With “One Piece,” Netflix is repeating history, and there’s not much evidence it paid attention to what happened the first time around.
‘Cowboy Bebop’ was a cult-favorite Japanese animated series that fetishized cool American jazz, film noir, and Hollywood westerns, and in 2021, Netflix returned the cultural homage by making an American live-action adaptation. It wasn’t a disaster, but it quickly disappeared from view.
“One Piece” is a remarkably enduring manga and anime franchise—over 500 million books sold, 1,073 television episodes and counting—that applies slapstick, Buster Keaton-esque visual energy to a rooted adventure story in Hollywood swashbucklers and musicals like “Captain Blood” and “The Crimson Pirate.” So Netflix has moved again to produce an American live-action remake, the eight episodes of which premiered on Thursday.
The original “Cowboy Bebop” and “One Piece” are very different creatures, but they have one important thing in common: they are propelled by style. Texture, composition, sound and movement engage us and provoke our emotions; the moody revenge plot of ‘Bebop’ and the thrilling coming-of-age story of ‘One Piece’ are just usable scaffolding.
There’s no reason why a live-action version of either anime couldn’t find its own signature style. But none of these shows succeeded; they seem to have at least avoided the attempt. To an even greater extent than the Netflix ‘Cowboy Bebop’, the Netflix ‘One Piece’ feels dull and generic. It may satisfy fans of the original who like to see events more or less faithfully replicated, but most of the anime’s verve and personality has gone and been replaced by busyness, elaborate but uninteresting production design, and – a sign of the times – a heightened piety regarding the themes of the story: knowing yourself and believing in yourself.
‘One Piece’ takes place in a fantastical world largely made up of ocean, patrolled by colorfully named pirate crews, some of which consist of fishmen. It revolves around a young wannabe pirate named Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy). As he pursues his childhood dream of becoming the king of the pirates and finding what might be a mythical treasure called the One Piece, he gradually assembles a squad of young misfits like himself, with unfortunate pasts and missions that define them: the greatest swordsman in the world. be the world, or be the greatest swordsman in the world. find a (perhaps mythical) fishing paradise.
In addition to an unnaturally cheerful temper and an utter refusal to take no for an answer, Luffy is characterized by his ability to extend his limbs over long distances (useful when throwing punches) and to absorb punishment, the results of eating a forbidden fruit whose body is rubbery. This bit of comedic inspiration from the character’s creator, Japanese artist Eiichiro Oda, makes Luffy physically and psychologically congruent: he is elastic and indestructible in every way.
The series does a more than commendable job of mimicking Luffy’s rubbery skills, and Godoy (a Mexican actor who appeared in the Netflix series “Who Killed Sara?” and “The Imperfects”) matches well in looks and temperament. the animated character. .
But beyond that, there’s not much he can play, and so can the rest of the cast, which includes such capable performers as Mackenyu as the swordsman, Roronoa Zoro, and Taz Skylar as the pirate chef Sanji. The depth of the writing isn’t defining or breaking the carnival atmosphere of the anime, delivered in 20-minute thrills, but the thinness of the characterizations becomes much harder to ignore in the more deliberate, more ordinary Netflix narrative, with the story transformed into hour-long episodes.
Reshaping that — the eight episodes roughly equate to the first 45 episodes of the anime — was certainly a major effort, and it would be understandable if there wasn’t a lot of time or energy left to actually reinvent the material for live actors and accumulated kits. The show’s developers and showrunners Matt Owens and Steven Maeda were able to wrestle the story to a draw. But they don’t capture the corny, goofy spirit of the anime, and without it, the generalities about living your dream and making way for a new generation just sit there collecting dust.
The fate of ‘One Piece’ and ‘Cowboy Bebop’ may be a likely consequence of big box streaming. Taking a show that has found a fanatical following and remaking it with the widest possible audience in mind means you’re not making it for a specific viewer at all.
