If there has ever been an author that made me invest in their work more than Eiichiro Oda, I'd be hard pressed to think of a truly compelling answer. Sure, I've read my fair share of Stephen King, and I'm equally enamored with cinema as a whole, but owing an entire digital persona to one person? Whoa.
Toriyama once did, but the tale of Goku is an epic that had its time in the Sun.
Iñaki Godoy (No Abras La Puerta) is a dream casting for Tomorrow Studios' adaptation of the manga/anime of the same name. If Netflix's marketing is any indication, as of the first weekend in, the show has grown a remarkable amount of traction with critics and fans - the casting and writing have most certainly saved it.
I am no paid critic - but I can confidently identify as a fan.
And therein lies the problem.
Before I commit to this, I intend to review each of the eight episodes released in season one. There has been some noise made about the fact that releasing all of it together may have harmed it, instead of trending along Disney+'s currently weekly (and astounding) Ahsoka show. I agree with that for two reasons.
One Piece is a gargantuan tale at this point. 1080+ chapters of canonical events already predate Netflix's "Standard Bearer For Anime Adaptations." Any fan of Monkey D. Luffy has been feasting steadily all of 2023. But the gift of this production?
To quote a warlord himself:
"Magnificent."
I would've preferred to have been able to look at each single episode and how it all circles back down at the end.
Weekly, with time to digest - that's my first reason.
Basically, trying to summarize an entire season into One Review seems... ill-advised.
That would be the second one.
Let's get romantic~
ADVENTURE! PIRATES!
The Pilot
An unenviable task, to decompress the East Blue Saga into eight episodes of "television," let alone the pilot for such a thing. But, who are we kidding here? This is Pirates of the Caribbean meets Lords of the Rings with campy cinematic gusto. A historical post-apocalyptic (?) record of the Great Pirate Era, told through the most looneyest of lenses. Sometimes to a fault.
In the epicenter of the Dawn of the Great Pirate Era greeting us, ominously, the narrator (Ian McShane, Black Sails) proclaims how it all came to be during the execution of the "Pirate King" Gold Roger some 22 years ago.
"Wealth. Fame. Power."
Three single words that may have done to manga what "The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed," did to the imaginations of fans that dabbled in alternate earths like those of The Dark Tower novels.
I'd argue that even the fabled "One Ring to Rule Them All" is in great company now.
The eponymous One Piece, if found, would make the bearer of such a treasure the "Pirate King." Iñaki's Luffy is that perfect encapsulation of the dreamer: that homicidally optimistic hero that prefers peace and drinks with his friends over conflict. But when push comes to shove, Monkey D. Luffy will defend his friends.
An early friend is the pathetically weak-spined Koby, a poor chore boy on "Iron Mace" Alvida's ship - a pirate crew with a captain worth ฿5,000,000 - as the show will casually flip bounty posters on screen, itself an artifact from the manga and the anime that I am glad remained in such a creative fashion. Koby (now fan-favorite Morgan Davies) is a slave to Alvida's narcissistic version of leadership, for she is the strongest and most beautiful in the sea - brutal murder awaits those who deny her reality.
But Luffy meeting Koby changes that.
Iñaki is the future Pirate King, after all, and before one sets out to throw a ring down the deepest chasms of Mount Doom, one must leave the Shire.
Oda has dubbed it "East Blue."
Romance Dawn is still worth the hour investment if you don't want to follow an epic worthy of Don Quixote De La Mancha sized tomes.
In the One Piece mythos, this is the infancy of the East Blue Five, the initial members of Monkey D. Luffy's excursion into the Grand Line to find the titular McGuffin (and one whose mystery, while hidden in plain sight, has eluded readers for three decades). While Koby has to go on his own journey, one once cataloged in cover stories and relegated to Oda's now legendary SBS notes (Stan Lee would be proud!), that side-by-side journey now connects the outside world to One Piece as our audience surrogate.
Some criticism can be levied at the additions of some plot devices, changes of location, and some new fight matchups that re-configure the structure of this "wrestling match of the ages" on a page. But, those are all worthy trade-offs to be able to hear the saccharine purity of a Saturday morning cartoon's final attack bellowed out in a full-blown Hollywood cinematic production.
To Maeda and Owens.
You did it, you crazy lads!
But it came at a price.
It is as close to a perfect vision as we could have hoped for as far as the first episode is concerned, but there will be some future problems, a proverbial wall to climb. Rubber fishmen folk and super sentai-flavored action pieces that will either delight or be the newest "Enel face" to grace the internet. But I don't want to get ahead of myself...
After Luffy easily dispenses of Captain Alvida (Me Time's Ilia Isorelýs Paulino), Koby is liberated. His life as a slave in a pirate ship and mopping fresh brains off the boards is essentially a memory as Luffy informs him of plans to steal a map from an occupied island in Shells Town, home to the 153rd Marine Branch.
The map to locate the Grand Line is also being sought after by the future "Cat Burglar" Nami (Emily Rudd) an orange-haired femme fatale with the tragic backstory you expect, but aren't ready for.
Underneath the kung-fu acrobatics, clever gunplay, phenomenal sword fighting choreography (rubber swords aside), and sometimes questionable Gum-Gum based CGI effects, lies a tale of an era of oppression.
Roronoa Zoro, played by Mackenyu (Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter Part I - The Final), is a standout in the pilot, showing off his prowess in a number of martial arts. His presence as a fighting force in the One Piece universe could only be compared to the meeting of Aragorn in the Prancing Pony. Known in East Blue as a big scary devil "Pirate Hunter," Zoro defends a young girl from Helmeppo (Aidan Scott) and in the process meets the commanding officer of the island, "Axe Hand" Captain Morgan.
His imprisonment for his act of kindness is immediately nullified by Luffy's efforts to recruit him into his crew of pirates - modeled after his childhood hero, "Red Hair" Shanks (Peter Gadiot). After a bar fight that makes whatever budget allocated to Marc Jobst's direction for the debut episode (Netflix's Daredevil show runner/director) seem effectively worth it, we get some silly pirate shenanigans and a failed(ish?) heist that concludes in a big, beautiful, climactic battle in the "yard". Worthy succession of Marc's work in Hell's Kitchen.
The magic of the third act - having Zoro, Nami and Luffy stand off against Captain Morgan (Langley Kirkwood) - is the right amount of superheroics that the story of One Piece seemingly demands. Not quite the Justice League or The Avengers yet - but that is not stopping series composers Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli from crafting a motif I've been humming for a solid day now. Can't wait to thank you properly for the finale's score.
Either by accident or purely out of necessity to accommodate the script with Oda's notes about the East Blue Five's backstories, sprinkled through the episode, reminiscent of Lost, are small flashes that explain some of the bigger questions one may have about a character or situation.
The pilot touches on Luffy's rubber abilities and how he became this way, bookended by the appearance of a person from his past to come hunt him down before his pirate adventure begins. The flashbacks themselves aren't problematic - but some dialogue shots and close-ups that should be wide shots (and vice-versa) keep sometimes getting in the way of enjoying the well-crafted tale.
But don't worry, this one is safe.
Romance Dawn is worth the hour investment if you don't want to follow an epic worthy of Don Quixote De La Mancha tomes. But the deeper you dig, the closer you'll get to finding the real One Piece as well. This is truly the beginning of a new Age of Romance.
Norland never lied.
Roger was right, I laughed until I cried.
9/10
ドン！
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