With the sudden popularity of Netflix's "One Piece", does this finally mean that America is finally ready to do good adaptations? Find out on this episode of Film Center!

This is Film Center.

Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.

No fluff, all facts.

Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.

Film

Center, my name is Derek Johnson II.

I'm Nicholas Killian.

And what are we talking about today, Nicholas?

Today we are talking about One Piece.

Yes, One Piece it is the latest American attempt.

At Japanese Animation.

To, instead of, make it animation.

Did you make it live action?

The America has a huge history of taking animated Japanese things and trying

to make them American live action.

One of the more famous examples, of course, being Dragon Ball Z evolution,

which we'll talk about that in a second.

And then there was also things like.

Ghost in the Shell, Death Note as well.

But Death Note was another one that was actually done by Netflix,

like this one piece live action.

And Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop that was also done by Netflix, that is correct.

And then also we have ones that our audience might not

know were anime adaptations.

Christopher Nolan's Inception.

Really?

Yeah.

We're just gonna jump right in here.

One Piece is a newer Netflix series that is obviously based off of the anime.

One thing about One Piece is that it's getting really good reviews.

I think it, I think the reason why it's getting such great reviews

is because of the faithfulness to the source material, which I'm

always baffled by whenever you...

Over the years, when American audiences and American studios have tried

to take Japanese anime and make it live action, it's right there, man.

It's right there.

The script is already there.

Everything people want to see is right there.

I think that part of the reason it's so faithful is because of because

the creator, Oda, is actually helping along with the production.

Oh, the whole time.

He's been extremely and heavily involved.

Also, it makes sense that Netflix is going and producing One Piece because

One Piece is the best selling manga of all time with over 500 million

copies in circulation worldwide.

America is no stranger to taking books and adapting them to movies

And anime is just really, they viewed it from a manga perspective.

It makes a lot of sense, things that were our American classics

like Jaws are based off of books, so it's not crazy to think about.

One thing that I did think was interesting is the way that

they, the characters were casted.

A lot of people, when they first heard about this, it's assumed everyone's

going to be casted as if they're Japanese, but it actually seems it's

like an American adaptation, right?

It's a bit diverse.

The guy that plays Luffy, he's Spanish?

Yeah his name is Incai Guru Oh, I'm gonna mess up this name again.

I N, and then the N has like an accent mark on it, so it's Inaki Godoy.

Inaki Godoy is playing Monkey D.

Luffy, the main character.

If you don't know what One Piece is, then you probably don't know

a lot about anime in general.

You may or may not like it.

Me and Nicholas have seen the show.

Our opinions of it, we're gonna try to keep out.

But it's hard to talk about it without having a certain opinion.

I think we can speak to the success of the anime already.

It already has over a thousand episodes.

Yeah.

One Piece already, the creator said he wanted to be, he wants it to

be the longest running anime ever.

But unfortunately he is he's going to have to keep up.

All right.

Or sorry, E I c H I R O.

Orio Oda, o d a.

He's the creator of one piece and he was initially hesitant about

allowing Netflix to adapt one piece due to a poor track record.

Of live action adaptations, and this is according to MovieWeb, right?

What he's, when we will say poor live action adaptations, there

are a lot of them out there.

Not only created by Americans, because everyone talks about how

the American ones are unpopular, but this is Japanese entertainment,

meaning that they have tried to do this adaptation themselves several

times, and it has been unsuccessful.

One of those being the Attack on Titan.

A movie that was the attack on titan adaptation that was also unsuccessful So

and then they always blame oh, is it the technology that's that hasn't kept up?

And there is some anime out there where it wouldn't be too difficult.

You watch things like the avengers I mean I'm not going to compare, there's

a lot of money behind that, right?

Disney has tons of money to put behind that, but at the same time it is doable.

I think we also talk about the differences in filmmaking style, right?

Japanese filmmaking style is wildly different than American filmmaking.

They like the exaggeration on, and they're like I'm just talking about modern.

Modern Japanese.

When we were watching the show, it was filmed just like it was in anime, right?

So you have shots where it's just the mouth or just the eye.

