2023-09-04 14:32:13
we are on the cruise !
When the series One Piece in real shots was announced, the bad memory of the Death Note by Adam Wingard, from the remake of Cowboy Bebop or even Dragon Ball Evolution by James Wong was still too lively not to fear the worst. And the editor of these lines was probably one of the most pessimistic and ulcerated by the existence of such a hazy project. At the same time, if good live-action manga adaptations exist (Lady Snowblood, Baby Cart, Old Boy, Speed Racer), rare are the nekketsu to emerge improved from this facelift. So with a work as singular, popular and a priori unsuitable for live action as One Piece, the bet seemed as incongruous as vain.
But the presence of the father of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, in the executive production, had something to reassure a little, as did the casting announcements and the first visuals of the pirate ships made for the occasion. In fact, like Luffy with his infectious enthusiasm, Netflix has almost succeeded in dispelling doubts regarding the sincerity and love behind this increasingly intriguing project. And now that we’ve caught up on the eight episodes, we have to admit it: yes, One Piece is a series true to its source materialwhich wishes as much to open up to a new audience as to cajole the fans of the first hour (the musical rearrangement of the first opening and the return of the Japanese voice cast for proof).
From the artistic direction, which religiously takes up the aesthetics of the original work, to the hyper invested cast (in particular Iñaki Godoy in the elastic skin of Luffy), everything has been done with seriousness, passion and without economy of effort. Obviously, not everything is transposed to the square. To effectively adapt the East Blue saga (which represents 10 volumes and 45 episodes of the anime), it took find a new rhythm and therefore betray in places the sequence of events.
Some situations have been cleverly reworked and some moments of calm or emotion have been overshadowed by lack of time. The narration is therefore more concise, clear and effective, even if this acceleration inevitably slows down the budding complicity of the crew and the rise in power of Luffy, two dimensions which should have more place in a season 2. On the work of adaptation alone, apart from a few inevitable pitfalls, One Piece is therefore an almost miraculous success thanks to the will and commitment of those who carried out the project.
Are we telling him or not that it will be long?
HELL IS PAVED GOOD INTENTIONS
And One Piece required a titanic work, it is unfortunately not a good series for as much. All the paradox is there: the series draws its sympathy and its honors, but also all its weaknesses of its fidelity and its respect with the work of Oda. Too busy tracing the aesthetics of the manga carefully and imitate a dynamic specific to animationshe never finds her identity and offers no added value to her medium.
The latest revelations in the manga and anime have further confirmed this: One Piece, even more than other titles of the genre, is a perfectly cartoonish universe that only makes sense in animation or in drawings. Everything is so immoderate and grandiloquent that the transposition of these codes in live action is a dead end.
In fact, the universe of Netflix is more rational and reasonable, because the characters are all homogenized in relation to each other. Exit excessive sizes, gorilla torsos, twisting eyebrows and elongated noses: the new One Piece is on a human scale, although this mellowed version retains a measure of eccentricity, particularly the insane looks of the characters. But as much for the novice public as for the seasoned spectators, this mixture is quite disconcerting, not to say grotesque.
Can’t wait to see the Elephant Gun…
With his cosplayer mimicry, the series often falls into the ridiculous where it would like to be epic, moving or exhilarating, with the characters being drained of half their charisma and visual appeal. For example, it is difficult, if not impossible, to seriously consider Vice-Admiral Garp when he lectures his soldiers decked out in a kind of dog hat from a section of the Fairsearch. The same goes for Captain Nezumi with his mouse ears and whiskers or the crew members of Le Chat Noir with their cat ears and plastic claws.
This standardization also affects the balance of power between the characters and the abilities specific to each of them. Thus, Garp has the build of an average man, far from the imposing posture of his counterpart on paper, but remains characterized as a freak of nature who can swing cannonballs in his hand, without much credibility. The universe therefore loses in verisimilitude, but also in coherence, especially when the escargophones or the Martins Factors appear on the screen, which in the manga and the anime contribute to the fantasy of the work, but here only reinforce this ambient shift.
REMEMBER
The other obvious limitation of One Piece from Netflix concerns the fights, which once more seek to remain in the shackles of the shonen, but inevitably resemble parody or a life-size role-playing game. The fights don’t try to accommodate the physical limitations of the cast, but are content to mimic those of the anime, although the comparison does not play in their favor at all. The few action sequences rely only on forward tracking shots, the histrionics of the actors and unfortunate CGIs to find a dynamic, an intensity and a power that they might never have equaled anyway.
What was cool and epic thus becomes absurd and broke, even embarrassing like during the confrontation between Zoro and Mihawk, when some fights are not squarely under the carpet. This is especially the case for the one between Luffy and Arlong, the first real enemy of the captain, who is settled in a few blows and has nothing left of the long exhausting fight supposed to experience and test the captain of the Mugiwara for the first time. It is therefore confusing to see the series so quickly reach the limits of the exercise, even more so when we know that this first arc is the “wisest” of the work and that the sequel, at least the one we know, Quickly pushes the sliders in terms of extravagance.
Forget the speed, the power of the blows, the sparks on the blades and the blood
The adaptation and recreation of Whiskey Peak, Drum and Alabasta, and by extension the introduction of Smoker, Chopper, Crocodile and Baroques Works, appear to be even more insurmountable challenges. And by anticipating a little more, we wonder what Brook, Franky or the Yonko may look like, if not a bad hallucination, and how Skypedia, Ohara, The Sabaody Archipelago, the island of the fish men or Dressrosa will be represented . And above all, if the goal is to remain faithful to the printed version, how much will the next bills be if that of the first season is already around 144 million dollars (regarding 18 million per episode)?
More concretely, how far can the series go without breaking its promise of fidelity or tangible universe? In the end, if the result is much better than expected, everything seems to indicate that the ship is already sinking and that the journey towards the One Piece will soon end at the next stopover.
All eight episodes of One Piece are available on Netflix
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#review #ship #Netflix
