The full trailer for the One Piece live action series on Netflix if finally here and oh boy
we do have to talk about it.
Within the 3 minutes, we got a closer look at a ton of stuff, including most of the major
characters, the rough outline of the plot, the fighting, the cgi and even one major change
to the main story line.
And I’m just gonna say right out of the gate, after watching this trailer about 50
times now: This actual looks pretty damn great.
I am genuinely excited to see the show now, and I’m blown away that this actually looks
so promising, after I was a bit torn about the initial teaser.
BUT!
And yes, of course there was gonna be a but, there were of course also going to be some
things that really rubbed me the wrong way and that i want to discuss as well, starting
in order of the trailer with the Execution of the first pirate king Gol D. Roger.
First of all, this often goes unnoticed in production, but I really really appreciate
the sound design of the opening shots.
The sound of the boots and chains, the gears clanking, the sound of the blade when the
executioners lift the blade: Great sound design just elevates the experience so so much and
makes it so much easier to immerse yourself into a world.
Btw i also love the detail of roger’s jolly roger on the back of his coat in this shot.
The next thing that really really blew me away here, is the set design of Logue Town:
Holly hell, this looks so so much better than I could have imagined.
Hands down, this might be my favorite set in the entire show so far next to the Baratie,
although there will be one set I’m personally very unhappy with, but we’ll get to that.
ALSO, and again this is subtle, but has major impact on how we see a show, is the color
grading here: The washed out yellowy tone with muted blues gives this exactly the vibe
i was hoping for.
It gives the scene such a great ambient feel, that sells me that this happens in a world
roughly equal to the victorian era.
And we also have our first subtle change to the original anime, because the producers
actually changed the look of the executioners a little bit, in my opinion very much to the
better!
While the two faceless characters here in the original dont exactly look threatening,
I really dig the costumes they designed for the live adaptation.
These guys look like they mean business.
AND yet another change that i approve of, is having Garp be present at Roger’s execution.
This makes sense not only because it introduces us to Luffy’s grandfather being a high ranking
marine right from the start, but also because he was Rogers rival and at some point friend,
who took in his secret son Ace.
AND, it also adds for me to the scene at marineford where Garp is sitting next to Ace.
If he HAD to be at major executions like this, it makes it even more painful for Garp having
to be at the execution of two of the people he really cared for, father and son no less.
OR if he was there voluntarily, it means that Garp chose to show respect and be there to
support Roger and Ace.
So, whatever it is, I actually LOVE this change and kinda wish it had been in the original
as well.
Also, let’s be real, they absolutely NAILED Garp here.
Like, you know right away who it was.
Which now brings be to 2 things I didn’t really like so much, which is the man himself:
Roger.
Don’t get me wrong, they did absolutely get the clothing perfect and the voice acting
is fan-tastic.
BUT.
I really don’t vibe with the casting here for some reason.
Nothing against the guy, again i love his voice performance, but neither the voice nor
his face just scream Roger to me.
The mustache looks kind of out of place in his face, and I KNOW there are people who
would have rocked this role, there was actually a Rumor, that Jack Black was going to play
Roger, which would have been absolutely legendary.
I will say, i do love the yellowed teeth, that is exactly the level of realism, i do
miss a bit from some of the other scenes here.
And the second thing I did not really like here, is the crowd work we see.
Now obviously, background acting and crowd acting is a bit of an ungrateful job sometimes
and there barely is a lot of camera time on anyone specific, but the people i they show
here in the crowd, or the woman running with the sword..maybe I’m being too harsh, but
they don’t really sell to me that these are real people in a real world.
They do feel like someone just screamed action.
But that’s a minor complaint.
So moving on to Luffy leaving his home island, which is called Dawn Island in the manga,
on a tiny boat with no idea how to navigate, looking out at sea saying he wants to get
a crew.
Now clearly this is what the joke here with the sea gull is referencing, which by the
way is called a news coo and is part of the news paper delivery system in the one piece
world.
And while it didn’t appear in the original, i absolutely LOVE how it turned out.
I’m actually not 100% sure if this is CGI or a puppet, but it looks perfectly real to
me.
And I do wonder what type of news it brings Luffy, that we didn’t get in the manga.
I assume it might serve as some introduction or exposition for some characters, though
as far as I know we don’t even know if Luffy can actually read in the Anime.
Now coming back to the joke itself, this is something that already was clear during the
teaser trailer, but we’re clearly going to get a lot of these very Marvel-like one
liners, that I personally just don’t find super funny, but I can live with them, and
it is what it is.
