The amount of seasons that would take for Netflix’s live-action One Piece to catch up with the anime shows how tricky adapting Luffy’s story is.
The amount of seasons Netflix’s live-action One Piece would need to cover all of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga reveals how difficult it is to bring the Straw Hats’ journey story to life. One Piece season 1 broke the live-action anime adaptation curse and delivered a unique version of Oda’s story while also remaining faithful to the source material. However, only the East Blue Saga was covered in One Piece season 1, which represents a very small portion of the source material.
One Piece’s first chapter was published in 1997, whereas the One Piece anime premiered in 1997. One Piece season 1’s ending skipped over the Loguetown segment of the East Blue saga, and it saw the Straw Hats ready to get into the Grand Line. Netflix’s One Piece had the perfect sequel hook for the next season, yet covering the entire story would be virtually impossible
Netflix’s One Piece Showrunner Explains Having To Cut Present-Day LoguetownNetflix’s One Piece Would Need Around 14 Seasons To Adapt The Whole Story
Netflix’s One Piece season 1 covered roughly 90 chapters of the One Piece manga. Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece currently consists of 1090 chapters, and the story is not finished yet. In other words, One Piece’s live-action show would have yet to cover over 1000 manga chapters to complete the story. Assuming that Netflix’s One Piece goes on to cover 90 chapters per season, it would take 11 more seasons to catch up with One Piece’s current storyline in the manga. The One Piece manga is currently entering its final arc, although it’s unclear how many more chapters Oda will need to finish the story.
Assuming the One Piece manga goes on to finish with 1500 chapters or so, it would take Netflix’s One Piece around 14 seasons to adapt the whole story. It is not common for big-budget, epic-scale shows to run for that long. Game of Thrones, for example, took eight years to tell an eight-season story. It is also important to notice that only four years have been in-universe since the beginning of Luffy’s story in the manga, meaning the One Piece characters’ ages haven’t changed much. The One Piece live-action cast would be 15 years older by the end of the show in this scenario.
Don’t Expect Netflix To Adapt One Piece In Full
It is very difficult to imagine that Netflix’s live-action One Piece manages to cover all One Piece chapters. While a regular TV procedural or a sitcom can go on for dozens of seasons, big-budget productions like Game of Thrones eventually become too expensive. Game of Thrones was the most popular show in the world for multiple years and still ended with “just” eight seasons. Likewise, The Walking Dead always had strong viewership and continues to receive spinoffs, yet the main series ended with 11 seasons. Even if One Piece season 2 is as well-received as season 1, adapting the entire story is very difficult.
If something like “One Piece season 15″ does not happen, the live-action show will have two options. One is to continue to adapt roughly 100 chapters per season and end the story whenever the show is canceled or concluded. Other arcs would not be adapted, and Luffy’s story would different and earlier than the source material. Another option is to compress as much as possible from the manga into however many seasons Netflix’s One Piece will have, similar to how Game of Thrones’ final seasons played out. One Piece season 1 was a strong start for the show, but how the story will continue to be told remains to be seen.
Src: screenrant.com
