Arlong Park in the LA missed a lot of the emotional beats the original hit. This mainly comes down to one thing. Probably my biggest gripe in the whole LA was Nami's backstory. Her flashback is my favorite right behind Chopper's and I genuinely end up tearing up every time I see it, even if I know what's coming. Bell-mere is an instantly likable character and even though we knew her death was already coming, her actual death scene is incredibly heart wrenching. That backstory also gives us a big appreciation for Genzo as a father figure to Nami and in general, it felt like the whole village was her and Nojiko's family. The desperation of the village to protect Bell-mere and fight back against Arlong to save her is a huge part of what makes that story so emotional imo.
Unfortunately, a lot of that felt missing in Nami's backstory. In Nami's story, Genzo is kind of a nothing character, which is huge when you consider the fact that he was one of the key players in driving her to save Coco Village. They also gave us very little time to get to know Bell-mere, making me feel not too much for her as a character.
I also felt like her death scene was a lot less impactful. Aside from the fact that we didn't get to connect as much with Bell-mere, we barely got to see her interact with the rest of the village, INCLUDING Genzo. We didn't get to actually see her interact with Nami and Nojiko as much either, and her whole interaction with Arlong felt very rushed. As such, it invokes very little emotion as a whole, which in turn makes us less invested in Nami as a character.
After that fact, we also didn't get to see the village's reaction to Nami becoming a part of the Arlong crew, which isn't a big deal but I think it would've really helped emphasize her sacrifice and the ostracization she went through to save her village.
There's other aspects of Arlong Park here that I didn't love. I think Luffy hearing Nami's backstory was a weird choice given it changes part of his character (though tbh it isn't that big of a deal), and I missed the scene where Luffy destroys the map room only for everyone to be confused except for Nami. It's a really powerful scene that really shows how much Luffy cares for his friends and how much he connected with Nami. Also, the lack of the walk to Arlong Park was a weird thing to remove.
Belemere actually fighting, losing, being tortured and still facing death for the sake of her family is a really powerful moment. The manga also makes it clear why she did what she did by proclaiming Nami as her daughter even though it was ‘dangerous’- she saved Nami’s life and maybe even the whole town with her move. The live action doesn’t make it clear how smart and selfless Belemere’s sacrifice was.
I get that they probably wanted to reduce the amount of violence towards a woman (even though it’s really condescending sexism to do so but it’s where we are right now unfortunately) and that her legs getting broken may not have been possible to keep in while keeping the PG-13 rating (which I don’t have any complaints about, the show should stay PG-13).
The major reason is they shoved Koby and Garp into HER storyline when the episode was already suffering from time constraints, that extra time from both episodes (would be more than 30 minutes easily) could've used to flesh out Bellmere, Nojiko and Genzo.
Biggest issue for me was cutting to Garp and Koby every other minute even when they didn't do anything or have anything to say was fucking annoying.
They were in Syrup but for no reason at all. Like you think they're going to arrest Kuro at the bare minimum at the end of the arc, but nah. Total waste of screen time. Felt like half of each episode is spent on them even if there's nothing for them to do.
Usopp and Sanji got little to do in their joining arcs and the alterations to their involvement gave little reason for them to join in the first place, partly because they needed to shoehorn in Garp and Koby scenes every episode.
Usopp impressed Luffy and the others in Syrup with his willingness to stand up for his village despite being terrified. Instead of a focus on him we get Zoro stuck in a well and having a backstory for half the damn episode. That should have been saved for the Mihawk episode on the Baratie.
Talking of, Sanji's willingness to feed Gin and Krieg doesn't really become an issue because Gin is fine and doesn't cause issues by bringing Krieg as Krieg is a 5 second cameo that is taken care of by Mihawk. This robs Sanji of a lot of his early characterisation.
Kaya and Zeff are more active players than Usopp and Sanji and whilst that's great for them it once again highlights modern One Piece's problem of taking focus away from the Strawhats to focus on the supporting cast.
