One Piece the live-action series is owned by Netflix

Directed by Marc Jobst

Before we get into this, I should probably put my cards on the table and confess that I just don’t like the One Piece anime. I’ve seen maybe forty or so episodes back when it was originally airing on Saturday mornings, but it never stuck with me the way that Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, or even Naruto had back when I was a kid. I love pirate stuff too, which you’d think would make it an easy sell, and yet every attempt I’ve made to watch it just ended with disappointment and apathy. It always felt lacking whenever I compared it to other Shonen anime that I liked and it never felt like more than the bare minimum clichés blown up to an entire series. That’s why I was interested when Netflix announced they were gonna attempt a live-action version since a fresh take on the material could be exactly what I need to truly enjoy this story, and the fact that it wasn’t going to be over a thousand episodes didn’t hurt either. Will this be a show worth checking out, even for those of us who didn’t get the anime’s appeal, or will this fail to be more than just a lesser copy of what we’ve been getting since 1999? Let’s find out!!

Monkey D Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) is not your everyday wannabe pirate. Sure, he has stretchy powers due to a magical fruit he ate as a young boy, but what really makes him special is his unyielding optimism and unflinching courage in the face of danger which he finds himself several times here as he searches for a crew and a ship to start his journey to becoming King of the Pirates! His first stop takes him to a port town ruled by a ruthless Marine Captain named Morgan (Langley Kirkwood) who has a mysterious swordsman named Zoro (Mackenyu) held prisoner and holds a map that both Luffy and a thief named Nami (Emily Rudd) have set their sights on. Will Luffy succeed in convincing these two outcasts to join his crew and find him a ship? What secrets will be revealed on this map that Morgan holds, and what forces will bear down on Luffy and his friends if they do manage to take it from him? I mean look, if you can work together to take out an entire platoon of soldiers within five minutes of meeting each other, you pretty much have to become a crew, right? It’s like an Anime Law or something.