This Thursday, August 31, Netflix unveiled on its platform the long-awaited episodes of the live adaptation of Eiichir? Oda’s famous manga, One Piece, which has been awaited for almost two years. The series is already surprising in terms of numbers, following in the line of records set by the manga.
First published in 1997 in Weekly Shonen Jsump, a famous Japanese manga pre-publication magazine, One Piece takes us on the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a young aspiring pirate with an impeccable straw hat, whose body has acquired all the properties of rubber after ingesting a “devil fruit”, power-granting food.
Since its release, One Piece has been the best-selling manga in the world, selling over 500 million copies since its debut. In comparison, Dragon Ball, the work of Akira Toriyama, another pillar of manga history, is in second place, with “only” 350 million copies sold. It must be said that there is plenty to do: 1,071 episodes for the anime adaptation and 106 volumes for the paper version.
As for the series, Netflix had announced it in January 2020: the cult manga was therefore entitled to its adaptation in real scenes. The filming of the series, however, has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was finally in February 2022 that filming finally began, after two years on stand-by.
For this first season, Netflix adapts the first 12 volumes of the manga, the “East Blue” arc, in 8 episodes of one hour on average each. The first round of episodes has a colossal total budget, peaking at $144 million, or $18 million per episode. A budget higher than that of the first seasons of Game Of Thrones (50-60 million) or The Last of Us (100 million).
On August 29, nearly 2,700 fans had the opportunity to attend the preview of the first two episodes, at the Grand Rex in Paris. They were very skeptical, with live action manga rarely being unanimous, as demonstrated by the fiascos of Knights of the Zodiac and Dragon Ball Evolution. In the end, they came out pleasantly surprised, captivated by the special effects and the universe that some considered to be respected.
My opinion on the One Piece series pic.twitter.com/yt53ZLGKs6
