Netflix making a live-action ‘One Piece’ from popular manga
TOKYO — Hit Japanese manga “One Piece” is coming to Netflix as a live-action series — a development that’s both exciting and worrisome for fans who have seen mixed success in a growing list of Hollywood adaptations.
Chronicling the coming-of-age adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a young pirate with a heart of gold, the world’s bestselling manga series has already been adapted into an anime TV series with over 900 episodes. There are also 13 animated movies, “One Piece” video games and merchandise galore.
Ready to give her verdict is Nina Oiki, a gender and politics researcher at Tokyo’s Waseda University who has been a “One Piece” fan since she was in elementary school. She read the manga created by Eiichiro Oda when it first came out in Shonen Jump magazine in 1997, and watched the animated show that followed shortly after.
“I know some people are worried about what might happen with the Hollywood remake,” she said, noting how past American attempts at depicting Japanese comics and animated works have at times proved disappointing.
The 2017 Netflix movie adaptation of “Death Note,” a manga and anime about a book that can kill people, was widely critiqued as a flop. In December 2021, Netflix canceled “Cowboy Bebop,” its live-action adaptation of the space Western manga and anime of the same name, after just one season.
The cross-pollination of Hollywood and Japan goes back for decades. References to Japan, such as the image of a geisha on a screen, are plentiful in the 1982 sci-fi movie “Blade Runner,” directed by Ridley Scott.
The film, in turn, influenced anime, including the “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” anime that first aired in 2021.
Japanese pop culture expert Roland Kelts says it’s a “stunning moment for anime,” in part due to streaming on platforms like Netflix, which has helped make entertainment borderless.
Live-action “One Piece,” expected later this year, comes on the heels of the global success of “Demon Slayer,” another manga that got its start in Shonen Jump and was adapted into a movie and an anime series that was picked up by Netflix.
In February, The Pokémon Company announced “Pokémon Concierge,” a stop-motion anime collaboration with Netflix. Pokémon is the world’s most valuable media franchise with estimated all-time sales of $100 billion, according to a 2021 Statista report.