Netflix’s One Piece Premiere Confirms Romance Dawn Connection

Netflix is apparently all-in when it comes to creating live-action anime adaptations, with this fall giving us Cowboy Bebop starring John Cho as the intergalactic bounty hunter Spike Spiegel, and earlier today, we had the opportunity to get a first look at the script for episode one of the live-action One Piece series. Set to land with ten episodes off the cuff, the first episode’s script reveals a shocking connection between the Netflix adaptation and the first iteration of the world of the Straw Hat Pirates that was created by Eiichiro Oda extremely early in the mangaka’s career.

Romance Dawn was originally written and drawn by Eiichiro Oda as a “first draft” for the series that would become One Piece, featuring Monkey D. Luffy in the role of the protagonist but changing a number of big elements in the Shonen franchise. Receiving an anime adaptation in 2019, it would seem that the upcoming live-action Netflix series is paying homage to the story by titling the first episode of its script as “Romance Dawn,” While there are still no details regarding the casting of the live-action series, it’s clear that the streaming service is pulling out all the stops when it comes to bringing the story of the Straw Hats to a new audience.

The Official Twitter Account for Netflix’s upcoming One Piece adaptation shared the first look at the script for episode one, confirming that the title of the introduction will be Romance Dawn, tying the series to the preliminary story that attempted to establish the world of the Grand Line and Luffy’s journey to becoming king of the pirates:

The first ten episodes of the One Piece live-action series will most likely see a handful of Straw Hats assemble under Luffy’s banner, though with the anime close to hitting its one-thousandth episode, the Netflix adaptation will have a long way to go before it can catch up to the latest events of both the anime and the manga.

What do you think of this big connection for One Piece’s upcoming live-action series? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Grand Line.