Updates:
Hey everyone! I just wanted to take a quick beat and thank all of you that consistently check in and look for my reviews. I’m always happy to hear that people are reading and I have really enjoyed this little endeavor so far. I haven’t been active the last couple weeks because there really hasn’t been many titles out there that have kicked up my interest and I have been excessively undisciplined with my classic literature reading lately. Combined with the fact that trips to the movies are ridiculously expensive these days, I thought it best to take a couple week’s off instead of forcing myself to write reviews on films I wasn’t interested in.
That being said, September looks to be kicking off with some great/interesting movies, so I hope to be back into rhythm soon. Thanks again for checking in and if you like what you read, I hope you will share it with anyone you know that would be interested. Stay healthy and be well!
Riot’s T.V. Review: One Piece
I thought it would be fun to do a quick little blurb on a T.V. show for once. For the most part, television shows have never really been my thing and at the very least, I am always extremely late to the party when it comes to popular series. For example, I have yet to watch a single episode of Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, or Stranger Things (that’s just a small sample, too). So I would encourage you to take this advice with a grain of salt, I am certainly not an authority on the subject of quality T.V. and these reviews probably won’t become common practice.
Luckily, I do have a fair bit of knowledge of the anime world, something acquired over the better part of twenty years. Prior to moving to Japan for a semester abroad program in 2006, the only contact I had with anime was reruns of Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the manga, the correlating television shows, and the various incredible films like Your Name, Weathering With You, and nearly everything that comes out of Studio Ghibli.
Even amongst the most well-known and popular anime/manga, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is a completely different beast. First published in 1997 on the Weekly Shonen Jump, One Piece currently has well over 1,000 manga chapters and anime episodes each. It is an adventure so extensive that Oda has only recently announced that his expansive story/world is finally coming to an end. While I have only watched a few episodes of the anime, I did get about 400 chapters into the manga before inevitably giving up. Tackling One Piece alone is an astonishing task, so once it was announced that Netflix was going to be making a live-action series, I was reasonably skeptical that they would be able to put out a comprehensive product.
Turns out, I was more than pleasantly surprised with what they were able to accomplish. First, the whole look of the show and its costume designs are some of the best adaptation work I have ever seen. The portrayal of Mihawk (Steven John Ward) stood out as particularly phenomenal and I was legitimately flabbergasted at how much detail went into nailing his character design. Second, the acting/performances were sincerely fantastic. Everyone from the Straw Hat crew (Inaki Godoy (Luffy), Emily Rudd (Nami), Mackenyu (Zoro), Jacob Romero (Usopp), and Taz Skylar (Sanji)) turned in incredible performances, all distinctly true to their original characters. And for every exceptional protagonist there was a compelling antagonist to keep the story moving and keep the audience glued to the screen (Jeff Ward as Buggy and McKinley Belcher III as Arlong were particularly brilliant). Third, the story was heartfelt, fun, and hilarious in all the right ways, an aspect that is pretty common in many of the best anime shows out there. Finally, the action sequences and fight choreography were fantastic to watch.
I’ve seen arguments online that say the show stuck too religiously to the manga/anime and while I can understand that viewpoint, I’d argue that it was more a benefit than a detriment. The American cartoon/comic adaptation to live-action has been plagued in many ways by the inability to stick to the original content. Creative licensing, while a great thing to play around with, can often take the story into places true fans don’t want it to go. Oda’s direct involvement in the show is absolutely evident and the decisions the studio made give enough fan service to pay respects to the original audience while simultaneously not alienating future watchers. I am not certain the impact of the show would have nearly been as great had they not stuck pretty methodically to the original storyline.
Over the years since my time in Japan, I have loved watching anime grow in the hearts and minds of Americans. It is a medium that once went unappreciated here, with some of the most creative and riveting stories going unknown to the masses simply for lack of exposure (very similar to what Marvel and DC were before live-action adaptations). With that no longer being the case, I can only hope that this show becomes the catalyst for the general public to explore the world of anime further and fall in love with all of the incredible stories that are out there old and new. I would argue that anime has a little something for everyone, you just have to take a look.
Riot’s Rating: 9/10
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