Put On Your Straw Hat, The Final Trailer For One Piece Is Here

Netflix subscribers are about to be able to embark on a grand adventure, as the first season of the live-action adaptation of "One Piece" is about to premiere. To mark the occasion, Netflix just released the final trailer for the highly anticipated show.

For the uninitiated, "One Piece" is the single most popular manga ever published and one of the most influential works of modern Japanese fiction. Created by Eiichiro Oda, the manga — which follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy as he sets out to become a pirate and find the mythical treasure known as One Piece and become king of the pirates — not only holds a Guinness World Record, but it is also the best-selling manga series in history and the best-selling comic series printed in volumes.

As hugely popular and influential as "One Piece" is, however, the series is considered one of the most daunting endeavors for anime and manga fans, as both have over 1000 chapters (and counting). Still, once you embark on the journey, any fan will tell you it becomes very hard to stop. I personally started reading in late June and am already halfway through the manga's run.

In case you want a taste of what the biggest anime and manga is all about without making such a huge commitment, the live-action "One Piece" promises to be a good introduction, condensing the entire first saga of the story (about 45 episodes of the anime) into just eight hours.

This final trailer boils the show's plot down to its basics: Luffy and his desire to become King of the Pirates. His relentless optimism and ability to pursue his dream is what makes Luffy so special and unique, and the trailer shows how that optimism draws people to him (both friend and foe). 

If nothing else, the Netflix "One Piece" show features the best cast for a live-action manga adaptation yet — one that was personally approved by Oda himself, and who perfectly captures the essence of the main characters.

Still, there's a whole lot riding on the first season of "One Piece." As Oda noted to the New York Times in a rare interview recently, live-action manga adaptations have a bad rep, but there's a secret to making them work. "A good live-action show doesn't have to change the story too much," Oda said. "The most important thing is whether the actors can reproduce the characters in a way that will satisfy the people who read the manga. I think we did it well, so I hope audiences will accept it." Indeed, just watch the video where Iñaki Godoy, who plays Luffy, meets Oda. Even in the promos, Godoy is simply Luffy brought to life.

That said, arguably the biggest obstacle for the live-action "One Piece" is the manga's cartoony and silly tone, which is hard to translate to live-action. For Oda, who never saw a point in adapting manga to live-action, it was Stephen Chow's "Shaolin Soccer" that won him over. "I realized times had changed, and there was technology available that could make a live-action 'One Piece' happen," he explained.

"One Piece" begins streaming August 31, 2023, on Netflix.