Magic is a falsehood that makes this world vibrant. These hands draw the most beautiful of spells... Only to be so hideously stained with ink! Yet no lie can survive close scrutiny. Hm... I wonder how long this ruse can be maintained.
Witch Hat Atelier - 1x08 “The misgivings of the Knight Moralis”
Created by Kamome Shirahama
As I close out this deeper dive into the live action, I want to reflect on the overall quality of the season after seeing it all for the first time in three years.
I maintain that the overall quality of the writing and some of the limitations of budget and time keep this from being a great season of television. But time has softened some of the rougher edges for me. There are still thing I hate, but the things I merely disliked don't seem quite so bad this time around. Whether it's because I simply knew what to expect or was too harsh the first time around is difficult to say, but it's been fun revisiting opla from the beginning and seeing it all again was enough to kickstart my enthusiasm for Season 2 into the next gear.
At the end of the day I think that matters. For a show like One Piece, that gets bigger and more impossible with each sequential island, generating momentum is a big deal. Season 1 was successful enough to get renewed through the Alabasta Saga, but it wasn't a viral megahit like Wednesday, Squid Game, or Stranger Things. It did well internationally, but failed to crack the top ten all time for Netflix.
Many shows with meteoric rises in popularity have a hard time maintaining their ridiculous numbers season to season. There are plenty of examples of great shows like Breaking Bad that don't hit their stride for several years. I think One Piece has positioned itself in a good place, doing well enough to ensure its own future without setting unrealistic expectations going forward.
Many of the weaknesses of Season 1 already seem to be addressed, with the fight scenes and cinematography looking much improved, and it's covering less chapters despite being given the same number of episodes. There will be more time for things to breathe. There is space for One Piece to grow. Whether these improvements lead to an increase in viewership remains to be seen, but there's every reason to believe that Season 2 will be better than one on a purely technical level. Hopefully the writing can get a similar bump in quality, but at this point I'll just take what I can get.
With that in mind, let's dive into Season 1 one final time
The first half of the finale is, much like Episode 7, a bit of a disappointment. I've already discussed how cut episodes and a reduced runtime affect the pacing of things, but for the early part of the episode the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. It reads like a first draft, with Luffy's pre-fight dialogue with Arlong being particularly bad. I'm sorry, but responding to another one of Arlong's slavery speeches by saying, "Well, I think slavery is bad" is cringe, and Inaki isn't able to salvage the terrible writing with his delivery. I'm not sure anyone could have, but it's one of his weakest moments in the entire season.
It's also disappointing that all of Arlong's characterization outside of the racism/slavery issue is cut. In the manga he clearly cared about his crew, and the Luffy fight really misses their conversation on what it means to be a captain. Luffy telling Arlong he's gonna kick his ass after admitting he can't navigate, cook, lie, or use swords is one of the big thematic ideas of the East Blue and what captainship means to Luffy. It seems like the writers felt they only had room to expand on one character trait for Arlong, and they picked the one that would be most relevant in the live action equivalent of 400 chapters down the road.
I do like the opening flashback of Nami's early years with Arlong. I really wish the live action had found ways to include more manga moments to supplement this additional backstory. They show kid!Nami's fingers bleeding as she draws maps, but there's never a time when Luffy picks up a bloody pen. It would have been a much more subtle and gut-wrenching nod to the horrors Nami went through as a child than her talking outright about her getting to take her shackles off when she was twelve as a birthday present.
The writers seem to have realized that Arlong attacking Coco Village makes no sense because they try to justify it with Nami saying that Arlong's, "Punishing the village, and punishing me", but this still doesn't work. Arlong wouldn't put his revenue stream at risk without a reason, and he knows that the village is the only thing keeping Nami by his side. I still think there's a missing scene somewhere where Arlong realizes how short Coco Village is on their tribute payment--something that is set up in Episode 7 but not really followed through on. It would have been an easy way to give logic to his actions.
Another possible sign of rewrites is that Nezumi knows who the Straw Hat Pirates are and knows that they're at Coco Village. This is something that's not established anywhere, and there's just a bit of connective tissue missing to string these plot points along.
There's a curious side effect of Garp following Luffy all around the East Blue in that he ends up cleaning up a lot of the marine corruption we see early on. In Episode 2 he's tying up Captain Morgan in his own yard and here he's reprimanding Nezumi. This isn't a bad change per say, but it's another thing that makes opla!Garp quite different than the original.
None of the fishmen fights are all that compelling. There's a lack of spectacle to the Arlong fight--I think the entire VF effects budget went to the destruction of Arlong Park--and the Kuroobi fight just isn't as interesting as some of the others we got earlier in the season. The bit with Arlong regrowing his teeth was appropriately cool, though.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, but cutting out Usopp's character grown when going against Chu is unforgivable given his lack of focus in earlier arcs, and Season 2 has a lot of work to do to make up for how badly they utilized Usopp throughout the season.
There are some great crew moments, particularly in the episode's back half. I do have to give credit particularly to Nami ignoring Sanji in order to hug Usopp and Zoro, and Zoro commenting on Sanji's attack names. Those are both good, solid gags in an otherwise serious episode.
The secondary climax with Garp does at least look better. They did a great job of making Garp look like the powerhouse he is, although the "test" was just as terrible now as it was the first time I saw it. Garp's evil cackle returns, and I just can't get over how nonsensical Garp's reasoning is when he's spent the entire season whining to characters like Mihawk and Zeff that he's going to get Luffy back no matter what. It's inconsistent, nonsensical writing and I will be very happy if Garp isn't a big factor in Season 2.
With Garp being reminded of Roger's laugh when fighting Luffy, I have to wonder if this isn't another consequences of the cut Loguetown episodes. It's impossible to know when the big Garp confrontation was meant to happen in the original 10 episode run of the season, but I could see him perhaps having a change of heart after seeing Luffy on the execution stand. It will be interesting to see how Season 2 handles what's essentially the exact same character beat with Smoker without being too repetitive.
That being said....the end of the episode is perfect. One Piece has always nailed its denouements, and it's great seeing strength translating to strength. Luffy getting his bounty and the Straw Hats dropping their sail for the first time as a united crew made me feel feelings. Fun fact about the barrel scene is that interjecting the Straw Hats as kids was not originally part of the plan, and is just something an editor came up with while cutting the episode. Kudos to whoever that was, for adding a wonderful spin on an already iconic moment.
Some last details worth mentioning as we cap off Season 1 of this grand adventure
The Revolutionary Army attack on Vera shown opposite of Luffy's bounty is canon to the One Piece world, and was first shown about this same time in the manga. I believe Nami makes a note of it during the pre Loguetown chapters, so there's a chance the live action will somehow connect it to the start of Season 2
Many have noticed how Zeff puts Luffy's bounty under the Employee of the Month, but fewer have noticed the recipe for aged wild boar meat with oregano to the bottom left. There's just so much in these sets and small details, I bet these sets were a blast to work on
Campaign 2 spoilers And Mighty Nein animated spoilers
Wow they're REALLY going for the Molly stuff huh? It's really good so far so I'm not mad about it. Fuck the element of surprise I guess, who needs it? lol
Does it make any sense that Molly's self defense system just fought off an Archmage yet later he [redacted]? No... UNLESS the Eyes of Nine were SPECIFICALLY reacting to Vess and her phony claim of being The Nonagon and were like Biotch I don't think so!
Also, Fuck! I get it show, stop waving death flags, Christ! First the button for Nott and then ANOTHER pull of the death card. LEAVE MOLLY ALONE! HE'S ONLY TWO! TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD!!!
