One Piece: cast of live series divides fans, manga creator responds

A 47-second video was enough to ignite the powder. Netflix revealed yesterday the cast of the One Piece live series and the choice of actors seems far from unanimous.

The tweet from the official NetflixGeeked account, devoted to trendy pop culture ads, divided fans. Some criticize the choice of unknown actors, considered hazardous, on such a project. If some internet users want to give them a chance, others fear seeing one more failed manga adaptation, in reference to the Death Note or Saint Seiya adaptations that have come under fire from negative reviews.

Some have bluntly compared the future series with the film Dragonball Evolution, a production hated by fans.

In the original tweet, soberly titled “Welcome to the Straw Hats” referring to the famous hero of the series Monkey D. Luffy, we can see a good part of the pirate crew.

In the main role, we can discover Inaki Godoy, an 18-year-old Mexican actor. He will slip into Luffy’s shoes, and it will be his first real role. As in the famous manga of Eiichiro Oda, he will be accompanied by the swashbuckler Zoro, played here by Mackenyu. A young actor already known in Japan since he played in several productions. He is also the son of Sonny Chiba, a huge Japanese actor whose career began in the 1960s.

Pipo will be played by Jacob Romero Gibson, already seen in the Greenleaf and Grey’s Anatomy series. Emily Rudd, who will be Nami, had already held roles in the series The Romanoffs and the film Fear Street Part 2. Finally Taz Skylar will be the cook Sanji. He has several films to his credit, including Crime de Guerre (2019) and Villain (2020).

Eiichiro Oda defends these choices

After this announcement, a message from Eiichiro Oda, the creator of the One Piece series, came to explain these choices. In a thread shared on the official Netflix account, the mangaka shares his involvement in the project and points out: “It’s not easy when you work with people from different cultures! But it is precisely this process that can give something special! (…) We chose this casting after many discussions involving people from all over the world! These are the people who will be our Straw Hat Pirates! It will take a little longer to complete this show, but we will continue to do our best to deliver a show that we are sure will please everyone around the world! ”

A real tidal wave across the world since its creation in 1997, One Piece will see its 100^e volume in France at the beginning of December, while the 1,000 th episode of the animated series produced by Toei Animation will be broadcast on November 21.