One Piece Live Action – A Lot of Care went into this show... And I still can't recommend it.
This isn't going to be a full-on review of the show, at least not in the usual sense. Because in a lot of ways, this is how one should go about doing a live-action adaptation of an anime. If Cowboy Bebop had the same level of care and attention given to it, you would have had a really good show. I would even go as far as to say that the One Piece live-action is actually a good show. Not that it is without its problems, they certainly exist and are obvious, but the show's heart is definitely in the right place.
The problem is One Piece just doesn't translate to live action. I'll start with the biggest example, Luffy himself. A big part of the charm of Luffy is how he can just bounce around even in his normal activities. To this day, CG has never looked good when trying to showcase elastic powers, and with the cost of CG no way was going to happen even if it could be made to look good. I give a lot of credit for the casting of this show, but visually it's just never going to be able to replicate what pure animation can do for Luffy.
At first, it sounds unfair to hold this against the show, but it starts to show in almost every aspect of the show. A lot of the charm that comes from One Piece is in the way it looks and the way it is animated, much of which can't be translated into live-action. So, what does the Live Action show do to give itself its own flavor, or something to make up for it? It kind of has nothing to offer in that regard. It's not that it ends up being bad, it's that the whole show just kind of feels like a truncated One Piece light. It has nothing to offer the anime doesn't, it doesn't do anything as well as the anime and does a handful of things worse, the shortened version of the plot lines does leave the big emotional moments feeling less.
There do appear to be people whose first foray into One Piece has been the Live Action, and I'm glad it's getting people into the show in general. But at the same point, just watch the Romance Dawn arc, which takes place over the first three episodes of the anime. Because I'll be honest, if that interests you keep watching the show, if it doesn't show probably won't be for you. While animation and plot get better as it goes on, Water 7 being the absolute highlight so far for me (I am only up to Fishman Island, so I'm still behind), those first three episodes pretty much set up exactly what kind of show you are going to be in for.
At the end of the day, I think One Piece will go down as an interesting novelty. It's never going to be on the long list of failed Live Action attempts at anime, it has way too much heart for it to go that way, but I also don't think it's going to go down as some great showcase of what Live Action versions of anime could be.
And with that, a few random notes about the show:
- Garp had pretty much a perfect casting choice. I can't imagine another actor doing better live-action.
- They did a great job finding ways to condense the various story arcs so it won't go on as long as the anime.
- The condensed arcs do drain a good amount of the emotion of certain moments.
- Sanji and Zoro's fights look mostly good.
- Luffy's fights... do not.
- That fucking goat head still looks like an alter you sacrifice children too.