Drinker's Chasers - One Piece Took Us All By Surprise

I am 52. Never read a Manga. Never watched an anime. Never heard of a One Piece. This show is insane. Bonkers. Colorful like a cartoon. Nothing in it makes sense. Physics don’t exist. It has become my favorite show. It has more heart and soul than anything in the last ten years.

For me, Garp throwing the cannonball with his bare hands and Luffy bouncing it back with his big belly is what sold it for me. You commit to the sheer insanity of what just happened and no one questions it.

"It's fun to see something built on the foundation of joy" That's exactly the main theme of One Piece. Joy Boy approves.

The fact that everyone seems genuinely happy while reviewing this says a lot about how needed a show like this is.

The fact that One Piece is more of a normal show than everything else we get today is hillarious when the world is intentionally wacky and out-there

It doesn't have to be the best adaptation, it just have to respect the source (as much as possible) and be the most fun

Dude, the love between Zeff and Sanji is just glorious. Both a positive example of mentorship and how a shared dream brings people together. That good bye was a tear jerker.

Just something to understand. One Piece is Eiichiro Oda's baby. He has been writing, re-writing, designing characters and such since he was a child. There are interviews where he shows his dog-eared old text books from his time at school just full of illustrations and notes. He'll be sat on panels and doing other stuff while casually doodling One Piece characters. He is a creator that loves his creation to an almost obsessive degree. So its great to see something made with such passion getting a good adaptation.

I think Oda's involvement was important, but it's also good to highlight that Matt Owens, one of the writers and showrunners for the live action, is a genuine fan of the series that wanted and respected Oda's input. You can find videos of him talking to content creators in the One Piece YouTube community. I've listened to him talk about One Piece and he's probably more knowledgable and passionate about One Piece than 99.9% of fans of the series, and that includes me. It'd be very hard to fake the hours of talking about One Piece he has online. His goal going into this was to bring the source material to life in a TV show format.

Felt more adult than Cowboy Bebop and it flowed more and had some heart also.

I always feel like the director doesn't get enough credit. He was a huge part of the one piece community and Oda himself chose him because of his passion for the series. I remember he even did some interviews with prominent one piece youtubers talking about the pressure of making a good story and hoping what he cut/added made fans happy. It was a passion project all around and im glad the series is so good.

It's amazing what happens when they make a show true to the source material. And yes the actors went all in. The guy who plays sanji actually went to cooking school and learned to kickbox and now he cooks for the cast and crew and kickboxing is how he exercises. That's how much he enjoys being sanji.

Never watched an anime in my life and neither have my sons (10&12). Not only did we love this show but now have moved on to the anime. Such a well done show

Its kind of wild to see Mauler and Drinker discuss an anime series that ive loved for years in a positive light

Season 2 already confirmed I hear. This show has exploded onto the scene. Unpretentious, fun, proper character work and passion behind every moment of it. It deserves the success.

Nami is actually kind of a girl boss, but a realistic one: she is not Harley Quinn with normal human strength who somehow can beat up bigger guys than her, she is not Captain Marvel who can down spaceships because she was given immense powers, she is not the Live Action Mulan who was born with magical abilities allowing her to fight better than all other guys around her. She is smart, cunning, can think quickly on her feet (like she did with Axe-hand Morgan), a capable thief and safe cracker. She is not overly strong like Luffy or Zorro, she is not an amazing fighter like Zorro or Sanji (she is somewhat capable, but she cannot take on a horde of Marines like Zorro and Luffy did), so she plays to her strengths and does what she can to survive. Sure, Luffy has the strength and heart, and Zorro has the strength, skills and loyalty, and Sanji has the skills, but Nami is possibly the smartest one of the lot of them, and amazingly, Nami does occasionally gets frustrated with Luffy being an idiot sometimes, but she appreciates he has a good heart and he comes through for his crew mates

As a fan of the source Material, who was ready to hate this adaptation, I am so glad to see that Eiichiro Oda kept a hand on literally everything. It's so joyfull!

Its not just that the Magaka who wrote One Piece has creative control, all of the actors are fans of the story, the lead writer of the show was Henri Cavill's only ally on the Witcher in trying to retain the author's intention, and everyone involved is 100% on board with conveying the heart of the story while making it come to life. Its pretty much the perfect formula.

I adored Nami's arc. She was strong without being a girl boss, and she was allowed to break down and be vulnerable. The boys were allowed to protect and help her and it drew them closer as a crew. Masterfully done, I haven't had a show elicit such strong emotions from me in a long time.

There's a lot to be said about the respect given to parental figures in the show. Every character has a background that can be traced to important people who imparted them with good morals which lead them to what they are today. Even when they disagree or clash, both parties can see eye to eye and no one is portrayed as an asshole or antiquated just because they are not hip with the kids.