My Peace on Live-Action One Piece

Agents of Shield & Luke Cage co-screenwriter Matt Owens has been tapped to compose scripts for an American live-action One Piece television series. Forgive me if I virtually can’t envision a functional live-action One Piece. Oda’s One Piece is rather unique in the pantheon of shounen action because its characterizations are more exaggerated than typical. Characterization in Bleach is relatively subdued and believable. Personalities in Dragon Ball are a bit oversized, but most of them aren’t ridiculous. Son Goku is optimistic and a bit dense, so he’s manageably relatable. Vegeta, on the other hand, is much more polarized, which may explain why he’s typically excluded from attempts to depict Dragon Ball in live-action. The One Piece characters are debatably most comparable to the cast of Lupin III, except the primary character of One Piece is exponentially more cartoonish. Lupin III has been successfully adapted to live action. Tonally Nami and Fujiko Mine could almost be sisters. Zorro & Sanji are within the same neighborhood as Jigen & Goemon. They’re exaggerations but still recognizable as functional human personalities. Usopp, however, is difficult to envision as a real human being. Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy is already an extremist caricature, albeit he has been successfully portrayed in live-action. Usopp, though, is an exponentially escalated version of Shaggy. But most difficult, for the same reason, Lufy is literally a cartoon. He’s psychologically an eight-year-old boy in a sixteen-year-old body having the powers of Reed Richards. His affable, nearly autistic personality is literally a cartoon. He’s completely believable as a fictional character, but reason would suggest that any actual human being with Lufy’s personality would need 24/7 adult supervision or heavy medication just to function within society.

I like One Piece quite a bit. I’m not suffering from “superhero movie fatigue” nor am I opposed to the mere concept of a live-action One Piece. But I do have tremendous anxiety over the potential for a live-action One Piece to seem believable and not ridiculous. As example, this 2018 Japanese TV commercial looks rather silly. Granted, it’s a low-budget single TV spot. It looks a bit cheap; the actors are too old for the roles, and even an actual reindeer portraying the reindeer character Tony Tony Chopper doesn’t feel like it ingratiates itself believably with the rest of the cast.

Even these assorted “live-action” adaptations of One Piece realize that the characters need to be heavily CG enhanced, if not fully CG animated, in order to come across as remotely believable. And these clips are merely that – brief action clips that don’t have to express complex personality.