Arising from manga that sold over 500 million copies, to an anime just as successful, the all new ONE PIECE takes a spot as one of the most watched live-action series on Netflix. 

On August 31st, the live-action series was released worldwide, and in one week it held up to 18.5 million views. Many fans of the anime were pleased with the Netflix adaptation; and those who had once heavily feared the show’s towering episode count, currently standing at 1,078, can now indulge in a thrilling eight episode masterpiece. 

The plot is centered around treasure that belonged to a legendary pirate by the name of Gold D. Roger who committed many crimes in his lifetime, which eventually led to the infamous pirate’s execution. His execution sparked such widespread outrage among the islands that even the most unqualified became pirates, setting sail to find the treasure commonly known as “The One Piece.” As time went on, a new generation of pirates rose to power– a generation that included the popular straw-hat pirate known as Luffy (Monkey D. Luffy). Luffy vows to become “King of the Pirates” by retrieving the legendary “One Piece,” and in doing so, he makes a loyal crew of friends along the way. 

It is noted that Luffy, along with many other characters in the show, have special powers that can only be attained by eating fruits known as “devil fruits.” By eating a fruit, specifically the “gomu gomu no mi,” Luffy is granted the power to stretch his limbs incredibly far, stunning his signature punch attack “Gum Gum Pistol!” Any pirate who eats this devil fruit is faced with the disadvantage of losing their ability to swim.

Luffy’s extraordinary crew aids him, as most of them have their own set of skills rather than a supernatural power. In this season alone, they covered the backstories of Roronoa Zoro, the aspiring swordsman, Nami, the crew’s navigator, Usopp, the sniper, and Vinsmoke Sanji, the cook. 

Despite the obvious undertone of violence most, if not all, pirate shows have, there are only a handful of scenes that include gore, which makes it suitable for a PG-14 audience. The show focuses more on the individual character developments of each “straw hat” to cover aspects that weren’t previously disclosed in the anime. The show’s plot stays almost entirely true to the anime, leaving a few minor details out that fans will just have to explore themselves. While establishing each character, the show manages to sum up nearly 45 episodes of One Piece that would have taken a week of intense binging to get through. 

Within a day of its release, fans took to the internet, mentioning how well the One Piece Live Action portrayed the anime. “Live-action curse broken!!” X user @Ani_ulap shared, as many fans believe that once an anime is on its way to becoming a Netflix adaptation, it is bound to fail. 

The creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, handpicked every single actor in the live action to make the adaptation as consistent to the anime as possible. In a post from May of this year, the mangaka mentions that “this [was] the last chance to bring One Piece to the entire world.” Oda now thanks the flourishing fanbase in a more recent post. That same post confirmed season two of the series is set for release following season one’s immense success. Fans are ecstatic to see what happens next and witness the progression of the talented live action cast.