With "One Piece,” Netflix repeats history, and there isn’t much evidence that it paid attention to what happened the first time around.
"Cowboy Bebop” was a cult-favorite Japanese animated series that fetishized cool American jazz and film noir and Hollywood Westerns, and in 2021 Netflix returned the cultural homage by making an American live-action adaptation. It wasn’t a disaster, but it quickly fell from sight.
"One Piece” is a remarkably endurable manga and anime franchise — more than 500 million books sold, 1,073 television episodes and counting — that applies a slapstick, Buster Keaton-like visual energy to an adventure story with roots in Hollywood swashbucklers and musicals like "Captain Blood” and "The Crimson Pirate.” So once again Netflix has been moved to produce an American live-action remake, whose eight episodes premiere last month.