On Thursday, an eight-part adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate comedy adventure “One Piece” will make its Netflix debut. The stakes are high: Millions of fans want to see if the showrunners, Matt Owens and Steven Maeda (whom Oda describes as “’One Piece’ superfans”) have succeeded in transforming the beloved manga and anime series into live-action. While some viewers over 30 may not recognize the title, “One Piece” is one of the most popular entertainment franchises in the world.
Since July 1997, when it appeared in the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, the ‘One Piece’ collections have sold more than 516 million copies worldwide. An animated TV series had its 1,000th episode earlier this year, and there have been countless TV specials, light novels, and video games; fans discuss “One Piece” trivia on numerous websites. The 15th feature film, ‘One Piece Film: Red’ was the No. 1 blockbuster in Japan in 2022, surpassing ‘Top Gun: Maverick’.
Oda is extremely private—he doesn’t allow his face to be photographed, if he can help it—but he spoke about “One Piece” in a rare interview from Los Angeles. Through the interpreter Taro Goto, he discussed the origins of “One Piece,” the cast of the hero for TV, and the movie that changed his mind about live-action adaptation. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What should you keep in mind if you want to adapt a phenomenally popular manga and anime series like ‘One Piece’ to live action?
A live-action adaptation of a manga isn’t simply reenacting the source material one-on-one: it involves really thinking about what fans like about the characters, the dynamics between them – and being true to those elements. . A good live-action show doesn’t have to change the story too much. The most important thing is whether the actors can reproduce the characters in a way that will satisfy the people who read the manga. I think we did a good job, so I hope the audience will accept it.
You’ve said you wanted to be a manga artist since you were in elementary school. How did ‘One Piece’ start?
When I was young, I started drawing the manga I wanted to read. When I started, I had to draw things that didn’t exist to grab attention. There were plenty of heroes who fought the demons and saved the world; the market was saturated with stories like that. I wanted to do something different, but recognizable. I understood that I was supported and helped by many people to get where I was, so friendship became a central theme.
The hero of the story is Monkey D. Luffy (it appropriately rhymes with ‘goofy’), who is determined to become King of the Pirates by finding a fantastic treasure known as the One Piece. Luffy is warm, cheerful and very devoted to his friends, but he is not a matinee idol. How did you design it?
I knew I wanted to write a pirate manga and just instinctively drew the kind of young boy I envisioned in the role. As the adventure progressed, I realized that different kinds of pirates would appear, so I decided to give Luffy a face that was really easy to draw. Later, when I had to sign autographs and sketch Luffy, it was easy to do.
Something that sets ‘One Piece’ apart from many adventure manga is the powerful, capable women in the story, including the archaeologist Robin and Nami, the navigator.
There are many strong women in the world of ‘One Piece’ – women with intelligence like Robin, or with abilities like Nami. There are even attractive and strong women among the enemy pirates. In the manga I read as a kid, there was always a point where the heroine existed to be saved. I didn’t like that; I didn’t want to create a story about women being kidnapped and rescued. I depict women who know how to fight for themselves and not need to be rescued. If there comes a time when they are overwhelmed, their shipmates will help them, and vice versa.
As a boy, Luffy ate the cursed gum fruit and it turned his body into rubber, allowing him to deliver fantastic stretchy kicks and punches during combat. Isn’t it better suited for animation than for live action?
When I first started, I didn’t think it made sense to draw a manga that could be recreated in live-action. But when I saw the movie ‘Shaolin Soccer’, it felt like a manga-esque world was brought to life. I’ve changed my mind. I realized times had changed and technology was available that could bring about a live-action ‘One Piece’. So I turned to finding the right partner to bring the manga to life.
Actors have portrayed Luffy and his crew in stage shows and even a Kabuki play. But attempts to adapt popular anime to American live-action films and series have generally been unsuccessful, as in the widespread breakdown “Ghost in the shell” (2017) and its short duration “Cowboy Bebop” (2021). Were you concerned about that?
Several manga had been made live action, but had a history of failures; no one in Japan could cite a successful example. Would “One Piece” fans – and viewers unfamiliar with the manga – accept it? Maybe it was time to look for the answer. Thankfully, Netflix agreed that they wouldn’t date the show until I agreed it was satisfactory. I read the scripts, took notes, and acted as a watchdog to make sure the material was edited appropriately.
Luffy isn’t the brightest doubloon in the dead man’s chest, but he’s an endearing character: he’s impulsive and merry until a bad guy threatens his friends or threatens someone weaker – and then it’s a fight to the end. Was he difficult to cast?
I thought the biggest challenge would be finding someone to play Luffy. I didn’t expect to find someone like Iñaki Godoy. When I first made Luffy, I drew the most energetic child I could imagine: a normal child on the outside, but not at all normal on the inside. Iñaki was just like the person I drew; he felt completely natural. Before I saw the first draft of the show, a lot of my notes were based on how the manga would act Luffy. But after seeing Iñaki’s performance, I was able to switch gears and take notes on how the live-action Luffy should behave.
The live-action “One Piece” uses more elaborate dialogue than the manga or the animated series, which focuses more on the visuals.
In a manga, the more dialogue you put in, the less room you have to draw, so I cut out the words as much as possible. But when people actually talk, the conversations are different. In live-action dramas, there is always a lot of dialogue. If the characters were speaking in real life, their speeches would have the natural feel that is in the scripts. I’m very happy with how that turned out.
Over the past 26 years, you’ve drawn thousands of pages of the manga, as well as magazine covers, book covers, and posters. You still draw with ink on paper; Have you ever considered switching to digital?
Everyone draws digitally now and it’s not that I’m not interested in it, but for some reason readers tend to take that work a little lightly. I enjoy the experience of hand drawing, and I expect to continue to use hand drawing for the duration of ‘One Piece’.
You have spoken with excitement about the possibility of a second season of the live-action series, and “One Piece” collections continue to appear on bestseller lists around the world. When you started Luffy’s saga in 1997, did you ever imagine it would span more than 25 years?
I never thought ‘One Piece’ would last this long: when I started, I thought it would last five years. But it was my first time doing something in series, and I found that as I kept writing, the characters took on a life of their own. Before I knew it, they were writing the story for me, and it went on and on.
