One Piece’s Remake Needs to Do One Thing The Live-Action Couldn’t

Courtesy of Netflix
Luffy wearing Straw Hat in sunlight

One Piece‘s remake only has a few months to go before its highly anticipated premiere, and the gorgeous trailer has already been revealed. The anime remake was announced in December 2023 during the Jump Festa 2024 as a collaborative project between WIT Studio and Netflix. While the original anime series by Toei Animation studio is popular and well-received now, it has been ongoing since 1999 and has released over 1100 episodes. Fans who have been following the series for several years can easily catch up with the show, but the number of episodes always overwhelms new fans. Over the years, the pacing of the anime was significantly slowed down, and it became lengthier than it should have been since it had to keep up with the weekly schedule.

While the Elbaph Arc has changed the schedule for the first time in over 25 years, the anime still adapts only one chapter per episode. Taking the issue into consideration, the remake aims to attract new viewers with a steadier pacing and modern animation. As the remake’s debut gets closer, it’s evident that it can’t repeat the same thing live-action did.

One Piece‘s Remake Needs to Avoid Making Changes Like The Live-Action

One Piece Season 2 Netflix Luffy
Image Courtesy of Netflix

It’s a known fact that the live-action adaptation helped popularize the franchise across the globe. However, whether it’s because of production issues or the liberties taken by the studio, the live-action adaptation offers a completely different experience from the manga. While the series remains faithful to the spirit of the story, it makes considerable changes from the original source in almost everything.

The fact that Eiichiro Oda, the manga creator, oversaw the production at every step offers enough credibility to the series that it won’t be a disappointment. Despite the success of the live-action the fact remains that it doesn’t retell the original story as one might hope. This is where the anime remake comes into play since it doesn’t have the same limitations as live-action.

What to Expect From The One Piece?

Luffy in The One Piece
Courtesy of Netflix

The remake, titled The One Piece, will adapt the first 50 chapters of the manga in only seven episodes and will begin streaming in February 2027. While the pacing seems rushed, we can expect all the crucial scenes to be adapted in the series. So far, there has been no information on how many seasons the remake anime will release at this point. One Piece is one of the longest-running manga of all time, which is why it will take several years to adapt the entire story into modern animation, even if the story is significantly compressed.

The remake will start from the East Blue Saga, where Luffy begins his journey and gathers a crew to travel all the way to the dangerous Grand Line. The first season will adapt up to the Baratie Arc, introducing Sanji. While the pacing of the original anime series in the first saga wasn’t nearly as bad as post-time skip, the animation studio plans to fix the 4:3 aspect ratio. It was common in 1990s animation, but eventually faded over time.


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