And the thing is that's fine if you're doing anime.

It doesn't necessarily translate all that well to live action.

So when you're thinking about Live action adaptations.

First of all, I will say this.

The Dragon Ball Z adaptation, Dragon Ball Evolution, the director

of that movie admitted that he had never even seen Dragon Ball.

See, never even seen it.

So obviously.

And the guy who played Goku is Jimmy from Shameless.

Yeah.

So you're talking about some people who, I don't know how much of a fan

The actor is, but you're talking about from a director, someone who's

spearheading it, he should obviously be familiar with the source material.

And so I think that's why people like this adaptation so much better is

because it's staying, it's actually staying pretty faithful to it.

The only real critique I've heard of it so far coming from the fans

is that they're speed running it, but guys, we got to speed run it.

There's over a thousand episodes.

It's over a thousand episodes.

I did always, before we did the research for this episode, I did

always assume that it was one of the longest running animes ever, but it

turns out One Piece is not even close.

So One Piece...

Yeah, aren't there a couple of animes that it's not even close to?

Yeah, so One Piece has about 1, 004 1, 043 episodes.

Which is no, they're, like, you don't, you will not find

American adaptations of anything.

You will not find that are this long, maybe it's soap operas,

but you're not going to find any animation that runs this long.

The one that's right behind it, I would say is a Gundam with

about a thousand and 27 episodes.

And we're talking about, so this is on a recording of September 19th, 2023.

So if you're listening to it sometime in the future, it could be more.

But the it's, there is a lot of ones in front of it.

First of all, the first one.

Who has the number one spot, and I'm just gonna go from number

one back down to one piece.

Okay.

Talking about adaptations that they're gonna have to eventually

get to, how much material they have.

The number one spot is actually going to an anime spelled Sazae san.

S A Z A E dash S A N.

And that anime...

It's running on Fuji TV, it has the goodest world record for the longest

running animated TV show ever.

How many episodes does it have?

7, 920.

And this is an animated TV show.

That is like...

What's it about?

It is about it is about Sazae's son lives in a house with her

husband and kids and parents.

So it's just about, a housewife.

This, there's still a lot of episodes, like it, that's an inconceivable

amount, especially cause I don't, it's been going on for 53 years.

So that means it started in 1969.

Yeah, so I don't even know if it's even the same voice actors.

I would doubt it, but it is possible.

Let's say if they started when they're in their 20s.

Imagine that.

Imagine your voiceover career is just one role for 50 years.

Over 50 years.

You're obviously doing a good job.

Clearly.

Clearly.

Somebody's doing something right.

What's your resume?

You're like, oh.

I am Sazi san from Fuji TV.

I've been doing this for 50 years.

What else?

This, this, I always would assume that's could be Tom Kenny's future.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could see that.

With him just playing SpongeBob for the rest of his career.

Yeah.

Especially since Nickelodeon never wants to let that gone.

And then, so the next one right behind it is gonna be,

doraemon with 1, 787 episodes.

The next one I'm talking about Now this one's a little bit harder to pronounce.

So a lot of these are Asian.

So they're a little bit hard for us to pronounce, but Annapaman,

with 1, 570 What is it called?

Annapaman.

And then you have Chibi...

Marukuchan with 1, 359 and then right behind that one is one that people are

probably more familiar with Pokemon Okay.

1, 222.

Pokemon has more episodes than One Piece.

Yeah.

I think their story though they start over on different areas and stuff like that.

And there's two more in front of it.

There's like Crayon Shichan and then there's Case Closed

before we even get to One Piece.

So the reason why I'm naming all of these adaptations is because they were

originally thought to be too large to even start adaptating in the first

place, but obviously Netflix likes.

Netflix thrives on going for things that other people don't like.

Or, untr untraditional productions.

Because they have the money.

They're like, it doesn't really matter.

If it succeeds, we're going to make money anyway.

And that's such an interesting high rating on IMDB with an 8.

5.

And a lot of people were really liking this movie.

