You may be loving Netflix’s live-action One Piece remake, but there’s another adaptation on the horizon. That’d be The One Piece, helmed by Spy x Family studio Wit and announced back in 2024, a project we’ve heard very little about since then.
In a recent episode of The Ai Show, Wit president George Wada opened up on what purpose this second remake serves. In his accounting, creator Eiichiro Oda wanted a version of the show that could appeal to younger fans, particularly on a visual level. Toei’s been adapting the manga since the late 90s, and to account for that aforementioned audience not liking the style or “outdated elements” of those early episodes, Wit’s aiming to use “modern techniques” said demographic’s become accustomed to in other more recent shonen anime they’ve likely seen.
Toei’s One Piece took over 60 episodes to adapt the East Blue Saga, and thanks to its hour-long runtimes, it took Netflix took eight hours to do it in live-action. It sounds like Wit’s version will lean ore toward the former, but not as long, since Wada brought up “tight” pacing to cut down on the filler and avoid “unneccesary stretching.” (Luffy, you’re exempt from this, kiddo. Every bit of stretching you do is necessary.)
But for as much talk as there was of distancing itself from Toei’s version, Wada hopes The One Piece can compliment that original take while being of equal calibur to its own works like Spy x Family and Vinland Saga, and staying true to the creator’s vision. To him, the most important part of this endeavor is “understanding [Oda] and the best way to present what he wants to show or express.”
The One Piece will hit Netflix in the near future, and hopefully, we’ll learn more about how much territory it’ll cover sooner rather than later.
[via Anime News Network]
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