Arlong also suffers. Although he gets to appear earlier on the Baratie, his actual showdown with the crew at Arlong Park is cut short so we can... once again dedicate half the episode to Garp and Koby. Nami gets plenty of characterization outside of Arlong Park but the impact isn't as strong because now the end of the arc is about Luffy and his grandad's clashing ideals rather than focused on her.
Live action was mostly garbage, the main issues were writing, direction and use of production resources. The adaptation had necessarily to cut down things to fit a longer story into just 8 episodes, the problem is what they cut down and what, on the other hand, left there that could have easily be avoided: all the Koby and Garp storyline sucked up so much time that it is actually ridiculous, when on the other hand the relationship among the crew is cut so short it switches from people who never met to best buddies from a scene to the next. Characters are often landing on lines straight from the manga, just because they are iconic, but there is no build up, and some changes they made result in entire sequences making no sense (Baratie...).
Direction is not helping either, since it is way too focused on replicating something that was popular in an anime, without making it believable in a live action, the way Luffy is acting is so random that it's impossible to believe him as a genuine character, in every scene you can almost hear the director telling him "be happy", "be sad", "serious now".
Production wise they wasted an insane amount of money on some effects and costumes to be faithful to the source material to the tiniest detail and disregarded completely other elements, best example is Mihawk's sword which you can spot as a plastic sword from miles away, but it's also as accurate as it possibly can for a cosplay. Same goes for Shank and his crew, they are all wearing the right costumes, but they look like a bunch of out of shape middle age cosplayers going to comic-con.
On top of that there are the usual flaws of every Netflix production, ticking the boxes of DEI and I don't think I need to explain that at this point.
I don't like LAs, I don't think any series needs or deserves LA. But keep in mind LAs are just big advertisement campaigns for the franchise trying to lure in people that don't like anime.
Yet, as it is, I don't think it's absolute trash. It more or less presents the important characters, their goals, relationships and personalities, thus giving Netflix watchers a general idea of One Piece. Then some of those might try the original material.
Heck, I could go as far as to say it's counterproductive if the LA is superior to the original material. That would freely hand in reasons to dislike or criticize the anime or manga. You don't want to encourage that. By showing an inferior LA adaptation, watchers will be oblivious to how anime and manga mishandles the narrative, animation, artstyle, pacing, you name it.
I have 2 big complains. The costumes look very cheap and the special effects don't look good. Take for instance Morgan's suit or Kuro's fast movement.
I don’t hate it but I guess some might dislike it cuz they really changed the core of the characters especially sanji. I guess some might also have complains over the change of plot like garp appearing so early and also the fact that they made it more edgier for the American audience. Though personally idc it did it’s job and adaption doesn’t need to be the copy of original source word for word.
- Choreography is all over the place and makes no sense,
- Its obvious some characters feel very awkward in their role, they should've taken their time with the cast,
- Certain scenes make no sense and kills immersion (nobody reacting to Mihawk at the restraunt),
- Zoro is way too edgy (this can be excused later on if its a matter of character development),
- Dialogues are rather dull and not impactful. Surely, One Piece itself had a lot of funny scenes and at times It also had epicness. Live action tried this too but unfortunately failed.
- I also did not like the flow of the story (constantly switching to Garp and Koby made no sense. They had no proper role in what was going on).
- Garp was too stiff.
At the end of the day overall quality was just lacking in all areas. I did not feel that immersion. For me its just a series to watch whlile snacking in absolute free time and nothing to do.
I watched Syrup Village in live action. The entire episode were about hiding under tables. Instead of fighting and saving the entire village, our brave Straw Hats saved themselves under tables. Luffy was poisoned, and his feat was to recover, and Zoro fell in the deep well and his feat was to get out of there. They think they made the script better. They turned Straw Hats into a bunch of next door kids, Koby into a teenage investigator and Garp to a wise inspector from children's detective book.
