One Piece: How it Broke the Curse
Whether you’ve heard of this story or not, One Piece has taken the world by a storm. For those of you who don’t know, I’ll brief you in . . .
The story of One Piece started as a Japanese manga in 1997, by mangaka, Eiichiro Oda when he was only 22 years old. Since, he has continued to release volumes of his work, making One Piece obtain the world record for “the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author.” The series has even outsold Harry Potter. Not long after, in 1999, One Piece was made into an animated series, enabling the story to cast its net and catch a global audience.
The series follows the protagonist named Monkey D. Luffy, a boy who unknowingly ate a Devil Fruit that turned him into a rubber man with the power to stretch his limbs. His dream is to find the One Piece treasure and become the King of the Pirates so he can live a life of complete freedom.
Now, just recently, as you may have heard, One Piece has been adapted into a live-action series on Netflix, inviting the Western world to indulge in the whimsical fantasy that Oda has created.
I am a lover of all adaptations, so I want to write about a certain phenomena that has now been put to rest. The word ‘curse’ is often thrown around whenever Netflix, or any other platform, decide to do a live adaptation of an animated series. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender (utter trash), Death Note, Dragon Ball Evolution (don’t even get me started) and Cowboy Bebop, to name a few, were considered part of the curse of the live adaptation. It seemed no matter what the writers did, it would be impossible to successfully adapt an animated series. So, many—including myself—expected this for One Piece, too.
Instead, after only a few days of its release, it broke the record on Netflix by ranking as the No. 1 TV series in 84 countries. People who’d never seen the anime or read the manga were tuning in and actually liking the show without context. So, what was different? How did One Piece break the curse?
Well, the ‘curse’ itself involves a few elements:
Goofy Acting and Stunts
Characters in manga and anime are often quite exaggerated with their facial expressions, tones of voice and movement, especially in the fantasy/adventure genre. This type of portrayal is something that cannot be translated into a live action because it makes the characters seem inauthentic and unbelievable. In a standard film or TV show, actors know to connect to their character and find a common ground with which they can empathise. This is in order to make the characters’ wants and struggles believable to the audience.
This is missing in live adaptations because, I believe, there isn’t an importance to making the characters come alive, but instead, for the plot to work. Some actors have gone as far as trying to replicate the moments of insanity of certain characters in specific scenes, but ended up falling flat because, while it works in the illustrated form, when the audience sees an actual person doing some of these things, it doesn’t seem realistic, or like something anyone would do at all.
In the live adaptation of One Piece, the actors related themselves to the characters. They found that line of empathy that connected their emotions, voices and actions, which made the story seem believable, as outlandish as it is. (And One Piece is an extremely comical and absurd story—probably the most.) Because if the actors don’t believe that the story, circumstances and stakes are real and pressing, then how is the audience supposed to?
This applies when writing a novel, too. If the author cannot make these things feel real and view the story as ‘just a story’, instead of something that is very real and happening to these characters, then the reader won’t be phased.
I also feel like adaptations aren’t taken as seriously as an action film when it comes to the stunts. Because, at the end of the day, the adaptation should be treated as the genre that it is, rather than categorised as an anime. Perhaps it may be budgeting, but it’s blatantly obvious when a show that heavily involves fighting and martial arts does not ensure the actors appear to be as good a fighter as their character. Some stunts can look lazy and obviously done on wires. It’s definitely not the wires that are the problem, but the fact that you can tell.
Whereas, the cast of the One Piece live action trained to maintain some form of fluidity in the scenes, even if they were swapped with stunt doubles, which was executed perfectly. The creators made sure all the movements were as seamless as possible for camera. And although some of the fight-scenes were done with wires, they didn’t seem extremely orchestrated as other live actions; everything looked great.
2. Costuming, Settings and Effects
This point could have a lot to do with the budget that the series is given, so I am not commenting on a lack of a budget, but in order for the world to be believable, it needs to be treated as if it were real. If the costuming stands out in the world it’s supposed to look normal in, that is distracting and takes the audience away from the immersion.
