One Piece Adaptation Reignites an Old Controversy, Lands Creator in Hot Water (Again)
The Netflix adaptation has not only restored the popularity of the cult anime, but has also brought up some controversial issues.
On August 31st, a live-action adaptation of the legendary One Piece was released on Netflix. Surprisingly, the series received a lot of positive reviews, although expectations for the adaptation were modest, to say the least. And not without reason — Netflix's previous attempts to adapt manga and anime have failed miserably.
Both because of the size (there are currently over 1,000 anime episodes) and the potential backlash from the fanbase, the filming of One Piece was a very dangerous challenge.
But it seems that the risk was fully justified and a large team of directors, not without the help of the creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, managed to capture the right atmosphere.
However, the rise in popularity of One Piece also brought up controversial topics that had previously been discussed among manga and anime fans.
Anime synthesizes various types of art. Literature and music are accompanied by social commentary and a demonstration of the main problems of society. One Piece is no exception – it depicts some of the biggest problems in the real world, such as discrimination and family conflict.
Not only that, One Piece is considered one of the most progressive manga in terms of accepting all genders of characters and their images.
Oda himself included a large number of LGBT characters in the manga, each with their own history. However, some fans believe that such characters are introduced for comedic purposes only, and that the way they are portrayed in One Piece casts a shadow on the representation of LGBT people in popular culture.
“Sorry but I don’t think 4 good examples can make up at all for his representation of queers on that island Sanji spent his timeskip on, sure I don’t expect background characters to look amazing but they way they were portrayed was obviously in poor taste,” X (formerly Twitter) user Gimmickchanger noted.
Everyone has their own opinion, but it's hard to argue with the fact that Oda created some of the most charismatic characters in manga and anime history, regardless of their sexual orientation.
However, it looks like adapting the story properly was not enough; turns out, it is also quite a challenge for the source material to age well.