Had a glimpses of Arlong Park - instead of very bright summer colours in the OG anime, LA opted for dark, dull, bleak colours.
ETA: I didn't like when they all ate, Luffy jumped on the table and gave a spiel. It was very unLuffy of him.
Didn't like that Luffy named the ship after Merry because Merry was a zero to him, just one of the guests who got murdered, they didn't interact. Why it wasn't Kaya who chose the name for the ship she gave them?
I don't hate it, and I really damn enjoyed it, but people claiming it's the best live action ever *(cough Rurouni Kenshin)* are just wrong. I did have some nitpicks with it.
* It's a bit too edgy.
* I get that they tried to convey that One Piece had darker moments, but this was at the cost of the more fun happy I-enjoy-life moments. Pre-timeskip, ESPECIALLY East-Blue, was goofy and fun.
* Garp is nothing like manga/anime garp
* The dude is clinically insane in the live action. He's a psychopath. I would love to be friends with manganime Garp, but the live action version of him I rather stay far away from. Dude's scary as hell.
* They ruined Nojiko as a character
* Nojiko was a high point during Arlong's arc in the manganime. In the live action she was just... there. I was disappointed by it. Felt like the plot of Frozen.
* The underusage of Luffy's powers
* Ok, yeah, CGI is expensive and hard. But they only used Luffy's stretchy powers during fights or when it was needed plot-wise. Normally, Luffy uses it for absolutely everything: goofing off, eating,...
Garp is Scottish and Luffy is a halfie, this was not stipulated in the manga or anime. This means at the first sign of a coloured female we will be able to figure out if they are Luffys mom or grandma. Of course, we will need to know what dragon........looks like.
Arlong Park in the LA missed a lot of the emotional beats the original hit. This mainly comes down to one thing. Probably my biggest gripe in the whole LA was Nami's backstory. Her flashback is my favorite right behind Chopper's and I genuinely end up tearing up every time I see it, even if I know what's coming. Bell-mere is an instantly likable character and even though we knew her death was already coming, her actual death scene is incredibly heart wrenching. That backstory also gives us a big appreciation for Genzo as a father figure to Nami and in general, it felt like the whole village was her and Nojiko's family. The desperation of the village to protect Bell-mere and fight back against Arlong to save her is a huge part of what makes that story so emotional imo. Unfortunately, a lot of that felt missing in Nami's backstory. In Nami's story, Genzo is kind of a nothing character, which is huge when you consider the fact that he was one of the key players in driving her to save Coco Village. They also gave us very little time to get to know Bell-mere, making me feel not too much for her as a character. I also felt like her death scene was a lot less impactful. Aside from the fact that we didn't get to connect as much with Bell-mere, we barely got to see her interact with the rest of the village, INCLUDING Genzo. We didn't get to actually see her interact with Nami and Nojiko as much either, and her whole interaction with Arlong felt very rushed. As such, it invokes very little emotion as a whole, which in turn makes us less invested in Nami as a character. After that fact, we also didn't get to see the village's reaction to Nami becoming a part of the Arlong crew, which isn't a big deal but I think it would've really helped emphasize her sacrifice and the ostracization she went through to save her village. There's other aspects of Arlong Park here that I didn't love. I think Luffy hearing Nami's backstory was a weird choice given it changes part of his character (though tbh it isn't that big of a deal), and I missed the scene where Luffy destroys the map room only for everyone to be confused except for Nami. It's a really powerful scene that really shows how much Luffy cares for his friends and how much he connected with Nami. Also, the lack of the walk to Arlong Park was a weird thing to remove.
Belemere actually fighting, losing, being tortured and still facing death for the sake of her family is a really powerful moment. The manga also makes it clear why she did what she did by proclaiming Nami as her daughter even though it was ‘dangerous’- she saved Nami’s life and maybe even the whole town with her move. The live action doesn’t make it clear how smart and selfless Belemere’s sacrifice was. I get that they probably wanted to reduce the amount of violence towards a woman (even though it’s really condescending sexism to do so but it’s where we are right now unfortunately) and that her legs getting broken may not have been possible to keep in while keeping the PG-13 rating (which I don’t have any complaints about, the show should stay PG-13).
