One Piece Live Action Series Sets Sail at Netflix

Set sail for the Grand Line in search of the One Piece! The global manga and anime juggernaut have a lot to celebrate thanks to announcement from The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix has greenlit a live-action adaption of One Piece! The series is set to be ten episodes and will be produced in partnership between Netflix and Tomorrow Studios, who are also producing the live-action Cowboy Bebop for the streaming service.

One Piece is one of the world’s most popular and best selling manga titles ever, also receiving an ongoing anime adaptation, many video games, and a long string of animated films.

One Piece Story

As the The Hollywood Reporter writes, “One Piece, created by Eiichiro Oda, follows the adventures of a young man named Monkey D. Luffy. Inspired by his childhood idol, a powerful pirate named “Red Haired” Shanks, he goes on a quest to find the fabled One Piece treasure and declare himself king of the pirates.”

That’s a very bare-bones summation of the story, which features dozens of major characters, a world spanning quest, and endless unique villains to challenge the pirate crew. The manga was first published in 1997 and it’s gone on to tell more than four hundred sixty million copies worldwide. 

Steven Maeda (Lost, The X-Files) and Matt Owens (Luke Cage, Agents of SHIELD) are adapting One Piece and will executive produce with Adelstein and Becky Clements of Tomorrow Studios and Eiichiro Oda. It’s great to know that Oda is on board for the adaptation and we eagerly await to hear what, if any, major input he has into the show.

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With such a long run of stories there’s many for the producers of the series to choose from. They could simply start from the beginning or possibly cherry pick the best (and most producible) arcs. Another route could simply be taking the long running history of One Piece and use it as inspiration for brand-new stories. Especially since One Piece features characters with very anime like designs and powers (Luffy alone can stretch himself to superhero lengths) it wouldn’t be surprising if they wanted to create stories that didn’t rely on those powers as much so they don’t break the break on visual effects costs. Also there’s a main character later on in the series who’s a reindeer. That’ll be fascinating to see them adapt if they choose to include him!

One Piece is another step in Netflix’s commitment to bringing more and more anime properties to their platform. After the high profile release of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the announcement of the live-action Cowboy Bebop, what could Netflix have planned next for anime fans?

One Piece Release Date

A release date for the series hasn’t been revealed but keep checking back and we’ll let you know when it is!

Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Follow him on Twitter! He also co-hosts a Robotech podcast, which covers the original series and the new comics. Give it a listen! Read more articles by him here!