The first season of the American fantasy adventure television series One Piece, based on the manga of the same name written by Eiichiro Oda, was developed for television by Matt Owens and Steven Maeda. The season was produced by Kaji Productions and Shueisha.
The season stars Iñaki Godoy, Emily Rudd, Mackenyu, Jacob Romero Gibson, Taz Skylar, Vincent Regan, Jeff Ward, and Morgan Davies. In the season, Monkey D. Luffy begins his search for the One Piece while assembling his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates.
The season released on the streaming service Netflix on August 31, 2023.
Cast and characters Main
Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy Colton Osorio as young Luffy Emily Rudd as Nami Lily Fisher as young Nami Sophie Ellenbogen as toddler Nami Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro Maximilian Lee Piazza as young Zoro Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp Kevin Saula as young Usopp Taz Skylar as Sanji Christian Convery as young Sanji Vincent Regan as Monkey D. Garp Jeff Ward as Buggy the Clown Morgan Davies as Koby
Recurring
Michael Dorman as Gold Roger Aidan Scott as Helmeppo Peter Gadiot as Shanks Ilia Isorelýs Paulino as Alvida Langley Kirkwood as Axe-Hand Morgan Tamer Burjaq as Higuma Kathleen Stephens as Makino Armand Aucamp as Bogard Sven Ruygrok as Cabaji Stevel Marc as Yasopp Ntlanhla Morgan Kutu as Lucky Roux Laudo Liebenberg as Benn Beckmann McKinley Belcher III as Arlong Celeste Loots as Kaya Alexander Maniatis as Kuro Brett Williams as Merry Craig Fairbrass as Chef Zeff Steven John Ward as Dracule Mihawk Chioma Umeala as Nojiko Kylie Ashfield as young Nojiko Elihle Modise as toddler Nojiko Grant Ross as Genzo
Guest Ben Kgosimore as Mr. 7 Kamdynn Gary as Rika Nicole Fortuin as Ririka Chanté Grainger as Banchina Audrey Cymone as Shimotsuki Kuina Nathan Castle as Shimotsuki Koushirou Brashaad Mayweather as Patty Milton Schorr as Don Krieg Litha Bam as Gin
Episodes
Production Development In July 2017, Weekly Shōnen Jump editor-in-chief Hiroyuki Nakano announced that Tomorrow Studios (a partnership between Marty Adelstein and ITV Studios) and Shueisha would commence production of an American live-action television adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga series as part of the series' 20th anniversary celebrations. Oda would serve as executive producer for the series alongside Tomorrow Studios CEO Adelstein and Becky Clements. The series would reportedly begin with the East Blue saga. Adelstein also said the production cost could set new records.
In January 2020, Oda revealed that Netflix had ordered a first season initially consisting of ten episodes. In May 2020, producer Marty Adelstein revealed that the series was originally set to begin filming in Cape Town at Cape Town Film Studios sometime around August but had been delayed to around September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also revealed that, during the same interview, all ten scripts had been written for the series and they were set to begin casting sometime in June. However, executive producer and writer Matt Owens stated in September 2020 that casting had not yet commenced.
In March 2021, production started up again with showrunner Steven Maeda revealing that the series codename is Project Roger. In September 2021, it was revealed the first look at the logo for the series. That same month, it was reported that Marc Jobst will direct the pilot episode of the series; he was approached to direct the pilot by Netflix executives due to their positive relationship after Jobst helmed episodes for Netflix series such as Daredevil, Luke Cage, and The Witcher. Jobst agreed to work on One Piece due to the script's optimistic tone. In February 2022, it was announced that Arisu Kashiwagi will be the creative director and designer for the show's brand identity, where she will be creating and designing logo and title sequence etc. In March 2022, alongside the release of additional casting announcements, it was said that head writer and executive producer Matt Owens would serve as co-showrunner alongside Maeda.
Casting In November 2021, the main cast portraying the Straw Hat Pirates was revealed via a series of wanted posters: Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, and Taz Skylar as Sanji.
In March 2022, Netflix added Morgan Davies as Koby, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino as Alvida, Aidan Scott as Helmeppo, Jeff Ward as Buggy, McKinley Belcher III as Arlong, Vincent Regan as Garp and Peter Gadiot as Shanks to the cast in recurring roles. June 2022 saw the addition of Langley Kirkwood as Captain Morgan, Celeste Loots as Kaya, Alexander Maniatis as Klahadore, Craig Fairbrass as Zeff, Steven Ward as Dracule Mihawk, and Chioma Umeala as Nojiko. In August 2022, Bianca Oosthuizen, Chanté Grainger, and Grant Ross joined the cast of the series, playing Sham, Banchina, and Genzo respectively. In February 2023, it was revealed that Stevel Marc had been cast as Yasopp. In March 2023, it was revealed that Jandre le Roux had been cast as Kuroobi.