Also in this case it even works somewhat, because Luffy would probably be the type of
person who would have invited a sea gull into his crew in the manga, if it had landed on
his boat at this point.
Also, I’m not gonna play any music for copyright reasons, but that track that starts playing
right after, that sounds like a bit of a rip off of the pirates of the Caribbean theme
right?
I’m not imagining that?
Okay good.
Weird choice, I’d rather would have preferred a more visual nod to that series by making
things look less clean and more ‘real’, but hey.
We get the iconic Luffy in a barrel scene, however he managed to get in there, which
I’m really looking forward to seeing him explode out of there in front of Koby.
Which brings us right to Alivida’s ship, which is in the process of plundering another
pirate ship.
AND.
I. LOVE IT: The fact that they actually show a somewhat realistic pirate battle with people
swinging on ropes and canons being fired, is something that is even missing a bit from
the original show, so to me this really helps sell me this world, especially considering
that we are still in the east blue here, where things like Devil Fruits and Haki are insanely
rare and most people don’t even know they exist.
I think Alvida’s ship design is really awesome, actually better than the going merry in my
opinion, where the sheep’s head still haunts my dreams.
Alvida herself is..alright I guess.
The casting and costume is great, but she almost doesn’t look mean enough here, if
you know what i mean.
Thought that might end up being just fine in the final series.
ALSO, for SOME REASON, here the pirate ships look dirty, edgy and Real.
Just what I was hoping for, but then so many other sets, like the Merry or the cosumes
of so many characters are so so clean.
look at those dirty sails with holes in them.
Now THAT’s what i would have loved for everything in this show.
Now I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what the red explosion here is, but it does
look visually stunning, so I’m excited to see that in the show.
And then: The Jolly Roger reveal!!
And even though there is some somewhat corny dialogue here again, I couldnt help but grin
seeing this: They took the exact design from the manga, which I really really appreciate
and actually I do really buy the acting for Luffy here too.
Small fun fact, the first person in the manga to every say the phrase straw hat pirates
is actually not Luffy, but the Marine Captain Smoker during the Alabasta arc.
Then we get a bit of a traveling montage, which sets up the goal of reaching the grandline,
which i strongly assume will be the conclusion of this first season: Reaching Reverse Mountain.
Because Entering the Grand Line and Meeting Laboon would in my opinion make the perfect
first episode of a second season, kicking of the Alabasta Saga.
Im not sure why the merry is capsizing here in this shot, but it does look awesome as
heck.
Then we get a first look at buggy’s circus tent, which I also think turned out awesome.
In fact, Buggy, his crew and the set make them seem way more of a threat than their
original appearance in the manga.
Ah…and then Mihawk.
So.
Mihawk himself is as perfect as I could have ever dreamed it.
Steven Ward is just perfect in this role, the costume is flawless and even the colored
contacts work perfectly here.
The fight scene with Zoro at the Baratie is bound to be one of the biggest highlights
of the show.
And yet: WHY ..why does the sword look it’s made out of plastic.
Yoru in this closeup looks like some low budget merchandize and that’s such a shame.
Yes, making big anime weapons look real is hard, but there are whole youtube channels
out there doing just that.
For comparison, look at the version of Yoru that the craft channel AWE me made 8 years
ago.
Then we have the scene with Captain Kuro’s Claws appearing behind Merry, Kaya’s butler
from Usopps home island.
And yes he’s actually called merry, because he’s the one who built the original Going
Merry.
Fantastic little teaser for this arc here and Kuro will be a super fun villain to see
in Live Action as well with his massive claw hands, that we actually see a bit later again
boring into the floor next to luffy.
Then there is Zoro in a well for some reason.
And ahhh.
Yes.
So, this trailer sadly confirmed something I was a bit worried about with the teaser
and this might be a very controversial take, but here it is: I’m just not buying Zoro
as a character.
Don’t get me wrong, Makenyu LOOKS like the perfect Zoro, the fight scenes LOOK perfectly
like Zoro, but the dialogue and the way he talks…sorry but that’s just not Zoro.
Yes, Zoro is supposed to be cool, but what makes him so unique is also his comedic moments,
when he lets that cool facade slip and how much he really cares about the entire crew.
And I’m really sorry, but to me, that’s just not what I’m seeing here.
Which is just such a shame, because he one of my absolute favorite characters in the
show.