One Piece may be one of the most colourful anime there is today, so the costuming and settings are known to be vibrant. The live adaptation ensured the costumes were as close to the original source as possible, while also ensuring the settings were just as grandiose. Neither the costumes nor the setting outshone the other; everything appeared perfectly balanced for the world the characters were existing in. This is an area the adaptation of Cowboy Bebop fell short. The colour grading of the show and the vibrancy of the costumes weren’t equally balanced, which created that unbelievability for the audience. It appeared as if the characters were wearing costumes, while in One Piece, it appeared the characters were wearing usual clothes suitable for that world.
Lastly on this point, I want to discuss the effects. Before I watched the adaptation I was so curious as to how they were going to pull off Luffy’s abilities. I thought to myself, if they were to mess that up, it would be understandable, because how in the world could anyone make a person made of rubber look believable?
We are all too familiar with the tragedy of Avatar: The Last Airbender—the scene where the Earthbenders do a bunch of Earthbending movements but only move a singular, tiny boulder at the slowest, least intimidating pace in the world. I’ll be honest when I say I was expecting that level of special effects. But, lo and behold, I was extremely impressed by how real they made it all appear.
3. Honouring the Source Material
When the actors embody the characters and ensure the wants and goals are believable, they are honouring the characters. When the writers not only stick as much to the original plot as possible, but keep the message of the story as the heart that pumps blood through the veins of the story line, they are honouring the source material.
Often, when it comes to live adaptations or remakes, the core message of the story is abandoned. In my opinion, this is because the adaptation is seen more as a money-making opportunity for the big corporations who know the film or show already has a big following. Unfortunately, because the story is being told with this intention, the dishonour is extremely noticeable. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a problem for writers to imagine their stories as successful, but if money is the driving motivator, that is going to show through the quality of the storytelling.
The main reason why I believe the live action is so successful is that every decision was screened through Oda himself. He was present during casting, reviewed the script and watched back scenes; whenever there was something he didn’t like or didn’t think was authentic to his story, the team re-shot the scene. It’s a blessing Netflix had a team that was so respectful towards the story itself. Upon watching countless interviews of the writers and the director, it is shown just how much the story of One Piece means to all of them. Even the cast members are well-versed on the lore.
Taz Skylar, the actor who plays Sanji, the ship’s cook, took it upon himself to take cooking classes at the beginning of the shows filming. He continued to cook every day for the crew in Sanji’s costume so he could truly embody his role and honour the character he was playing .
Of course, when you’re adapting an anime into a live-action series, not every plot point is going to make it, or even translate to the screen. With Dragon Ball Evolution, too much of the plot was changed for it to be recognised as part of the Dragon Ball universe. But working with Oda enabled the Netflix team to filter out certain plot points that were not so important to progressing the plot or the character development.
What was interesting, however, was a major reveal was brought forward and shown in the live action, when in the anime, it is revealed a lot later in the story. This was done to raise the stakes of the show. The anime is structured in arcs. Mostly, that means there’s a conflict in each that is either resolved by the end of said arc, or the characters experience something that propels them further on their journey. The live-action series is structured by seasons, which means, while some episodes cover an entire arc and have the same structure as it, the overall season also needs to have a beginning, middle and end. The reveal doesn’t spoil anything else about the story but the reveal itself, so it was a great addition to amp up the stakes of the season.
4. Heart
It was touched on earlier, but heart, at the end of the day, is what breaks the live-action curse. It starts with the passion Oda carries for his story and storytelling in general. His goal is to shout his message, reach every corner of the world and make sure it is known that there is no dream that is too big for anyone to achieve. Every character in One Piece has a dream, an outlandish dream, even the villains. Oda is on a mission to restore the child-like sense of ambition in all of his audiences, which is why he agreed to a live-action adaptation under his terms.
The Netflix team also recognised this. They wanted to capture that same message Oda encodes throughout his story and share it honourably to the Western world. This is what storytelling is about. At its core, it is to ignite something within the audience and change their lives for the better. This is the power of a story.
I am more than happy that One Piece was the adaptation that broke the curse. It’s an incredible story that I believe everyone should have the pleasure of knowing. It is unfortunate that most manga and anime have a strong and uplifting message for their audiences that these adaptations seem to miss. If you take anything from this post, I hope it’s to watch One Piece in any form. It might just be the push you need to start going after that big dream of yours.
