story. As for Shanks, I think the actor Peter Gadiot looks quite a lot like Shanks and also
did a good job portraying him, but his costume was just off. The straw hat is just too small
and doesn’t look as worn as it should after being passed down to him by Roger. Of course
I absolutely loved Shanks doing a finger gun towards the mountain bandit and Lucky Roo firing
the shot. That was pretty cool. Also the final scene with him and Mihawk that they perfectly
copied from the Manga was really nicely done. And this has nothing to do with Shanks per se,
but the way they showed his conquerors haki to shoo away the sea king was a little bit
underwhelming i found. It could have used a lot more power and gravity, visually,
but also sound wise. And next to Shanks and Ben Beckman, I personally also found that the
portrayal of Kid Luffy missed the mark by quite a bit. Instead of being head strong and a bit
of a pest, like in the Anime, this version of Luffy is a lot less cheerful and comes
across more like a bit of crybaby. Though let me know if you thought that it worked for you.
That being said though, I do personally think, that the flashbacks were one of the absolute
best parts of the entire season. All of them were kept extremely close to the raw material and all
of them had at least the same emotional impact as in the anime, and I’ll be honest some of them even
surpasses the original. Seeing Usopp losing his mother, while his dad is off partying with Shanks,
actually made me tear up seeing it happen to an actual kid. Sanji’s flashback with Zeff was
insanely dark and gruesome, especially showing the remaining blood and flesh on the rock where
Zeff had cut off his leg and eaten it. And, oh my god, don’t even get me started on Nami’s. Yes,
Belemere looks a little to old here I think and yes they didn’t straight out show her being
shot in the head by Arlong, like in the Manga, but honestly it was heavy enough as is. All of
these flashbacks made me truly care and empathize with this version of the straw hats once again,
so it might not be a big surprises for you when I tell you that the backstories were one of the
most important things in this show to get 100% correct for the author Eiichiro Oda.
And in fact, I think that most characters in the show have been portrayed almost perfectly. Mihawk,
Helmeppo, Koby, Zeff, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, and of course we’ll also get to all the villains in a
moment as well. Also, I will admit, that halway thorough the first episode during the bar scene,
I switched from English to the Japanese Dub, which for me personally made ton of stuff work
really really really well throughout the rest of the show, that seemed to be a bit cringe, at least
from what i saw from the English subtitles. So yeah, having the actual voice actors of everyone
made the entire thing incredibly enjoyable to me and sold me a lot of scenes way more than the
English original might have. But coming back to my list of perfect characters, you might notice that
i didn’t list 2 characters in particular here: Luffy and Zoro. And actually for Luffy it’s really
only some minor things that bug me a little. For one, I just don’t vibe with some of the
humor they wrote for him, though some stuff was absolutely hilarious, especially his interaction
with Buggy. Similarly, some of Luffy’s CGI was a bit meh, like him dodging Alveida’s club, while
other stuff like his head butt against Kuro or of course his gomu gomu axe that took down arlong and
his park were done exceptionally well. My biggest issues I had with Luffy though were once when he
is captured in the water tank by Buggy, where he looks genuinely scared for his life, which is just
not very Luffy like and a second time when Zoro is unconscious after being defeated by Mihawk. Now,
I personally don’t mind them showing how much Luffy cares for his nakama. After all,
he really really does. We know that. But the way Luffy behaves and over reacts here just doesn’t
seem like something that real Luffy would do. Other than that though I’m more than happy to
say that Iñaki Godoy did a good job bringing a character to live, that is really really hard
to actually bring to live and I’m also more than happy to admit, that often enough he hit the right
tone in such a way, that I couldn’t help but grin. Which now brings me to maybe the biggest criticism
I have of the entire show, which is my favorite character in the entire series: Roronoa Zoro.
First off, to get it out of the way, visually, the casting and costume of Zoro are flawless.