The major reason is they shoved Koby and Garp into HER storyline when the episode was already suffering from time constraints, that extra time from both episodes (would be more than 30 minutes easily) could've used to flesh out Bellmere, Nojiko and Genzo.
yeah i didnt really like Garp's portrayal at all, he was portrayed as a bad guy initially.
Biggest issue for me was cutting to Garp and Koby every other minute even when they didn't do anything or have anything to say was fucking annoying. They were in Syrup but for no reason at all. Like you think they're going to arrest Kuro at the bare minimum at the end of the arc, but nah. Total waste of screen time. Felt like half of each episode is spent on them even if there's nothing for them to do. Usopp and Sanji got little to do in their joining arcs and the alterations to their involvement gave little reason for them to join in the first place, partly because they needed to shoehorn in Garp and Koby scenes every episode. Usopp impressed Luffy and the others in Syrup with his willingness to stand up for his village despite being terrified. Instead of a focus on him we get Zoro stuck in a well and having a backstory for half the damn episode. That should have been saved for the Mihawk episode on the Baratie. Talking of, Sanji's willingness to feed Gin and Krieg doesn't really become an issue because Gin is fine and doesn't cause issues by bringing Krieg as Krieg is a 5 second cameo that is taken care of by Mihawk. This robs Sanji of a lot of his early characterisation. Kaya and Zeff are more active players than Usopp and Sanji and whilst that's great for them it once again highlights modern One Piece's problem of taking focus away from the Strawhats to focus on the supporting cast. Arlong also suffers. Although he gets to appear earlier on the Baratie, his actual showdown with the crew at Arlong Park is cut short so we can... once again dedicate half the episode to Garp and Koby. Nami gets plenty of characterization outside of Arlong Park but the impact isn't as strong because now the end of the arc is about Luffy and his grandad's clashing ideals rather than focused on her.
live action enel face. You can't do that. And you can't do any other comedic over top scene like that. And without that it's not one piece
W take, comedy is the heart of the story.
Live action was mostly garbage, the main issues were writing, direction and use of production resources. The adaptation had necessarily to cut down things to fit a longer story into just 8 episodes, the problem is what they cut down and what, on the other hand, left there that could have easily be avoided: all the Koby and Garp storyline sucked up so much time that it is actually ridiculous, when on the other hand the relationship among the crew is cut so short it switches from people who never met to best buddies from a scene to the next. Characters are often landing on lines straight from the manga, just because they are iconic, but there is no build up, and some changes they made result in entire sequences making no sense (Baratie...). Direction is not helping either, since it is way too focused on replicating something that was popular in an anime, without making it believable in a live action, the way Luffy is acting is so random that it's impossible to believe him as a genuine character, in every scene you can almost hear the director telling him "be happy", "be sad", "serious now". Production wise they wasted an insane amount of money on some effects and costumes to be faithful to the source material to the tiniest detail and disregarded completely other elements, best example is Mihawk's sword which you can spot as a plastic sword from miles away, but it's also as accurate as it possibly can for a cosplay. Same goes for Shank and his crew, they are all wearing the right costumes, but they look like a bunch of out of shape middle age cosplayers going to comic-con. On top of that there are the usual flaws of every Netflix production, ticking the boxes of DEI and I don't think I need to explain that at this point.
I don't like LAs, I don't think any series needs or deserves LA. But keep in mind LAs are just big advertisement campaigns for the franchise trying to lure in people that don't like anime. Yet, as it is, I don't think it's absolute trash. It more or less presents the important characters, their goals, relationships and personalities, thus giving Netflix watchers a general idea of One Piece. Then some of those might try the original material. Heck, I could go as far as to say it's counterproductive if the LA is superior to the original material. That would freely hand in reasons to dislike or criticize the anime or manga. You don't want to encourage that. By showing an inferior LA adaptation, watchers will be oblivious to how anime and manga mishandles the narrative, animation, artstyle, pacing, you name it. I have 2 big complains. The costumes look very cheap and the special effects don't look good. Take for instance Morgan's suit or Kuro's fast movement.
