I've binged the first season of the One Piece Live action, it's... I want to say "good" for a manga/anime adaptation but I think I'll settle on "decent at best" as a show overall. I mean, it's clear that they put a LOT of effort and care in its making but it also has some serious flaws.
The good:
- The story is mostly intact. Understandably there's been some changes (some characters were cut, some were introduced earlier, a few new plot points were added) but they mostly serve to condense the story, not change it.
- Like the story, the characters are mostly true to their manga/anime counterparts, there are few visual alterations (Luffy doesn't wear chanclas, Ussop doesn't have such a long nose etc) but the mannerisms, motivations, goals, attitudes are there.
- Details! LOTS of details! From the characters in the background to the main characters' outfits (they change clothes every few episodes but they still use the outfits they would wear in later arcs). Even the figurehead of the Going Merry, they could have make it look like the original but instead they changed it to a far more expressive one that looks like it was hand carved by some really skilled craftsman.
The bad:
- There is some tonal shift between episodes, like they haven't made up their minds how they want to portray the world. Zoro is introduced cutting a person in half which isn't really in the style of the source material or the following episodes either. Similarly Buggy (a clown themed pirate) at first feels more like the Joker (from Batman) but later settles to his true, goofy persona.
- The world feels a lot more grounded to reality than in the manga/anime. By itself that's not a problem but, to me, it makes the more fantastical elements feel jarring when they come in screen.
- Most of the special effects are good but the fishmen look BAD, like something out of Hercules/Xena or even the Power Rangers.
- The biggest problem in my opinion, is that they seem to have some screenwriting or, i should say, pacing issues. While watching I felt that a lot of the emotional beats fell flat, like there wasn't enough build up, to justify and make them feel earned.
See this is weird to me, I've been regularly reading One Piece since Marineford, I watch it occasionally on adult swim, I've shown her some of it, I was giddy showing her the Gear 5 stuff, and later showing her the animated version was fun.
Nerd cred to her for going "so basically he's Popeye level broken?" because yeah, toon physics > everything else.
So she jumped in knowing the show later on, had only seen a bit of Koby and Buggy and Garp but it hooked her straight away (even though strictly speaking Garp didn't show up/grand-dad reveal til Enies Lobby/Water Seven) and I had a blast pulling up panels from the early chapters to show her that as a general rule, if you see an odd clothing pattern/style, a weird background statue, strange facial hair, odd boats, it's pulled straight from the manga.
Still, with little background in the early story it got her up to speed and invested easily, to the point she wanted to space them out a bit instead of just binge them, so we wouldn't run out too fast. The last episode has both of us psyched for more to come, Smoker and Tashigi will be great, it'll be fun seeing them reach Reverse Mountain, Little Garden, Cactus Island, set up Drum Island, Alabasta, and more.
Also, I personally love the casting they did with Koby and Garp and Garp calling him son was a nice touch.
Note that he didn't have a teddy bear hat, it was a bulldog hat.
Also: Buggy starts out seeming like a serious threat and gets the upper hand early on before the crew get serious and quickly outclass him, exactly like the live action one.
When you consider Buggy and Shanks...
...were both in Roger's crew back in the day it makes sense he should have a sense of drama at least, and...
...honestly the casting of both of them were perfect.
Author
Topic: what tv shows are you currently watching? (Read 136190 times)