No complaints here. But oh boy does it go downhill from here for me. Because for me this is not Zoro,
but what someone cosplaying Zoro would be like. Now to be clear, I don’t really know if this is
to blame on the writing staff or on Makenyu’s acting, or both maybe, but this character just
feels like a really big disappointing miss to me. The Zoro I and many people in the world love and
respect so much, is cool, not because he says cool things and doesn’t cry. It’s because Zoro
is someone who belives so strongly in his own power, but also in his path as a swordsman, that
he genuinely doesn’t care what people think about him. NOW THAT’S COOL. And when he actually cares,
it gives his character so much depth. Crying after being defeated by Mihawk and swearing his loyalty
to Luffy the future pirate king, that scene in the live action was just a shadow of that. Zoro
being rescued by Luffy last second and deciding to dedicate himself to this goofy captain: Scratched
completely. Luffy unties him, then leaves again and then they fight Morgan together. In the manga,
Zoro willingly lets himself be tied for a month to protect a little girl. In the live action,
he protects the girl and then just lets himself get tied up for no reason at all? Also, yes Zoro
in the Anime is a lot more ruthless than Luffy and is willing to kill, but this Zoro we get is just
insane. Cutting people in half and he actually says that he wants to kill Mihawk. As if killing
Mihawk was necessary to Zoro’s dream. Now i’m not saying Zoro would NEVER kill Mihawk in the manga,
but clearly his goal is to beat him in a duel of skill to take his title, not by killing him. So
yeah the entire, I don’l laugh because I’m to cool thing, to me feels like someone who is overflowing
with insecurity, not like the coolest character in the world, who doesn’t care about anything.
His counterpart Sanji on the other hand: Chefskiss. No pun intended. The scenes with
him on the Baratie and with Zeff are perfect, and just like in the Manga,
once he joins the crew his chemistry with the rest of the straw hats is insane.
Which brings me to the other big thing that will be controversial about this adaption:
They did end up changing A LOT, and I mean A LOT more than I ever anticipated. We get more Buggy,
who was without any doubt the standout performance of this season. Incredibly well done, first making
him terrifying and then giving him the comedic twist, we all wanted. But then there is a bunch of
stuff that I thought was not necessary to change and that took away a bit from my experience:
First, we had not 1, but 2 entire episodes of a freddy Kruger style teenage horror thing inside
the mansion on Syrup village. Kuro was portrayed fantastically, but I think this entire arc could
have been done with in 30 minutes, not 120. Instead of Usopp saving his village,
he does …nothing? in his own arc. instead Nami and Kaya got the emotional part. And even though
Zoro got a great flashback as everyone else, it was really weirdly placed in a 30 minute
strangely overly dramatic battle trying to climb out of a well. You know, instead of saving it for
his clash with Mihawk, but whatever. Also I feel like the show really missed out on
building some real suspense and mystery for the audience. It’s obvious Kuro is the bad guy like
5 minutes into the episode. Similarly later on Nami betraying the straw hats and revealing
herself as part of Arlongs crew could be such a big shock moment for new fans. Instead it’s
made painfully obvious multiple times, that she doesn’t want to go, before she actually leaves,
while also saving Luffy’s life and blaming him for Zoro almost dying. Anyways… The next
big change was of course to have Arlong and the fishmen appear way earlier in the story,
which honestly I think worked really well, had it not been for that weird weird fight between Arlong
and Luffy at the Baratie where he completely wiped the floor with Luffy. And of course the
biggest change of all: Garp being the main Marine antagonist, chasing Luffy throught the east blue.
And while I actually really like the idea of this as a concept, basically taking Garps interaction
with the straw hats on Water 7 and weaving it into the early story here, the execution was not that
well done I think. First we are meant to believe that Garp seriously wants to capture Luffy,
but cant. which we know given how powerful Garp is would be no problem whatsoever for him. Then
at the end it’s supposed to have all been a test to see if Luffy was ready? So you sent Mihawk to
capture Luffy, as a test? What? Also, neither of these make sense for Garps character. He’s not
the type to actually try and capture his grandson, but he also isn’t the type to make sure luffy is
ready to become the next pirate king. Otherwise he actually would have been there in the manga. Still
I did enjoy the chemistry between the characters and seeing Garp interact with Mihawk and Zeff.
With that being said though, even though yes, there was a bunch of things to complain about
with the One Piece live action, in the great scheme of things as someone who was extremely
skeptical of this project, my expectations have been blown away. Even if not perfect and against
my biggest fears, this show was really fun to watch, got me involved with its characters and
most importantly really felt like watching One Piece come to live in a way. It made me cry, it
made me laugh and most importantly, I finished the last scene with a big grin on my face. Here is my
list of ratings for each episode, overall bringing the show to a really solid 7.5 / 10 score for me.
I’m really happy my favorite series now has a new interpretation and i very much hope there will be
a season 2. In the meantime, here is another video for you to watch. Shanks for watching.