The first trailer for Netflix‘s live-action One Piece adaptation has finally reached our shores, and it certainly delivers the richest impression yet of the story and characters, ahead of the series’ Thursday, Aug. 31 release date.
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Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is the most popular manga of all time. And the showrunners, Matt Owens and Steven Maeda, clearly hope to please both fans and newcomers with their epic but streamlined take on the source material, which includes over 1,088 manga chapters and counting, as well as a popular anime.
The trailer shows off far more of the world-building and special effects than in last month’s teaser trailer, particularly when it comes to the battles and set pieces. We get to see a lot more of Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) and his loyal crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as they embark on a journey to the most dangerous oceans in the world. And the trailer even kicks off with the iconic opening scene of the entire story, in which the previous pirate king, about to be executed by the Marines, announces the existence of his greatest treasure. The One Piece.
Even though our main protagonists are generally good-natured and fun-loving, they’re sort of the exception in this world of dastardly, infamous pirates hunting the One Piece and collecting sizable bounties from the World Government, as we see in the last shot. The trailer gets this across (and then some!) by showing us the bombastic Buggy the Clown (Jeff Ward) in action, as well as pirate warlord and world’s greatest swordsman Dracule Mihawk (Steven Ward).
Perhaps most exciting is the reveal of Straw Hat Luffy’s biggest challenge yet, the ruthless fishman pirate captain known as Arlong (McKinley Belcher III).
The production design and practical effects as a whole look a lot crisper and more fully-realized in this trailer, and the same goes for a batch of new photos Netflix also released. They give us more impressions of the core cast and beyond, including Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero as Usopp and Taz Skylar as Sanji.
To top it all off, Eiichiro Oda himself shared a letter with his own thoughts on the series and how he hopes it will be received by One Piece fans.
“I’ll say this. There were no compromises on this show!” he wrote. “By now I just love the production team and cast so much that I can’t wait for them to get the acclaim they deserve from everyone around the world.” (You can read the full letter below.)
Press PLAY above to see the official trailer for yourself, check out the gallery of new photos, and then drop a comment below with your own thoughts. Do you think this show has what it takes to become king of the live-action anime adaptations?
