In 2023, in celebration of the One Piece anime’s 25th anniversary, it was announced that Wit Studio would produce a full-fledged remake of the series appropriately titled The One Piece. Ironically, production on The One Piece wasn’t finished in time for the anime’s anniversary, with it eventually set for a batch release in February 2027, but even then, there was still plenty to be excited about when it came to The One Piece.
One Piece fans old and new have been waiting years for The One Piece, and while it’s still almost a year away, a teaser trailer for The One Piece has finally been released. With how much hype there has been for The One Piece, the teaser trailer should have been the perfect way of capitalizing on that, and that makes it all the more disappointing that The One Piece, at least based on the teaser, looks to be a downgrade for the franchise, as opposed to the revival people were hoping for.
The One Piece Looks Incredible, But It Has Nothing Else Going For It
One of the major selling points of Netflix’s The One Piece was remaking the East Blue Saga with modern animation techniques, and for what it’s worth, the teaser shows off plenty of that. Every scene in the teaser trailer boasts gorgeous artwork and creative direction, even having surprisingly impressive use of 3D visuals at times. The One Piece’s staff is comprised of some of Wit Studio’s biggest names, like Masashi Koizuki, Kyoji Asano, and Takatoshi Honda, and they’re certainly putting in all their talent to make it look incredible.
Unfortunately, gorgeous visuals seem to be all The One Piece has going for it. Everything in the teaser trailer, as good as it looks, is more or less a shot-for-shot remake of scenes from the original anime, which makes it seem like it will only be a straightforward adaptation of the East Blue Saga and not feature any new content. Granted, the staff said that they were only covering the East Blue, but the general assumption was that new content would be included within that framework, so seeing this is incredibly disappointing.
As iconic as the East Blue Saga is, with how much One Piece expanded on its lore and worldbuilding in the arcs to follow, there’s plenty of room for a remake to add to the East Blue Saga for a bigger story that’s more consistent with the larger story. There’s still a chance that The One Piece is doing just that, but it’s hard to think that after watching the teaser trailer, and if that’s the case, then it won’t offer much more than things like the Episode of East Blue special, or even the original anime from 1999.
Netflix’s Live-Action One Piece Succeeds Where The Reboot Is Failing
If there’s anything that truly makes The One Piece feel disappointing, it’s comparing it to Netflix’s live-action One Piece series. When the live-action One Piece released its first teaser trailer, it did a perfect job of highlighting both recreations of iconic scenes, faithful reinterpretations of others, and original content to flesh things out, all of which perfectly sold the series to old and new fans alike. The live-action series doing all of that with just a teaser trailer only makes The One Piece look worse by comparison, and both of them coming from Netflix just adds insult to injury.
Sure enough, when the live-action One Piece finally came out, it more than lived up to its initial trailer. Elements like Garp being in the East Blue and a focus on fishman discrimination did a perfect job of utilizing future lore, and season 2 went even further by finding organic ways of referencing Brook, Sanji’s backstory, and even Nika and his connection to Luffy and Elbaph. All of that was perfectly balanced by one stellar adaptation of the source material after another, and in many ways, it’s arguably an even richer experience compared to the original anime and manga.
One Piece’s Anime Has Been Officially Dethroned As The Franchise’s Blueprint
For more than 25 years, One Piece’s anime adaptation felt untouchable, but now it is no longer the best blueprint of the beloved manga.
With how well it balances sticking to the source material and creating original content, the live-action One Piece is a perfect love letter to the franchise, offering plenty to fans old and new, and it sets the standard for what any modern adaptation or remake of One Piece should strive for. Unfortunately, it looks as if The One Piece will play things safe and focus mostly on making the East Blue Saga look as good as possible, and with all the hype attached to it, that’s nothing but a letdown.
Why The One Piece Will Still Be A Hit, Despite Its Flaws
Whether in comparison to the live-action series or on its own merits, The One Piece looks like it will be an incredibly flawed product, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a success. In addition to gorgeous visuals, the major selling point of The One Piece is that it will rework the anime to be shorter and with better pacing; one of the biggest criticisms of One Piece is its massive, intimidating length and the One Piece anime’s poor pacing, which makes it feel even more tedious, so that, alone, will be a major draw that most people will want to get behind.
More than that, of course, The One Piece will be a success simply because it’s One Piece. Over the past decade, One Piece has gradually established itself as the biggest anime in the world, and nowadays, any project associated with One Piece is all but guaranteed to be massively popular with fans and critics based on the franchise’s prestige alone. It would be weirder if The One Piece didn’t draw in a massive audience, and with it all but guaranteed to be a visual marvel, that might be enough for people to ignore how basic the story is.
There will surely be a lot to love about The One Piece, whether it’s because of its amazing visuals, improved pacing, or simply the enduring charm of the East Blue Saga, but if it’s only going to be the East Blue Saga and nothing else, then that doesn’t feel like it’s as worth getting excited over as people think. There could very easily be more to the series than the teaser trailer let on, but just from this first impression, The One Piece is looking to be nothing but a disappointment.
- Network
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Netflix
- Writers
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Eiichiro Oda, Taku Kishimoto
Cast
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

