Not to say the odds have been stacked against Netflix’s upcoming live-action adaptation of One Piece to any great degree, but next week’s debuting series still faces three rather large obstacles to overcome.
The first is to ensure it doesn’t become the latest high-profile episodic exclusive from the streaming service to be canceled after a single season, something a lot of people are expecting to happen anyway based on nothing but the company’s relentless penchant for booting popular shows from the airwaves.
The second is to justify the expense as yet another incredible expensive original based on a beloved property that doesn’t quite have global name recognition outside of One Piece‘s legion of fans, with the company funneling an estimated $144 million into eight adventures set on the high seas.
Last, and by no means least, is Netflix’s terrible track record for live-action manga feature films and TV shows, with Cowboy Bebop and Death Note just two glaring examples of just how badly things can go wrong. In exciting news, then, the first reactions for One Piece are in, and they’re glowingly positive across the board.
For what it’s worth, this writer has seen the entire first season of One Piece without knowing a single thing about the source material other than its status as the best-selling manga of all-time, and even at that it soon becomes clear the project has the potential to appeal to the broadest possible audience, which in this case is Netflix’s hundreds of millions of subscribers dotted around the globe.