The movie, a lot of people were liking this TV series just, and I think that

part of it might come from all the disappointment in the past, talking

about Scarlett Johansson's Ghost in the Shell, talking about, Dragon Ball.

Evolution that kind of kicked off that is famous for being one of the

worst one of the worst I think I have a different theory about it.

I think the reason why One piece is doing so is that it's catering to

people that have probably never watched anime before Budget of seventeen

point twenty seven million per episode also doesn't hurt Like I mean think

about it, Watching anime had been stigmatized for so long, still even now.

But the fact that Netflix, it's like Amazon and Apple TV, right?

The thing is, they don't really need to make money off of it.

Amazon doesn't need to make money.

They do.

But it's not necessary for them to make money off of their shows.

No, they're really more an advertisement for what they really do anyway.

And TV and film has, it used to be like the big dog in which you

made, export and stuff like that.

But nowadays it's come to this thing where it's like TV and film is

more like how Japanese TV and film is done, where they're more like

advertisements for other things.

And the thing is also what is really never been done with these anime live

adaptations is they have never really been well marketed and promoted.

That's true.

A lot of times the marketing for it is pretty bad, even though Dragon Ball

Z Which I will, evolution, excuse me, had a reduction budget of 30 million.

It, it tanked, everyone knows that.

That's not surprising.

But the issue is that most of it went straight to the production and

none of it went to marketing, really.

If you think about it...

You heard about one piece coming out.

You've seen the trailers.

You've seen the promotional material.

You've seen everything Months before it even came out right and it's so

huge It like of course, you know what one piece is like a lot of people

who don't know what one piece is they probably if they see the picture they're

like, oh, I know what this is because there's just It's that old adage of

you make So much production, right?

You do so much of it, eventually someone's gonna like it, right?

And certain people are gonna see it.

And to build on top of that, is it's available to a global audience.

Netflix is available in over a hundred and ninety countries.

One Piece has the potential to be watched by millions around the world, and it has.

He is.

Right?

And the problem with a lot of anime remakes is that they've

been limited to regional releases.

They haven't been released to the globe as far as One Piece and Netflix has gone.

So a lot of these actors.

In one piece and not a Lester's very well.

You haven't really seen before and I think that's what really helps it out.

In my opinion, when you go to, this is something that's done in such a

way where if it's an anime adaptation, I don't want to see it and see the

rock playing some version of some character or Scarlet Johansson some

play some version of a character.

I want to see.

My character the character put to live action and I think that's what a lot

of the fans are getting from this I think that's what's been the best part

of it is because like you said if you have somebody like the rock or if you

have somebody like matt damon or Keanu reeves, it's oh I have a preconceived.

This is just The Rock playing somebody else.

It's not somebody nameless playing this character.

Now you're able to like, imagine that character.

Plus, One Piece was nu was the number one show on Netflix worldwide in the week of

its release with over 37 million views.

And so the production has been, it's the way it's made is a little bit campy.

But if people are familiar with the anime is that way too.

It's its sense of humor, right?

If the show doesn't take yourself too seriously, I think that.

If it did, if it was trying to make itself too dramatic and too serious,

it would not have worked at all.

Especially because then it wouldn't feel like the series.

The creator, Oda has gone on record many times saying even throughout the anime

and throughout the manga, saying Oh, I don't want anything to get too dark or too

serious because that's not really the...

Now they ha apparently they have, I have not seen all 1, 000.

For three episodes, but I've seen a bit of it and I will say that like even the

quote unquote darker moments, they handled with such nuance to where eventually

like the tone is still kept the same.

Yeah, I completely agree.

And then also Rotten Tomato feels the same way.

It has a 96 percent audience score on Rotten Tomato, which is the audience.

highest audience score for any Netflix original series period once

again that is rotten tomatoes and we are aware of the scandal but not

scandal I think everyone knew this that run tomatoes was being paid.

To make their ratings look a certain way The that news broke, about two weeks ago.

It was just everywhere.

I think people already knew that when you have the net, when you have the

credit score and then you have the audience score and they're so starkly

different consistently, I think that's the only part about Ron Tomatoes that

I enjoyed was that like the audience score, like you would see a movie like,

Oh, this is a good movie and couldn't say, Oh, it's terrible on run tomatoes.

