Did One Piece get a faithful adaptation?
Well, the reviews are in for the new live-action adaptation of One Piece. Everyone thought this would end up being another failed attempt at making a live-action anime, such as the Cowboy Bebop adaptation, which became quickly forgotten. This time, Netflix played its cards right, it would seem. The reviews are good for One Piece, as it is fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and sitting at an 8.5/10 on IMDB.
One Piece is one of the biggest and longest-running anime’s ever made. Based on the manga of the same name, One Piece has been going strong since 1999, with over 1,000 episodes. As expected, this has given it a die-hard fan base. So when the live-action adaptation was announced, there weren’t many happy fans.
There are many parallels between the bad history of poor live-action video game adaptations and poor live-action anime adaptations. Both have much in common as well. Both media place a heavy emphasis on voice acting. When this is translated into live-action, sometimes the transition is too hard, missing the point of the unique storytelling. Both also have had very few well-reviewed adaptations.
Over time, we have seen our favorite video games or anime made into shows or movies for money, of course. There is already an established fan base for the IP, and they know a good number of those people will watch it anyway. It works the same way for comics or novels that are made into movies or shows. Some are translated well, and some are not. A good example in recent years was The Last of Us show, which did great numbers and broke records.
With One Piece doing well thus far, it might be a good example of how to do anime-to-live-action right. With Netflix owning the streaming rights to plenty of anime, this might be the start of good things.
