Despite the fact that there was probably a small overlap towards the tail end of my weeby, anime watching days and when One Piece was introduced to the world, I never saw a single episode, read any manga, or actually learned a single thing about the entire franchise.
In itself that’s kind of a hard thing to do, given my general involvement in the anime, convention and nerdy communities, but over the years, no matter how big the property got, I never learned a single thing about it.
I knew solely based on artwork it had to do with pirates and the main character appeared to be some doofy looking guy with real gangly limbs. But other than that, I had absolutely zero knowledge of the stories or any inkling of what the plot could be about.
Honestly, I never thought about watching it when the live action dropped on Netflix, because I figured my lack of familiarity of the anime would lessen my enjoyment perhaps. That, and at any given point I have like 62 other shows and movies on a list that is my backlog that I should be tackling first.
But then it came to my attention that one of the key actors of the show was portrayed by the son of the late great Sonny Chiba. The Son of Chiba. Apparently he goes by the name Makenyu or something, but there’s no hiding the fact that it is Sonny Chiba’s boy in this show. Honestly, I didn’t know he had a son, but considering his age and the fact that Chiba is about the manliest man of the east in history it shouldn’t be any surprise. Regardless, it was enough to pique my curiosity and the circumstances lined up to where I figured I’d give the live One Piece a shot.
And I have to say, it was a rather pleasant debut season. The story is pretty single, and they do a good job of rotating in various antagonists and delving into each character’s backgrounds at a pace that doesn’t feel dragged out.
The characters are all mostly delightful in the sense that it’s like at any given point their weaknesses are covered by another’s strengths and everyone gets some time to shine. Luffy’s optimism and positivity is infectious, and it’s fun watching the growth of the Straw Hat Pirates coming together.
Son of Chiba is a badass as Roronoa Zoro, and I appreciate that in spite of how strong he’s portrayed there’s a tremendous amount of growth still with his character, and frankly such could be said about all of them. Netflix did a decent job of ordering a sampler season that accomplished everything from a storyline, character development and wrapping it all up fairly nicely to not leave it hanging.
Needless to say, I’m a fan of the property, and I look forward to a future season(s). If I had more time in my life, I’d considering turning to clock back to 2002 and delving into the anime and all of the films the series was able to spawn. But for what it’s worth, for someone who had absolutely zero knowledge of One Piece, I think the Netflix series does a good job of being able to create interest and make new fans.