And then the audience score would be high.

It, that, that actually gives me confidence in like the

audience score version of it.

Even though when you look up my tomato scores on Google or being

whatever search engine you're using.

They will show you the critics score, not the actual audience score.

And also the thing is that, I thought that the incredibly high production value had

really contributed to the success of it.

Because, like we said before, Dragon Ball Evolution, we have Death

Note, we have Cowboy Bebop, the production value wasn't all that high.

You're talking about Calliope's estimated, was I think 67 million per episode, Death

Note about 40 million of the budget, and Death Note being a movie, and not a TV

adaptation, but then you're talking about 138 total million for the first season.

And like you said, the show has a very good sense of humor, right?

Yes, the Netflix one piece show is a bit campy, but the anime is also a bit campy.

That's its humor and like you said, it doesn't want to be too dark.

But it's also exciting and like action packed with the old, like you said,

the only problem being that people are sitting there saying that, Hey man, you're

really speed running this anime, but it's there's over a thousand episodes.

Do you really think that Netflix is going to produce, 1000 episodes?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Especially not in this is clearly costing them way more than the

first season of the animated.

And then, like you said.

The thing that I think that One Piece has a notorious issue from

its fans is its pacing issue, but we've already established that the

reason why the pacing is like that is because he's trying to make this

anime series go as long as possible.

I also think part of the...

I think the casting is really good for this.

A lot of the characters, I, it's like they are a different version than the regular

characters but they're not different enough to where I don't know who it is.

They're not, cause here's the issue that you might have from some fans, is being

the anime is, the characters don't look exactly like the people in the show.

And it's they look close.

But here's the, that's the issue, right?

This is anime.

They're not going to look exactly like they do on the show, right?

It's almost because One piece characters are notoriously drawn in

a little in a cartoonish way, right?

They're drawn to be a bit ridiculous, right?

Like the marine the hundred and first marine Base leader.

I mean he's wearing like MC Hammer pants.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And now it looks ridiculous on the screen, but when you watch the anime,

it doesn't look ridiculous at all.

The iron jaw looks a bit ridiculous, right?

But it doesn't look that way in the anime.

So you have to give it a bit of leeway and grace as to, some things are not

going to translate into the live action version and you're just going to have

to give it its grace and you're going to have to give it its suspension of

disbelief and just look past that.

Yeah, I think that really they did a pretty good job

overall with the adaptation.

I think that, choosing a lot of no names was really good.

At least no names when it comes to...

Am I a no name?

These people have obviously done work before.

So I don't feel like they picked them up off the street.

They're not nothing.

But we've never heard of them.

Yeah, they're not super prominent.

Although the person who plays Zorro, makinyu, Mak, M A C K E N Y U, Makinyu

he has been in other anime adaptations.

Oh, really?

Of live action adaptations, yeah, including Full Metal Alchemist.

And Kenshin, so that's interesting that they're like, okay, we're going

to get someone who was previously in, and he was in Pacific Renault rising.

Yeah, but he wasn't the he wasn't the leader in a lot of these, but that

he's, he has done a lot of, I will say animated live action adaptations before.

So it was like they put in a veteran.

He is with the rest of the cast.

He is, I would say he is the best character on the show so far.

He was also in the what?

Tokyo Goul.

We have he was also in surprise Future that came in.

Common writer drive.

Yeah, he has it seems like he has more acting experience

than the rest of them do.

Yeah, also, we can't overstate the platform and the reach that Netflix has.

Netflix's One Piece has been watched by over 100 million households worldwide.

The show has been in the top 10 most watched shows on

Netflix in over 90 countries.

And I think the part of that is because people are like, Oh, an anime.

Adaptation, that's not complete garbage that automatically is going

to get someone's attention, right?

Because the last one that was not complete garbage wasn't session.

So and for those right And for those who don't know inception is an American

film made by Christopher Nolan If you don't know what inception is and you're

listening to this podcast or a radio show

That's interesting.

