One Piece: Romance Dawn

August 31, 2023 3:08 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

A Netflix live-action adaptation of the world's best-selling manga. Monkey D. Luffy sets out on his quest to find the One Piece and become the king of the pirates. Will this be a powerhouse like the anime or another poorly executed adaptation that should never have been made? Tune in to find out.

I'll save my own comments for the actual comments but here's what critics are saying:

Netflix does the impossible (Mashable)

An entertaining adaptation hindered by a desire to recreate every major event in its source material (IGN)

‘One Piece’ comes to Netflix with lots of fans. If you’re not already one of them, don’t bother (CNN)

Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ Debuts With Sky-High Audience Scores, Solid Critic Scores (Forbes)

posted by any portmanteau in a storm (16 comments total)

First thing I asked my kids this morning was "Amazing or terrible?" and it took them about 15 seconds to figure out what I was talking about. Older kid bounced pretty early but the younger one stuck around to the end. I'd say it's closer to amazing than terrible so far.

• The VFX for Luffy's powers was much better than expected. Realistic and cartoony at the same time. It helps that for the most part it's seen really briefly.
• They haven't tried to make everything serious and instead kept the lighter tone of the early series.
• It's weird hearing Luffy with a different voice but Iñaki Godoy makes a pretty convincing Luffy.
• It was weird to hear certain characters speaking with British accents. I haven't watched the English dubs of the anime so it isn't even that I was used to those VAs and their accents, but for whatever reason the accents for Shanks and Garp threw me off.
• The episode was a good reminder of how much happened in those first few issues. Consider the pace of the current ones where an episode might advance 5 minutes of actual time.
• I'd like to see Zoro do a bit more with his third sword.

I'm hoping I'll get a chance to watch more tomorrow but there's a lot to do before summer ends.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:26 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

In the quiet times after the kids are asleep I have been working my way through the One Piece anime on Crunchyroll. It is exactly the right kind of "long episodic story that doesn't take itself too seriously and has endearing characters and you don't need to concentrate too hard and it isn't going to run out any time soon" for the end of a long day.

This adaptation is... surprisingly solid. It captures the mood and humour well, and the actors are very well cast. I noticed that they changed Gol D. Roger's last words - interesting, because I know people have been poring over the exact wording for clues about how the whole series will end.

I've also heard that the original voice actors from the anime will be providing the Japanese dub for this live-action version, which is a pretty awesome decision.
posted by Paragon at 5:49 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I admit I was shocked to see one of the snail phones show up. That's a weird detail I thought a more "sensible" adaptation would have dropped. Glad to see "sensibility" has been tossed overboard for this series.
posted by SPrintF at 9:08 PM on August 31, 2023

I am completely new to this world and really enjoying the series. This episode was just the right type of quirky for me. Almost feels like a cozy pirate series. Though I don't know where it will end up or if that feeling stays.
I am actually enjoying the little "non-sensical" details. Like the great binding on all the t-shirts. They look like nice T-shirts. Not raggedy pirate shirts. So much fun.
posted by daffodil at 4:04 AM on September 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

This series is well cast and delightfully weird. You can see that the actors are still working into their roles and this world and dynamics with each other a little bit, and they are having to introduce the back stories for everyone, so there is still some clanking of the moving parts now and then, but I am enjoying this quite a bit and very much looking forward to the next season.
posted by gudrun at 8:22 AM on September 4, 2023

I am also new to One Piece, and am enjoying it so far. That first scene was delightful. And I am enjoying Monkey D. Luffy from a safe distance.

It feels a bit like Avatar: the Last Airbender. (Or maybe Avatar feels like One Piece, they've both been around a while.). Earth-ish world with different geography and some quirks (were those... shell phones?), some magic, sailing ships and ports, generally hostile authorities. And the gimmicky pirate ships made me think of Warriors. In a good way.

Anyway, good fun!
posted by mersen at 2:28 PM on September 7, 2023

Yeah they are snail phones. Here's how I understand the whole thing. Dendenmushi is another way to say snail in Japanese, there's a short kid's song about it and the first time I heard that the whole One Piece thing made more sense to me. Denwa is Japanese for phone. So I'm guessing that Oda (the creator of One Piece) made a pun in creating these snail phones. He likes to include gags like that where he can, for example the character Usopp is a liar and his name starts with "uso" which is Japanese for lie.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:54 PM on September 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I had zero knowledge of One Piece (manga or anime) until last week when I stumbled across it because a friend said something about movies and tv shows that were for "twelve year olds of all ages" -- how there weren't enough of them, how you either got mature stuff or annoyingly immature stuff.

So I did a quick google search and bang! New show on Netflix and ...

number one in 84 countries, surpassing the Netflix debut records previously set by Stranger Things and Wednesday.[72][73

So I gave it a try and found it entirely fun. In fact, amazingly eleven or twelve year old in its tone and overall focus. All manner of action, explosions, fights, pratfalls, betrayals and sorta never ending plot movements and character evolutions, and though there's plenty of boozing and bashing around there is never even a hint of anything overtly sexual. Or love even. I doubt the word even gets used once over all eight episodes ... but there is lots about following one's dream and building one's team.

Great stuff.
posted by philip-random at 9:44 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

and ummm ... oregano is for savages!
posted by philip-random at 2:52 PM on September 10, 2023

there is never even a hint of anything overtly sexual. Or love even

Perhaps in the TV show, haven't gotten that far in it yet, but in the manga and anime at times it feels like the female characters are pretty much all used for fanservice. It takes a couple of years/hundred episodes to get to that point though.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:43 AM on September 11, 2023

Another person who is completely new to this world and who enjoyed this first episode. Luffy seems like a true friend.
posted by Acari at 6:30 PM on September 11, 2023

yeah, apologies for referencing stuff from deeper into the season, but I don't think I've dropped any actual spoilers.
posted by philip-random at 6:52 PM on September 11, 2023

I think 95% of Netflix product is terrible, but I actually...am enjoying this? Not familiar with the source material, but it's been adapted quite cheerfully. The vibe is kind of similar to Peacock's Twisted Metal. It's cartoonish in a good way.
posted by grandiloquiet at 5:46 PM on September 12, 2023

I've been getting a kick out of this.

I am unfamiliar with this world, but still find the casting spot on.

In particular, I've enjoyed that that Luffy is played by an actor with a highly expressive, almost "rubbery" face. It reminds me of Jim Carrey's comedic expressions. It makes the rubber superpower suit him.
posted by champers at 4:58 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

The biggest thing holding me back on the casting front is that I've watched all 1,000+ episodes of the anime so to me the Japanese voice actors are the voices of the characters. The fact that there are so many British accents on the show throws me off because when I read the subtitles for the anime in my head it will be their voices with my Canadian accent. Once the dubbed version with the Japanese VAs comes out here I'll probably give the show a re-watch just so that the characters can sound "right".
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:56 AM on September 14, 2023

I found this pretty charming. I mean, Luffy is just so supportive.

I had never heard of One Piece before, so I was surprised to learn that it's been the most popular manga for like twenty years running, and the best-selling manga series ever. I'm a little daunted to find that it's over 100 volumes long.
posted by zompist at 7:42 AM on September 20, 2023 [2 favorites]