All hands on deck for ‘One Piece’
Hoist your sails because it’s time to enter the grand line with the “One Piece” live action season two.
The people at Netflix have done it again. They have created not just a visually stunning adaptation but also a faithful one to its original source material. Also, what makes this adaptation amazing is that the author Eiichiro Oda is a producer of the show, which is why even the subtle changes and additions are still faithful to the original story.
Season two of “One Piece” covers Loguetown, Reverse Mountain, Whiskey Peak, Little Garden and Drum Island arcs, respectively. You would think having to squeeze in that much material in eight episodes with only an hour run time would cause problems to the story’s pacing, but no it didn’t.
The many creative decisions to add certain things that the original story didn’t have made season two worth the wait for “One Piece” fans. My favorite has to be the addition of the two characters, Sabo and Bartolomeo, in the Loguetown episode.
What makes these two characters’ introduction in these episodes significant is that in the source material they don’t officially appear until the Dressrosa arc. Although if you look at it from a canon point of view these two characters were in Loguetown at the same time the strawhats were so it makes sense to see them there as well. It was a cool introduction for these characters because it was able to remind fans that they were there despite not being introduced in the original material.
Another amazing early character introduction was Soul King Brook. In the episode that covers the Reverse Mountain arc, we get an early flashback of the Rumbar Pirates singing the iconic song, Binks Brew. Again, another case of adding character appearance that wasn’t in the manga or anime, but it makes sense for us to see them there.
Story wise one of the biggest additions is the added storyline and character development for the characters Smoker and Tashigi. In the original source material these two characters play big roles in many arcs of the story, so it was cool to get more for their characters that we have never seen before.
As many anime fans know, live action adaptations usually crash and burn, but “One Piece” was able to break the curse. What makes this adaptation truly great is that it brings together both the new and old fans of the “One Piece” story.