A lot of people know what Inception is, but if you might not know,

Christopher Nolan made Inception as an American adaptation of a movie

called Paprika, which is not a one for one adaptation like with Jaws or

like One Piece where it's directly an adaptation using the same name.

But it is a heavy adaptation right and then the thing is we need to compare What

one piece has done as far as to what other adaptations have done right so death note

the live action Remake was watched by an estimated 30 million households worldwide.

And the live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell was watched by an

estimated 15 million houses worldwide.

So the fact that it's been watched by over 100 million households

worldwide in a range of 90 countries should show you the difference.

And this is all from, Netflix's data.

Necklace is putting out this data they're usually pretty good at not embellishing,

anyway, because they don't really need to.

I think it's really interesting.

And it's already been renewed for a second season.

Yeah I think that the first thing they're probably going to do

is up the budget a little bit.

Not be necessarily because of the way the first one looks the first season,

they obviously put a lot into the budget.

Once again, going back to that 138 million, but I think that, because

the first one did so well and one piece is drawn cartoonishly and

some of the characters and some of the abilities and things like that,

they're going to have to up the budget.

It's just, it just is necessary, especially at the

pace they're going, right?

Yeah.

As anyone who watches anime or anything in Shonen or things like that, Shonen

is usually it's a magazine in Japan that's called Shonen Jump that's,

Shonen is not like a genre over there where it's a certain type of anime.

Yeah.

But usually things get more and more complicated as any show would.

And so obviously they have to up the budget.

The real question is how, by how much?

Yeah the thing is, you're going to, that's why, I think that's why

people have an issue with why they're speedrunning it the way they are.

Because the thing is, you want to make the first season incredibly

successful, like it has been, right?

But before this came out, you're only going to have to up the budget

more and more because of CGI, right?

Yes.

So you want it to be incredibly successful and profitable so that

you can just use those profits and dump them back into the show.

The CGI is used very interestingly in here.

There's a lot of practicals that I would not have made practical.

How do you mean?

I'll give you an example.

Captain Langley Kirkwood that plays Captain Axehand Morgan.

He has a giant metal jaw.

All right, the axe hand you can make that practical, right?

But he has this giant metal jaw that I mean it works You know for what it

is, like if this was if I saw his metal jaw in a different production then I

wouldn't really buy it but because it has this Cartoonish look all over the

production set he fits in with the world.

Right But I don't know me personally.

I would have been like, okay cool.

I want to make his jaw look more realistic But at the same time this is one piece

we're talking about and if you look at the original anime character design if they

try To make something look too realistic It's going to look bad so I think that

because that's the whole point, right?

So I think that them working closely with the creator helped

them keep up this quality, right?

But and they get more their budget gets higher I mean it's happened

before and we're you know creators are like, oh we have a higher budget.

Let's try some More higher level things and then they could end up

possibly ruining it Yes and the thing is that they have the original

creator to help them on the show.

Oh, yeah, right so for fans to sit there and critique it is But this

is the creator doing it, right?

and then some fans will argue or we have to create art from the artist

and it's but it's hard to do a split.

So I think that's also another reason people so happy is

because it came out good, right?

A lot of people.

And then also the thing is that this show could get probably its

sea legs by we have the original creator to help us out, right?

But now what we have to do is we have to incorporate the Western style of filming

to make it even better than it already is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, it's wild.

It's like almost watching Spy Kids.

Yeah, It doesn't seem like the production value of some of its bigger, like

you say, something like the Witcher.

And it's but it has this huge budget.

Where did this budget go?

I think it went into something, there's a lot of really good

looking practicals in here.

To the point to where it's these and some of the costumes and they're really good.

But the filmmaking style feels campy and at the same time, I honestly

believe if they try to film it too seriously, it's a, it's very,

it's the walk on a tightrope here.

If they go too far left in the series and all this super, and go

too far left, not saying that their production isn't professional.

That's not what I'm saying.

Super professional.

But if they go too far left into taking it too seriously, then it

doesn't work because the original material's not like that with these

cartoonish looking characters.

