Netflix’s One Piece Exec Details Eiichiro Oda’s Invaluable Help

Netflix’s One Piece has done it at last. Hollywoodhas long faced troubles tackling anime, but the team at Tomorrow Studios did it right. Following the show’s launch in late August, One Piece earned high praise across the globe, and much of its success was accredited to series creator Eiichiro Oda. The artist worked hard on the live-action adaptation, and show runner Steve Maeda seconded that truth in a recent interview.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Maeda opened up about the invaluable work Oda put into the Netflix title. The creator gave truly vital input into the series that made it an indisputable hit, but Maeda did say there were a few disagreements behind the scenes.

“It was incredibly valuable having him and it wasn’t easy. He is challenging. He is very opinionated and he’s right about a lot of what he says. And so we tried to follow that to the best of our ability. But it’s also an episode, an episode. It’s a season of television as opposed to 85 manga chapters. Television has its own ebb and flow, and so it was at first a thought about how to best tell the story of the East Blue saga in a self-contained eight episode season that was going to feel like it had a start and a finish and gave you plenty of world building and epic action and then really hit at the heart of the emotions too,” the writer and show runner shared.

“The big thing for us was getting it right. So not so much that it was a one-to-one of the manga because who wants to watch a one-to-one adaptation? I don’t want to work on that, but trying to figure out how to take the manga and really expand it, pull some things forward, push some other things back and make it feel like a season of television, but also feel like it’s being true to the manga,” he continued.

As you can see, Maeda and the entire executive team behind Netflix’s One Piece worked in hand with Shueisha. Oda and his team have spent decades with the Straw Hats, so there is no better team to bring the pirates to life. Still, the difference between manga and live-action television is huge. It took experts on both sides to nail Netflix’s One Piece, and thankfully Maeda’s team made that happen.

Now, Netflix’s One Piece has a second season on the horizon. We can only imagine what the series will get up to when it returns, but Oda has already given us a roadmap. You can read up on all things One Piece thanks to Manga Plus if you want a heads up. So for more info on One Piece, you can read the synopsis of Oda’s series below:

As a child, Monkey D. Luffy was inspired to become a pirate by listening to the tales of the buccaneer “Red-Haired” Shanks. But Luffy’s life changed when he accidentally ate the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit and gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Years later, still vowing to become the king of the pirates, Luffy sets out on his adventure…one guy alone in a rowboat, in search of the legendary “One Piece,” said to be the greatest treasure in the world…

What do you think about Netflix’s One Piece? Are you excited for the series to tackle its second season? Let us know what you think in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your take!