The One Piece has lost its spark.
One Piece. Whether you like anime or not, everyone has heard of this show. It’s been around since 1999 and has over one thousand episodes. Like many popular animes, One Piece has recently received a live action. Directed by Marc Jobst, the live action was released just last month and took the world by storm. With a rating of 8.4/10 on IMDb, this show has been on a fast track to being crowned the best live action by many critics. However, every show has their flaws.
Many students at charter believe that One Piece lost the storyline just after two episodes and the characters were introduced far too quickly. Personally, I agree. Almost half of the characters were introduced within the first episode. This completely overwhelms the audience, causing them to become uninterested. Also in this adaptation, they seemed to stray from the original characters. Zoro, an all-mighty pirate hunter who was said to be extremely powerful, was easily defeated by nobody. Most people believed that it was not an accurate depiction of the character, causing them to get upset.
One thing they could’ve had going for them is the cinematography. “The CGI was trash and exaggerated,” said senior Brianna Grbic. “There were times where I said, like, what is going on? The one scene where Luffy was extending out his arm made me laugh.” We saw a variety of shots where the camera zoomed out too fast, leaving everyone dizzy and disoriented. To top it all off, the acting was mediocre.
There were times where it felt as if the characters were reading directly from the script. The one-liners were quite cringe-inducing and not funny. I felt with how high the budget was, they could’ve hired better actors. Other charter students may disagree. “I thought the acting was really good, especially Luffy’s actor (Inaki Godoy). English wasn’t his first English and despite that he did good,” said junior Tiffany Castro.
Overall, with the ratings, many could say this adaptation is better than most. One cannot judge too harshly, seeing as this was probably catered to One Piece fans, so if you haven’t read the manga or watched the anime, this may not be to your liking.
