Apparently, Netflix still isn’t ready to give us a real look at what its live-action adaptation of One Piece, the beyond-popular fantasy-pirate manga from Eiichiro Oda, looks like in action. But this being Geeked Week, the streaming giant still feels compelled to show us something, which means a (slightly more extensive) look at the various pirate ships and a few of the locations that will be seen in the series — and how impressively manga-accurate they are.
Besides a look at the Going Merry, the sheep-headed ship of Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates, there’s the Alvida Pirates’ Love Duck, the floating restaurant Baratie where Luffy meets Sanji, and then there’s also an early look at Arlong Tower, the headquarters of the Fish-Man Pirates who terrorize the windmill-filled hometown of the Straw-Hats’ navigator Nami. Check it:
As Gizmodo’s resident One Piece fan/obsessive/proselytizer, I have more than a few thoughts. The first is that the concept art looks gorgeous; the second is that Netflix is really going all-out with these sets — they’re huge and beefy and look pretty expensive, which I’m happy about. I’m still intrigued, if somewhat concerned, by the show’s conversion of the very cartoon-y series (oh so cartoon-y, if you’re currently up on the manga) into a realistic aesthetic, which is probably the best way to go but also feels like it’s missing the point of One Piece, in a way. Perhaps the best example of this is the sheep’s-head figurehead on the Going Merry, which now has its mouth open in a way that looks positively Satanic and I hate it.
On the other hand, I’m still in love with the unbelievably energetic Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, and I haven’t forgotten the impressive video that introduced the rest of the cast, including Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, and Taz Skylar as Sanji. So my mind remains as open as the Going Merry’s mouth, I guess.
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