The Netflix adaptation isn't on Letterboxd, but I watched the whole season and so now I'm telling ✨you✨.
TL;DR: It's doable! Not the best, but enough that it's worth a watch.
Actual thoughts in Read More 👇
I think that its best quality is that it condenses a lot of the show into just 8 episodes and that's a good thing! I don't have that kinda time and you really don't want to see real people just hanging around. This isn't Game of Thrones. Sure, abridging means that the actual conflicts almost seem trivial, but that's the trade.
It tries to do one-to-one shots from the anime and that's probably the worst thing for me. Considering how dramatic One Piece, the anime, gets, the live action hamming it up looks hella goofy at best and ruins deeply emotional moments at worst. It doesn't all work as intended. Tons of scenes are just filled with normal-looking people, only to have one character with an outlandish outfit or bright green hair stick out in frame. It's very hard to take that world seriously or, rather, with the seriousness it wants.
This man probably has the best performance
Luckily, a lot of acting performances are pretty solid. Not everyone is on board - I really didn't like Usopp or the snobby cadet - but a lot of people do well or better. Luffy feels different in tone, but that dude really made that role their own and I think that's pretty cool, if also an adjustment to what I was expecting. That's the main character, you need it to be good, which it is!
I struggled to keep watching around the middle, as both Buggy and Kuro didn't really pop in intensity, but the Arlong arc is solid. I would've maybe dedicated another episode to it, so that the fishmen didn't look like pushovers, but we mentioned that already.
It's basically on par with most live action adaptations. Take that as you will.
