The arrival of the One Piece live-action Netflix adaptation shook the television world down to its core and proved that few IPs have as much potency right now as Eiichiro Oda’s timeless masterpiece, but when you delve deeper, you realize that another concurrent series is unwittingly taking its cue from One Piece, and in doing so garnering a lot of acclaim from its fanbase; a fanbase which has historically been recognized as a little too hard to please.
We’re talking, of course, about Ahsoka on Disney Plus. Unlike many other contemporary works across the entertainment industry, Ahsoka Tano’s solo outing is in no rush to get from point A to point B and wrap everything up with a less-than-satisfying finale that asks too many questions and answers almost none of them.
If anything, the first half of the series has proven that Dave Filoni is willing to take his time to slowly build up to that epic, final confrontation between Ahsoka and Admiral Thrawn. It makes sense from a storytelling perspective. We’ve essentially been thrust into this new narrative and asked to keep up with its premise, so why wouldn’t it take the time necessary to establish anything in the right order, and more importantly, create an emotional link between the viewers and the characters?
Well, most of Hollywood can’t afford this luxury, but looking at the fan reception for One Piece, perhaps it’s the right way to go about it.
Then again, perhaps this approach might end up failing Ahsoka when the series needs it the most. This is, after all, an eight-episode story, so what happens if we spend most of it building up the characters and going nowhere with the actual plot? One Piece does this well because One Piece is a +1000 chapter story, so there’d be plenty of time if Netflix decided to renew it for another season. Ahsoka doesn’t have the same option, which is why this slow, albeit fan-pleasing pace might end up in disaster.
But we’re obviously getting a little ahead of ourselves. There are still four more episodes in the ongoing Ahsoka run, and that means there’s another month of Star Wars greatness in store for us.