Set Sail for One Piece

I’ve been a One Piece fan for years.  Maybe not as long as it has been around, it has over 1,050 episodes, but at least for twelve or thirteen years when it started airing on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block.  Kris and I recently watched the first of eight live-action episodes that just dropped on Nexflix.  Kris did a review for SciFi.radio on how well it’s been received and the care that went into making the live-action series.  You can read it here:  https://scifi.radio/2023/09/03/series-review-live-action-one-piece-netflix/

But I’m not here to review it.  I agree with what Kris’ article says.  It’s a great adaptation of the anime.  It has all the colorful, creative craziness of the anime and also all of the heart – and that’s what I love about the anime and expect to love about the Netflix series.

This is above my desk at home where I do all my writing.

When Kris and I went to Quattro University, an entrepreneurial college, one of the running themes was to follow your dreams.  Debra Eckerling’s book, “Your Goal Guide” is also about following your dreams and creating a path to get there.   And that’s what I’m doing now, following my dream of becoming a writer.

That is also a strong theme of the show.  Monkey D. Luffy is following his dream to become King of the Pirates, and his strength is inspiring others to follow their own dreams.  In the first episode, he meets and befriends Koby, whose dream is to join the Navy and help people.  Though it will make them enemies someday, Luffy encourages him to do so.

Luffy is not really a pirate, although he calls himself one.  He has a romanticized notion about what a pirate is:  free on the sea with a loyal crew.  He’s really a treasure hunter.  He’s looking for Gold Roger’s treasure, One Piece.  Whoever finds it becomes King of the Pirates.  It’s clear in the anime – and will be in the series – that he is not like other pirates.  He helps people wherever he goes and he is not interested in any other treasures.

Every member of his crew has a dream.  From my poster, in the upper left is Nami.  We meet her in the first Netflix episode.  It’s not made clear at first – just as it wasn’t in the anime – that her goal is to free her village from the pirates who have imprisoned them.  That’s why she became a thief, to collect the ransom the pirates demanded.   At one point she leaves the crew, taking all the treasure they have gotten from pirates they have defeated to free her village.  She soon finds that the pirates don’t honor the ransom and she can’t defeat them alone.

There’s a scene in the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ades3pQbeh8 where Nami is crying and Luffy puts his straw hat on her head.  From the anime I know that’s the moment where Nami has lost all hope of freeing her village, has abandoned the Straw Hat crew, and Luffy comes and vows to help her free her village because as Luffy says, “No one messes with my friends.”  There is also a very strong theme of friendship and loyalty in the show which I’m also very fond of.

Luffy then goes on to leave behind all the treasure that Nami stole and that the pirates had so that the people they freed could rebuild their village.

We have already seen some great fight scenes in the first episode.   My favorite is when Zoro fights several marines in a bar and wins without pulling any of his three swords out.  They have also kept in the fantastical elements like Luffy’s ability to stretch like rubber because he ate a demon fruit, and also that they kept snails they used for communication in the anime.

My only complaint so far is in the beginning when Gold Roger, King of the Pirates, is executed.  His last words are, “Free yourselves.  Take to the sea.  My treasure is yours to find.”  They left out the most important line: “I left it all in One Piece.”  IT’S THE NAME OF THE SHOW!!!  How else are you supposed to know that’s the name of the treasure?

But enough of that rant.  It’s time to, “Set sail for One Piece.  Set sail for One Piece.  It’s the name of the treasure in the Grand Line…”

Dennis

179th blog completed.

First Steampunk novel:  75025 words.  ß Past 75,000.  Goal:  80,000.

Second Steampunk novel: 783 words.

Second Steampunk screenplay:  157 pages.

First Steampunk screenplay:  Need to update with notes from the novelization.

Third Steampunk screenplay:  38 pages.

And if you think Buggy the Clown is too weird for a pirate, first of all get used to it, it’s the fantastical style of the show, and just think of him as the Joker of One Piece.