Netflix Is Adapting The Best Anime’
Netflix's live-action of the hit anime One Piece is expected to arrive some time this year.
Live-action adaptations of anime have been pretty bad over the years, ranging from the all-around-awful Dragon Ball Evolution to Netflix’s ambitious but-flawed adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. Nonetheless, Netflix is ready to get back on the horse again by providing us with a live-action adaptation of One Piece, a show that many fans think is the greatest anime ever made. And it looks like we’ll see this live show sooner rather than later: Variety reports that it will drop on Netflix sometime in 2023.
Part of what makes this news so exciting is that fans have been waiting for an update regarding this show for a long time. Netflix first announced a live-action One Piece way back in early 2020, and for a time it looked like everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to the poor reception of the live-action Cowboy Bebop might keep this show from seeing the light of day. To help really bring the hype, Netflix has also provided our first teaser art of the main character Monkey D. Luffy, who will be played by Iñaki Godoy (seen above).
All of the casting in the Netflix One Piece show sounds pretty exciting, and we’re looking forward to seeing other actors on the show, including Emily Rudd as Nami and Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp. But the casting of Luffy is particularly important because it is his quest that has driven the insane plot of the anime for so long. Specifically, he hopes to find the mysterious One Piece (a hidden treasure hunted by pirates around the world) in his quest to become the king of all pirates.
One thing we don’t yet know is what the story of this Netflix One Piece show is going to be like. For the Cowboy Bebop live-action show, the showrunners picked certain elements from various anime episodes and combined them with new stories and character details to create something new, which ended up angering fans who wanted a more straightforward adaptation. Should Netflix desire to stick to the original manga or anime, the company certainly has enough stories to choose from, with more getting added on a regular basis.
If you don’t already know, the One Piece manga was created back in 1997, and new issues are still being written to this day. The anime is also still ongoing, and the show has had over 1,000 episodes and 15 anime movies. If Netflix wants to simply adapt any of the more beloved storylines from either the One Piece manga or anime, the only really hard part will be picking what they think the fans will like.
So far, the Netflix One Piece announcement on Twitter has resulted in fans expressing skepticism about whether the show will be any good or not. Other fans are using the announcement as an opportunity to hash out some of their beefs with the streamer, including Netflix canceling beloved shows and introducing harsh rules about sharing passwords. When all is said and done, Netflix may discover that it would be easier to find the One Piece in real life than try to create a great live-action adaptation of a beloved anime.