In July 2023, it was revealed that the original Japanese voice actors from the One Piece anime will voice the characters for the Japanese dub. All the characters are dubbed by the original Japanese voice cast, with the exception of Arlong being voiced by Hiroki Tōchi, replacing Jūrōta Kosugi from the anime for unspecified reasons.
Filming Maeda officially announced that principal photography had begun on January 31, 2022, and finished filming on August 22, 2022. In May 2022, director Marc Jobst updated that he had finished filming the first two episodes of the show. Part of the filming took place in Cape Town, South Africa, at Cape Town Film Studios. Nicole Hirsch Whitaker, the show's cinematographer, said that she had her crew six weeks before production began. The entirety of the sequence involving Luffy fighting Alvida had to be reshot as it was originally done in the daytime. Whitaker was unable to attend the reshoot due to scheduling conflicts and it was done without her.
Music
Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli composed the score for the season. The soundtrack includes singles such as "Wealth Fame Power", "My Sails Are Set" featuring Aurora, and "Bang!" featuring Flawless Real Talk.
Reception
It also received a 95% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on over 10,000 reviews. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the first season a score of 67 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the series 3 out of 4 stars, writing, "In this energetic cross between Pirates of the Caribbean and Scott Pilgrim, with a dash of Doctor Who-style camp, a young crew of buccaneers goes searching for lost treasure and helps people along the way in a bighearted, swashbuckling answer to Stranger Things." Lauren Milici of GamesRadar+ wrote that the series "breaks the live-action curse," adding that the directorial choices "make it more than clear that the show was created by fans, by people who genuinely wanted to see something they love brought to (a new) life." Jesse Hassenger of The Guardian gave One Piece 3/5 stars and wrote that "the overall imagination of One Piece competes with this particular iteration's budget, which appears to be lavish but perhaps still not quite enough". The Hollywood Reporter'''s Angie Han wrote, "By putting its faith in its characters' youthful joie de vivre, One Piece delivers enough fun to thrill the inner child in tweens and grown-ups alike." Coleman Spilde of The Daily Beast felt the show "consistently surprises" although the "writing sometimes struggles to find a steady middle ground between the tweenage and adult demographics it's trying to appeal to". Spilde stated that as a good adaptation, One Piece is "captivating even to viewers who know nothing about the source material".
Kayleigh Dray, for The A.V. Club, viewed the show as an accessible adaptation with "major Saturday morning cartoons vibes". Dray also highlighted the amount of source material lore packed in – "even a cursory glance makes it abundantly clear that a lot of love and care has gone into all of its lush world building". Paste's Elijah Gonzalez thought the adaptation made the "wise decision" to handle a small amount of the source material by sticking with "the 'East Blue' arc, which spans the first 100 chapters of the manga and around 60 episodes of the anime". Gonzalez opined that this iteration "even occasionally feels more cohesive than the original" as it can introduce later aspects earlier "to create compelling overarching drama" and "aid certain backstories". Angelica Jade Bastién of Vulture wrote that the show "proves its willingness to hold on to what makes the original property so fantastic". Bastién also thought the changes in the adaptation, such as revealing the connection between Garp and Luffy much earlier, worked "damn well". Charles Pulliam-Moore, for The Verge, stated that the production design was key to One Piece feeling "like a living, breathing place with history that you can step into" and highlighted that "Netflix constructed a number of massive, painstakingly-detailed sets perfect to transform into iconic places from Oda's world". He felt that it is always "a bit of a gamble" when the show recreates "visuals from the anime"; however, "many of those gambles work out well". In contrast, Mike Hale of The New York Times felt One Piece was a "bland and generic" adaptation as "most of the verve and personality of the anime are gone, replaced by busyness, elaborate but uninteresting production design and a sign of the times an increased piety regarding the story's themes of knowing and believing in yourself".
Hassenger viewed "the actors' performance styles" as clashing with "some of the actors gleefully embody live-action cartoons, while others work in a mildly snarky YA register" – "multiple supporting characters goggle and mug like they're in a Terry Gilliam knockoff". Robert Lloyd, for the Los Angeles Times, felt with Luffy that the show fails "critically if not quite fatally" as the "character comes across as little short of insane". Lloyd commented that Luffy is "meant to be the spirit of the tale, but turns tiresome in human form, where he's surely supposed to be delightful" and viewed the other characters joining him as "arbitrary and improbable". However, Bastién felt Godoy did "a tightrope walk of a role" as Luffy and observed that "there just aren't characters like him in white-colonial media men whose kindness is essential to their being". She opined that the "core cast works splendidly" but the supporting characters were more "lacking". David Opie of Empire'' stated "Rudd embodies the heart of the show with an emotive take on Nami" and "Mackenyu nails Roronoa Zoro's stoicism just as well as his intricate swordplay". Opie felt "no one shines as bright as Iñaki Godoy". Spilde viewed Godoy, Rudd, and Mackenyu as having "stellar chemistry" but that "the frenetic energy of the show falters when it becomes too contracted, spending more time on friendship than fighting". The show's choreographed fight sequences were praised by multiple critics.
References