But if they go too cartoonish, then no one's gonna take it seriously and

they're not gonna really gonna like it.

It's a tightrope that they're walking.

I think the thing is that I think this series is only

going to get better over time.

Because you have the creator who is over them saying, This

is my this is what i've created.

Let me show you but then I think there's also A school of thought that says okay.

Listen, I understand you're the creator but the people in the u.

s And maybe the rest of the world because they're used to u.

s filmmaking This is the type of style of filmmaking that you need to do to

make this look Yeah, the style is called have respect for the source material,

because that, I think that's been a major issue for the previous things.

Akira is a movie that came out a long time ago, and a lot of people have been trying

to make this an American adaptation.

People from Steven Spielberg all the way to Jordan Peele have made bids

to do a live action version of Akira.

Tonya West's Power music video was just Akira, right?

This is something that has been really quote unquote adapt.

There's been a lot of references to it, but it hasn't really been adapted yet.

This could open up the doors, one of this quality, could open up the doors

of the Japanese people start putting faith in an American filmmakers, but

at the same time the relationship is strange because of previous adaptations.

Do you think, and I would want to know what your opinion of this is, do you

think This being one of the big three, do you think this opens up the door for an

actually legit good Naruto live action?

So maybe you should explain big three for those who are on film

center who aren't familiar.

So what the big three is the big three is Naruto, One Piece and Bleach, right?

And, there's a lot of people that are talking about New Big

Three, this big The 90s Big Three.

The Big Three was just the three best selling mangas at the time.

They're considered the Big Three because they sold so much, it made

it broke into American audiences.

That's how popular these mangas were.

These three sold so many copies it made Japanese manga popular in America.

That's why they're called the Big Three.

So do you think that should this go on and do really well, do you think it

opens up the door for a legitimate...

Remake, or not remake, a live action adaptation of Naruto, because that's a

lot more difficult to do than one piece.

I 100 percent do the reason is because the American filmmakers

have been trying to do it before they had the technology to do it.

They've been trying to do it before they understood the source material.

They've been trying to do it, they've been trying they tried to do it with

directors who had never watched the show.

They tried to do it with not enough money.

They tried to do it with not enough advanced technology.

They've been trying to do it just to straight up make

money off of a popular IP.

As long as there's a popular IP, there's gonna be some Hollywood person

that's Oh yeah, I need to make this.

And now, especially because anime is on the rise, and it's getting more

and more popular, and now that one adaptation has done marginally well.

Not marginally, it's done pretty well, actually.

Yeah, it's done really well.

It's done pretty well.

But, they're gonna ride this one example of them doing something right,

out of the hundred times that they failed, for the next hundred times.

You have to think about, I think you have to think about it like this, right?

Sopranos came out and proved that you could do an hour

long dramatic show, right?

And that it's profitable, because before, nobody thought that

would ever be profitable, right?

Or even possible.

Or even possible.

Game of Thrones came out and showed you that you could spend a lot of money And

get a lot of profit in return as long as you did it well, as long as you put

the money to where it's supposed to go, unlike in other places to because

Amazon thought wheel of time would be way better because they put more money into

it, but they didn't allocate the funds correctly into the actual correct talent.

So you have examp you could continue to have examples now.

Let's say One Piece does even better, and it fixes the minor issues that it has now.

We could be looking at actual legit Naruto live action adaptation.

And I think once that happens, it's gonna be just the floodgates

are just gonna be open.

Dude.

Yeah, because I think that and I will I do think that someone's

gonna try Dragon Ball Z again.

They don't want to, but I honestly believe that they're going to try it again.

It's too popular.

It just is.

If you could do Naruto live action adaptation, you can do anyone.

Yeah.

Because like you would need to do chop and you would need to do there's so much

fantasy and stuff that goes into that.

But yeah, this has been Film Center.

My name is Derek.

I'm Nicholas Killian.

And we'll see you all next time.

You can go ahead and check us out on filmcenternews.

com to listen to more episodes.

We'll see you next time.

See ya.

This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.

Check out our previous episodes at comicconradio.

com.

You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.

Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.

Until next time, this has been Film Center.