One Piece’s live-action series continues to take over Netflix since the debut of its first season, and the producers behind the new release have opened up about some of the biggest challenges behind bringing Eiichiro Oda’s classic manga to life! One Piece’s live-action series has been held up in high regard by fans as an example for a great manga to live-action adaptation, but it’s clear that it’s because of all of the effort and attention to detail that went into bringing the franchise to life in this whole new medium for a new audience.
Opening up about the first season in a recent interview with Deadline, Tomorrow Studios’ Eric Clements and Becky Clements revealed some of the challenges they faced for the first season production of the new One Piece live-action series. The first was the scope of the new undertaking, and how they were going to make the pirate world of One Piece feel real through special effects, sets and more. If the response to the series from fans since its release has been anything to go by, the team managed to overcome each of these challenges.
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One Piece Live-Action Series’ Biggest Challenges
“The challenges were obviously scope, how do we create a pirate world with characters, with special effects and also keep it grounded,” Clements began when opening up about the challenges in production for Netflix’s One Piece live-action series. “We spent a lot of time with Marc Jobst, the director, with our production designer, our producer Chris Symes, really focusing on how do we make it feel real and grounded in the builds, the textures, the VFX, the costumes. The crew in South Africa is incredible.”
Shooting in South Africa was also an advantage in production as Clements explained, “We knew we were going to shoot there because Chris Symes, our executive producer, produced Black Sails, and he built many pirate ships for that series. There were a couple of them in place already that we knew we would have an advantage and be able to refurbish.” But weather turned out to be a big issue.
“One of the challenges you have in South Africa is weather,” Clements continued. “[Y]ou can shoot best at a certain time of year, so that always comes into play, and even the weather cooperated, which isn’t always the case. So we had many challenges, but we had the most professional and awe inspiring team there that just helped us pull it off.”
But what did you think of the first season of One Piece’s live-action series? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