We also get Zoro’s oath to Luffy, which is also quite altered from the manga.
There it happens with Zoro’s chest cut open after losing to Mihawk and almost drowning
balling his eyes out, which is one of the few emotional moments that make Zoro so awesome.
And i might be wrong and we still get that scene as it happens, but if this turns out
to be the actual oath scene, than im just not buying it.
But moving on to something that looks just incredible, we have Buggy and his powers,
and they look AWESOME.
The CGI for his powers absolutely work, the set as i mentioned is epic and this will absolutely
go down as a highlight of this first season.
Which now brings us to what is clearly going to be the climax of this show: The fight against
the fishman pirates, which interestingly enough seems to be set up at the Baratie.
This will of course be probably THE single biggest change to the original, because it
seems like Don Krieg, the main villain of that arc has been replaced by Arlong and his
men, who might be there to take back Nami by force, instead of Nami betraying the crew.
And while this might end up being a controversial choice, it might work out in their favor,
as long as they make sure we get these 3 things:
First, Mihawk still needs his epic entrance, and I doubt that he will sink Arlong’s ship.
Then, we still need to see Sanji’s kindness, which was him giving food to the starving
Gin in the manga.
And thirdly, Nami not ‘betraying’/leaving the crew on her own accords would be quite
a drastic change to her character arc and her redemption later on in the story when
she fully trusts luffy to save her and her village.
But that being said, if they manage to work these things in, I don’t hate the idea of
setting up the Fishmen as the final villains of this season a bit earlier.
Also, and I can’t stress this enough: The Baratie set is by far the most epic thing
in this entire trailer for me.
It just looks so damn fantastic, that it’s obvious that they really went above and beyond
to design this, and I’m all here for it.
Which sadly I can’t say about Arlong Park as well.
Because this just looks like Disney land, fake plastic rocks to me, im sorry.
The main building itself looks great, both on the inside and on the outside and when
we see it collapse, that looks very real to me too.
But the yard in front of it, again i just don’t buy.
It’s like Mihawks sword.
however, what does look very very promising is the fighting choreography.
All the non-cgi characters powers look incredible.
Zoro’s sword skills, Sanji’s kicks, Usopp’s sniping.
They are all fantastic.
And I’m glad to see that there will be blood in this show as well, as we see Zoro ruthlessly
slashing someones heel.
This makes me very confident that the actual fight scenes might end up being a real joy
to watch.
Luffy’s CGI that we see, him stretching his face, just like in the Mange and then
his gatling gun are actually as perfect as you could have made it for a power that feels
almost impossible to bring to live in a live action setting.
Hats off to the show runners for this.
I 100% buy it.
Arlong himself on the other hand.
Ouch.
I mean same thing here: It was always going to be very very hard to bring the fishman
to live properly, but this just doesn’t look quite right to me.
I wonder if dropping the long nose, like they did with usopp might not have been the wiser
move here.
The scene of Luffy giving Nami his straw hat, which next to Zoro’s oath is probably the
best scene in the entire east blue saga in the manga, could really go either way here.
I didn’t quite feel the heaviness of the scene here, but it is just a quick snippet
from a trailer with upbeat epic music, so it might end up being just fine in the show
with more context.
Both Shanks AND the sea King look absolutely awesome.
Very excited to see how Shanks’ lines and delivery will be like, but this looks great.
As does the iconinc giving luffy his straw hat scene, though i think the background farming
could have been a bit cleaner, maybe with the ocean.
We see Morgan and his axe hand, again very promising.
And boy, Koby is just Koby.
That is as perfect as it gets.
Dialogue, costume, everything.
And we do get 3 little easter eggs in the bounty posters luffy looks at, all from pirates
Luffy will meet in the grandline with Bellamy from Skypea, Foxy who set up the davy back
fight and cavendish who joined Luffy’s grand fleet on Dressrosa.
I hope these are little hints, that we might be seeing these people in later seasons.
Buuuut, I don’t really did the delivery of the king of the pirates line at the end.
That’s not really Luffy for me, but that might be my personal taste here.
However, while I do have a couple of issues like this one, overall this live action might
actually turn out to not only be better than we all expected, but I’d actually go so
far as to say that this trailer was really really good.
If the show itself can live up to what we are being shown here, then I think new and
old fans, me included, will have a fantastic time watching it, so make sure to subscribe
if you don’t want to miss my breakdown of everything once the show actually drops on
August 31st.
Thanks for watching.