For those who don't know me by now, i am a huge series, movies and anime fan. I mostly watch everything and i am one of those guys that may end up starting a series at noon and watch straight ahead 10 episodes until it's morning. Regarding anime, i have a lot of them and i have read more manga than i can count.
One Piece was one of the first anime that as a kid i started watching along with Dragonball, Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh. It was thanks to these anime that i delved into the animeverse and became a big fan, so you can imagine my surprise when i learned that One Piece would have a live-action series.
To tell you the truth this isn't the first live action adaptation, we have seen live action adaptations of DB, Bleach, The promised Neverland, Inuyashiki, JoJo, Attack on Titan, Parasyte, Gintama, Death Note, Kingdom, Rurouni Kenshin and more. By far the best ones were Rurouni Kenshin and Kingdom as it revolves around martial arts which of course is easier to make a chorography than CGI that other Anime adaptations need. JoJo was quite decent as well. The rest were mediocre at best.
Thus, at first when i heard about One Piece i thought this would be a disaster but after i watched the trailer i said to myself that "hey this may be good". So i decided to watch it, not alone though but with 3 other friends of mine. Me and another friend of mine have watched and read both the Anime and the Manga, the other one have watched only the Anime and the other guy only watched the Anime up to Crocodile. This info is important and will help us later to understand some things. Spoilers ahead beware
I won't bother you with what's the story about cause the vast majority of people already know that, the rest go read the manga or watch the anime instead. So let's start with some nice things that i didn't expect to be this good. The sceneries were amazing, they did a very nice work creating the islands, the towns even the ships. We knew that One Piece had one of the biggest budgets and the truth is that for once you could actually see that.
Moving on the CGI was amazing, the sea monsters, luffy's and Buggy's attacks and literally everywhere they used CGI it was like the real deal. Most of the time and especially when you watch live-action adaptations one of the things that is terrible is the CGI but once again the money that was utilized from the budget were used properly. Especially, the CGI of the Sea King that took the eye of Shanks was dead spot on!
Regarding, the costumes they also did great work but the greatest of all was the acting. Most of the actors (let's be realists here) looked like the manga characters that we all loved and they all seemed passionate about One Piece even if they haden't watched it. Their acting was incredible and i hope when season 2 arrives, to find more great actors like that.
Now let's start with the bad. I read mostly positive reviews which i don't think describe the actual reality. Most of these people in my opinion ofc, are either fans that simply will say that One Piece is the best no matter what or people that don't actually remember the story or have watched/read the Anime/Manga.
To begin with the fight scenes even though they were good, they last only a couple of minutes if not seconds and ended very quickly. You can say anything that you want about the screentime or the budget but you can't have iconic fights that end up with 2-3 punches. The last fight with Arlong for example literally had 2-3 moves from Luffy's side. We are talking about one of the biggest fights early on. Not even Hachi appeared...
Also, another awesome fight that lasted a lot in the Anime, was the one with Krieg. Instead, we only saw Krieg for 1 minute in the series and then never again. The same happened with the Black Cat Pirates. A great fight in the anime with Jango boosting the pirates and ofc we didn't even see Jango...
Now let's talk about the ugly. For someone who has read the manga and watched the anime, the plot was something entirely different. Ofc they followed the general path with the main characters and islands but they changed everything else and don't tell me it was due to the screentime.
We had Koby almost having the same screen time for literally no reason. Mostly every fight that happened in the manga or anime changed places in the series. Buggy (By the way the actor was pretty cool) had his entire crew together and the next moment he was alone. Where the crew go for a drink? Jango and Hachi, some very cool characters that can be seen later in the anime never appeared in the first place. Arlong went to Baratie? Buggy's head went to Arlong's place? Come on guys...
Overall, for me One Piece was mediocre at best even though i consider it one of the best live action adaptations along with Rurouni Kenshin. The budget seemed to be well-spent and the actors were not only similar in appearance but their acting was great. Honestly, next season i would like for the directors and everyone that takes decisions to focus on making more lenghty fights. I would also like to focus on the plot as well. You literally have the script ready you just need to adapt it. You can cut some scenes if you want but stop changing the fights, skipping moves and charachters while you give screentime to Koby for no reason.
