One Piece (2023)

Swashbuckling, guys: It never fails to bring a smile to our faces. So grab a bowl of cereal, then, and build yourself a sofa fort, because One Piece has your weekend plans sorted.

It wasn’t too hard to relate on some level to the characters or get a sense of how showrunners Steven Maeda and Matt Owens were approaching this story. Because One Piece is a lot of things all at once, in the end, but above all else an adventure. One which proves sea-worthy for newcomers, at least.

This charged approach works so damn well — the bounding storytelling set across countless ships and crews and islands, each with their own unique culture and sometimes even species — is not just a testament to the beautiful characterization Oda has crafted over the years but to the sheer potency of casting a mix of hot actors who have chemistry with one another and the material. I gobbled up these episodes and left them yearning to see what the show will do next.

It’s a series that captures the spirit of adventure and dream-chasing possibility that’s helped make its source material one of the most popular stories in recent memory. And in the process, we’ve been gifted something almost as rare as the fabled One Piece, a good live action adaptation of a manga.

If fans are looking for the One Piece world to be lovingly refreshed, they’ve come to the right place. Not only has the creative team clearly poured all of their time and energy into their craft, but the cast meets them halfway by delivering performances that feel assured and well-grounded.

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.

Luffy's still searching for his treasure, but Netflix's quest to successfully adapt a popular anime into live-action is finally over. It's the fun, quirky adaptation that One Piece fans and newbies alike deserve.

One Piece defies the odds by being faithful to its source while also standing on its own.

Though its writing sometimes struggles to find a steady middle ground between the tweenage and adult demographics it’s trying to appeal to, One Piece consistently surprises thanks to its massive scope that suggests there’s danger around every corner.

From enjoyable oddballs to epic battles, “One Piece” offers plenty of colorful booty to binge.

"One Piece" isn't afraid to deal with darkness (and there is a cavalcade of nasty characters for Luffy and company to beat up), but it always trudges through with a glowing smile and a bold thumbs up. While the show can suffer from trying to do too much, spending time with Luffy is reliably enjoyable.

This version of One Piece is off the wall without being over the top, a highly necessary distinction illustrating that it’s far more watchable than not.

Happy to jump between the playful and the serious as its various intertwined storylines begin to converge, it does take a couple of episodes for One Piece to settle into its groove and begin firing on all cylinders. When it does, there’s a near-limitless amount of fun to be had.

At best, you might find yourself really engaged in One Piece. At worst, it’s still something fun to have on in the background.

While this live-action version does an admirable job of showcasing the spirit of One Piece, its abridged treatment of the plot removes most, if not all of its heart.

To call it truly good would be a stretch worthy of Monkey D Luffy’s rubbery limbs. To call it dull, however, would be outright dishonesty.

An honest attempt has been made to turn the exaggerations of the source material into something recognizably human. If, for the most part, the characters are collections of characteristics — Nami is tough, Zoro stoic, Sanji refined, Usopp nervous — the actors inhabit them attractively. Where it fails, critically if not quite fatally — that is to say, it almost put me off but I did carry through — is with Luffy. .... He’s meant to be the spirit of the tale, but turns tiresome in human form.

To an even greater extent than the Netflix “Cowboy Bebop,” the Netflix “One Piece” feels bland and generic. It may satisfy fans of the original who are happy to see events more or less faithfully replicated, but 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.

At its best, “One Piece” is a candy-colored confection with a childish glee to match its straightforward coming-of-age arc. Just as often as these efforts transport the viewer, however, they also evoke the original medium of “One Piece” and underscore what an awkward fit it can be for live action, no matter the expense.

The energy of the world-building and the chemistry between the characters is enough to carry things in the early going. But once the novelty fades, some of the problems begin to assert themselves. The first is that One Piece episodes have no business being as long as they are.