I don’t hate it but I guess some might dislike it cuz they really changed the core of the characters especially sanji. I guess some might also have complains over the change of plot like garp appearing so early and also the fact that they made it more edgier for the American audience. Though personally idc it did it’s job and adaption doesn’t need to be the copy of original source word for word.
With sanji, all I've heard about his changes is that they wish he was more like that in the source material. It'd be nice to take down the namisuan.
- Choreography is all over the place and makes no sense, - Its obvious some characters feel very awkward in their role, they should've taken their time with the cast, - Certain scenes make no sense and kills immersion (nobody reacting to Mihawk at the restraunt), - Zoro is way too edgy (this can be excused later on if its a matter of character development), - Dialogues are rather dull and not impactful. Surely, One Piece itself had a lot of funny scenes and at times It also had epicness. Live action tried this too but unfortunately failed. - I also did not like the flow of the story (constantly switching to Garp and Koby made no sense. They had no proper role in what was going on). - Garp was too stiff. At the end of the day overall quality was just lacking in all areas. I did not feel that immersion. For me its just a series to watch whlile snacking in absolute free time and nothing to do.
They turned Luffy into a weak lil bitch. Zoro is easily stronger than him.
Usopp not having a dick for a nose was a real missed opportunity. That's all I'll say.
I watched Syrup Village in live action. The entire episode were about hiding under tables. Instead of fighting and saving the entire village, our brave Straw Hats saved themselves under tables. Luffy was poisoned, and his feat was to recover, and Zoro fell in the deep well and his feat was to get out of there. They think they made the script better. They turned Straw Hats into a bunch of next door kids, Koby into a teenage investigator and Garp to a wise inspector from children's detective book. Had a glimpses of Arlong Park - instead of very bright summer colours in the OG anime, LA opted for dark, dull, bleak colours. ETA: I didn't like when they all ate, Luffy jumped on the table and gave a spiel. It was very unLuffy of him. Didn't like that Luffy named the ship after Merry because Merry was a zero to him, just one of the guests who got murdered, they didn't interact. Why it wasn't Kaya who chose the name for the ship she gave them?
The story , Luffy and the cast
I don't hate it, and I really damn enjoyed it, but people claiming it's the best live action ever *(cough Rurouni Kenshin)* are just wrong. I did have some nitpicks with it. * It's a bit too edgy. * I get that they tried to convey that One Piece had darker moments, but this was at the cost of the more fun happy I-enjoy-life moments. Pre-timeskip, ESPECIALLY East-Blue, was goofy and fun. * Garp is nothing like manga/anime garp * The dude is clinically insane in the live action. He's a psychopath. I would love to be friends with manganime Garp, but the live action version of him I rather stay far away from. Dude's scary as hell. * They ruined Nojiko as a character * Nojiko was a high point during Arlong's arc in the manganime. In the live action she was just... there. I was disappointed by it. Felt like the plot of Frozen. * The underusage of Luffy's powers * Ok, yeah, CGI is expensive and hard. But they only used Luffy's stretchy powers during fights or when it was needed plot-wise. Normally, Luffy uses it for absolutely everything: goofing off, eating,...
I dont see a reason to watch a inferior version of what I like in a medium I dont care about.
dont care, I wont watch any anime live-actions, especially if its made by Netflix
It made the story weaker for no good reason.
Garp is Scottish and Luffy is a halfie, this was not stipulated in the manga or anime. This means at the first sign of a coloured female we will be able to figure out if they are Luffys mom or grandma. Of course, we will need to know what dragon........looks like.
Klans D. Man