I'm curious to know what fans of the anime/manga think of this. As an outsider to the franchise, this looks kinda awful. It seems really low-budget, even for Netflix these days. I worry that it'll suffer the same fate that Cowboy Bebop did.
I'm really worried. I want to love it, but Luffy's fighting style is so cartoonish; things like the kick in the trailer just don't look good in live action. The implied physics of the real world seem to make everything in the fights feel floaty and corny. You don't fix that by throwing money at CG, the entire fight sequence has to be built around it, it reminds me of this nerdist video.
Also a few of the bits like the Nami scene during Arlong Park came off as cheesy.
Hopeful, but this'll probably end up like the live movie of ATLA
Fan here. One Piece in live action cannot be anything but awful. The source material is too cartoony. There are fishmen, giants, cyborgs, superheroes, a skeleton with Afro hair, talking animals...
Yes, the one thing I love about One Piece that I really love is that its an anime that embraces being a cartoon as well. The protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, is clearly inspired by Popeye and there are all sorts of blatantly cartoon moments in one piece like characters having their eyes pop out of their heads, etc that are just impossible to adapt to live action. It's not just like taking a very high fantasy setting and making it live-action, it's like making Popeye or Mickey Mouse or Nemo in Dreamland live action.
There are only a few very cartoony anime out there actually and most of them are older like one of my personal favorites like Lupin the III.
It honestly looks better than I expected. It definitely has a "netflix adapts young adult material" feel to it, but it has a fun vibe to it - something 12 to 14 year olds would like. Older fans of one piece may be dissapointed, though.