Live action

As much as I like One Piece, I was really skeptical about watching the live action version because of the teasers and trailers I saw about it and how different it is from the anime and manga. But it really caught me by surprise by how well it was interpreted and changed throughout the show that made it even better and more intriguing, like changing certain events and creating new ones to help compensate for the replaced scenes that were taken out of the original timeline.

The casting was a curious one, but one that perfectly fit the needs of each character. The actors and actresses played their roles so well that it made them seem almost identical to their animated counterparts. However, there were some little changes to their characters, such as their expressions and how they react to certain things.       

When you take an entire season that has 61 episodes, condensing it to 8 live-action episodes would be a challenge for them to achieve. Having the storyline being twisted and certain characters being killed off made me confused and frustrated as to how that will affect the storyline, but it also made me curious how they would progress with the plot despite these changes. And this is what made it so different from the original timeline and branched off into something completely new. It caught me by surprise when I started to feel something that I haven’t felt in a long time: the sense of an adventure on the horizon.   

I recommend the live-action for anyone who is first getting introduced because it gives you a general idea of what’s happening in that specific arc instead of having to sit through many episodes just trying to piece together the plot of the story. Although it does stray a bit from the original timeline, it does give the show a new perspective that makes us more immersed and makes us more able to relate to the characters who are in it.