I originally watched one episode of the Live Action for One Piece and wrote it off as something that simply wasn’t for me. With a second season coming out the other day, some of my friends convinced me to watch the new season with them, and in preparation I ended up binging the entire first season because I’ve always felt weird about not watching a series in full. Not that I don’t know the story of One Piece, but still. Afterwards I wrote a pretty negative review about the show that’s several pages long and mainly just consists of me talking about how much I dislike many aspects of the series. It does a great job with casting, wardrobe, environments and music, but that’s where the compliments end. I thought about what I could do to convey what I dislike about the series so much. It mainly boils down to the writing. A friend of mine said that this was written to be second monitor content and I think that’s accurate. The characters constantly spell everything out and they’ve removed much of the more subtle moments and character development from the original. Scrapping some content is fine to speed things up. I don’t mind them scrapping Django in Usopp’s arc or some of the running around and silly fights in Buggy’s arc. But Baratie was getting sloppy and by the time we reached Arlong Park I was getting angry. So let’s talk about that arc specifically.
Okay I lied, we’re still on Baratie. But only because it leads into Arlong Park. And although my knee-jerk reaction was to dislike the way they handled Krieg, upon reflection I actually don’t think it was all that bad. The only issue is that Live Action viewers don’t really have the same knowledge of Krieg’s power, so Arlong taking him out is not that impressive. I think Arlong showing up earlier and bypassing Krieg is a decent way to cut out some of the material. But it does cause a small problem here and that is the fact that Sanji gets his ass beaten in the arc he’s introduced, which is not exactly a good start to his character. But with Nami leaving for Arlong Park, the crew now needs to go to the island together, without splitting up like they did in the manga. There we had Johnny, Yosaku and Usopp go ahead, which turned into some very interesting scenes with Nami pretending to kill Usopp only for him to end up alive later on, proving that Nami isn’t truly a bad person. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The crew arrives at Coco Village and meets Nojiko, Nami’s sister. Nojiko is angry at Nami for betraying the village to Arlong, and so are the villagers. This marks the first major difference with the manga that I disagree with. One of the most heartwrenching moments in the manga is when we find out that the people all knew what Nami was up to and were laying low to make sure she could try her hardest. It’s the anger they feel when Arlong betrays that hard work that drives them to finally attack Arlong Park. They’re stopped by Johnny and Yosaku who have already gone ahead and lost to Arlong and his crew. A minor nitpick, but Luffy bashes a hole in the wall in the manga while here they just enter through the door.
And man, what a place do they enter. I hate what they did to Arlong Park. This place looks more like a frat party than the gaudy imitation of Sabaody Park that it is supposed to be. The fishmen are all hanging out like a bunch of frat boys drinking and playing carnival games. It looks stupid beyond measure. I’m sorry, but I have to call this out for what it is, terrible. One thing that I think the live action does well normally is the set design, but they missed the mark so hard on this one. Due to the villagers not being involved in this fight at all, we miss the whole ordeal with Luffy being put at the bottom of the pool with his head above the water, but I think that’s probably fine on its own. What’s not fine is how the Fishmen are missing someone. By far the most important character in this arc – although we didn’t know it at the time – is Hachi. Hachi is the goofy octopus swordfighter who joined Arlong and his crew and then later realized the error in his ways. He redeems himself during the Sabaody Archipelago arc and this creates a wonderful circle that completes the pain and hurt that is caused to Nami during Arlong Park. Now I doubt the live action will get that far into the story, but the fact that they’re not even preparing for the possibility feels lazy and insulting to the viewer. Hachi’s shenanigans with Zoro were also one of two comedic highlights in this arc that have been completely removed just to shoehorn Buggy into the story. The second is Luffy picking up Arlong’s fallen out teeth and using them as a weapon to little to no success. Seriously, all the humor in this show is incredibly dumbed down. The silly things Luffy does in the manga that make this arc work so well are just not there. Luffy is a much more somber and serious character here, while his primary characteristic is how goofy he is.
But what does it matter that Hachi isn’t there? Well, it turns the fights into a much less balanced affair. Instead of a wounded Zoro fighting against Hachi and Sanji having to fight against Kurobe under water, we get the duo teaming up against Kurobe and still struggling. Not just that, Kurobe doesn’t even bring the fight into the water, which is why Oda wrote it so that Luffy was stuck underwater. Fishmen are far superior in the water and it was impressive that Sanji managed to hold his own against Kurobe while the two were submerged. All that tension is taken away here and just replaced by some simple choreography of Zoro and Sanji beating a single fishman on land. Elsewhere on the island, Usopp’s fight with Chu is also dumbed down and we do not get the incredible moment where Chu stirs at the end of the fight and Usopp just violently hits him with a hammer repeatedly until he doesn’t get up anymore.
What bothers me so much about this arc is that it’s not like it would be a horrendous arc in a vacuum. But when the source material is so well rounded, it feels weird that all of these decisions were made. Did they think people wouldn’t find the jokes funny? Or that they wouldn’t like the fights with Hachi and Kurobe? One Piece got this popular on its own merit, why did some Hollywood writers think they could do better? I could complain about this arc for hours and hours and fill several more pages, but I think I’m leaving it at this. In conclusion, they cut out all the humor in this arc and simply replaced it by Buggy being comic relief. They simplified the fights making them much less impressive and much less representative of the different characters and their personalities. They made the villagers of Coco Village much dumber than they were and in doing so removed a lot of the stakes that are revealed when they show understanding of Nami’s action as opposed to just being angry at her for betraying them. Nojiko’s wonderful care for her sister is replaced by hate and to top it all off, Garp and Koby show up to ruin the aftermath of the arc as well, which had several tender moments in the manga that are fully replaced by Garp being a complete and utter fucking moron. Seriously, how did they make him so wishywashy? It saddens me that many people are introduced to the story with such subpar writing included in it. Do better Netflix. Thanks for reading, I promise I’ll go back to being positive about something next week, but I had to get this out of my system.
Opal Kaharis 