When something as culturally important asOne Piecegets adapted after existing in the hearts and minds of fans for decades, the people in charge of putting it together get in a difficult position. First, they need to make sure that the adaptation has at least some resemblance to thesource materialso that fans can retain their sense of familiarity, but then they also need to bring something new so that the new version feels fresh. How do you find this balance? In an interview with Collider’sArezou Amin, the live-action series’ cinematographerNicole Whitakertalked about how the newOne Piecediffers from the anime andmanga series.
Whitaker told Collider that one thing that greatly helped her was the fact that she and directorMarc Jobst(DaredevilTV series) were both fans of the anime and manga, so each of them could bring their share of knowledge of theOne Pieceuniverseto the table. On top of that, they needed to make sure there was one person they thought would approve any decision they made: The creator of the whole franchise,Eiichiro Oda.
“Marc [Jobst] and I, both loving the manga and the anime separately, we decided to take cues from both of them—mostly from the manga, for sure—and just to be respectful of what we knew [Eiichiro] Oda would want to do in terms of the different canons for the different characters. We didn’t want to make it a complete redo adaptation of anything. We wanted to put something new into it because one of the things to me, when people remake things, is if you don’t add a piece of your own stamp to it then you’re just showing the same thing that people have seen over and over again. What’s the point, right?”
One PieceIs Closer Than Ever
With a premiere that’s barely a week away, we’ll soon know exactly what Whitaker means. However, the trailers have already hinted that Netflix pulled at no stops to makeOne Piecelook as good as possible. Even Luffy’s (Iñaki Godoy) superpower – being able tostretch his body to bizarre lengths– which had the potential to not translate to live action looks like it worked, so there’s a chance we’ll witness one of the best anime to live-action adaptations ever this year.
The cast ofOne Piecealso featuresMackenyu(Knights of the Zodiac) as Zoro,Emily Rudd(Hunters) as Nami,Jacob Romero(Greenleaf) as Usopp andTaz Skylar(The Lazarus Project) as Sanji. The series is, of course, based on the long-running manga series andanime created by author Eiichiro Oda, who also served as producer for the live-action adaptation.
Netflix premieres Season 1 ofOne Pieceon August 31. You can watch the latest trailer below:
