10 One Piece episodes to watch to complement Netflix’s live-action series
Now that Netflix's live-action show is officially coming back for a second season, here's a guide for getting started with the anime
TV Lists One Piece
There’s been a lot of praise for Netflix’s One Piece live-action series, which premiered August 31. But for the uninitiated, the conversation surrounding the series can be difficult to parse, and that’s because getting into One Piece is a daunting task. A long-running, massively popular manga and anime series in Japan (it’s actually the best-selling comic series in history), One Piece never achieved the same sort of cultural saturation with American audiences as, say, Naruto or Dragon Ball Z. So while the live-action series is hugely significant for some, it’s left a lot of others in the dark.
With One Piece, it’s not just that there’s 26 years’ worth of backstory to catch up on; it’s that the volume of content produced by series creator Eiichiro Oda in that time is staggering. Since the manga debuted in 1997, Eiichiro has written and drawn more than 1,000 chapters of One Piece. The anime, which has been running consistently since 1999, has a similar amount of episodes, too. Which could all leave a prospective fan to wonder: How can I tell if this is for me without overcommitting?
Especially for viewers who are discovering the world of One Piece for the first time with the new Netflix series (which was just renewed for a second season), there’s a lot to dive into. The anime’s first season alone is 61 episodes long and even though they’re less than 30 minutes each, that’s still roughly 30 hours of television—and it’s almost all table-setting. But that’s because the thing that makes One Piece so special is how deeply it cares about its world and its characters.
The series takes its time setting up protagonist Monkey D. Luffy’s motivations. He wants to be the King of the Pirates, to find the legendary pirate treasure known as the One Piece. And the series chronicles his entire journey, from his childhood to building his crew to becoming one of the most well-known pirates in the world. It’s worth getting into all of it if you’re positive One Piece is for you, but if you’re just looking for an easy entry point into the anime, we’ve picked 10 key episodes from the early parts of the show that serve as a good introduction to some of the main characters and arcs you’ll recognize from Netflix’s live-action series. (And we suggest watching them in this order.) It’s only a small taste of what One Piece has to offer, but it should be enough to help you decide if you want to invest more time in the show—or help prep before season two.
13 Comments
Please just read the manga instead. It’s way quicker and the art is incredible.
Yeah, it took me about a month on Viz.Absolutely fantastic story.
I know what you mean, though I recommend the anime at least until you’re familiar with the main music themes that are used throughout the series.
The One Piece score is easily up there with anything from Miyazaki’s movies.
I love the way anime episode titles sound like something an old timey newsboy would be shouting on a street corner.Anyway, One Piece is great, and it just gets more creative as it goes.
I know his name is Monkey D. Luffy and he’s gonna be king of the pirates and he’s made of rubber, but how did that happen?
Yo ho ho, he took a bite of Gum-Gum
Ya-yo, ya-yo!
It’ll be great and Netflix will cancel it after one season, because Netflix.
So I watched the first NFLX episode cold, and found it to be a very capable introduction all by itself. I’m sold on it after investing just the hour.As far as the actual show’s quality, I was strongly encouraged to watch it based on the decisions made in how the action was portrayed. Clearly there was a lot of care put into rendering cartoon sensibilities in a live action medium. The cinematography was crystalline during the action scenes. While they were frenetic, I never got lost in knowing who was doing what to who and what the objectives and consequences were. Admittedly there were a couple janky moments, but I’d say 90%+ of the time a given beat of an action sequence was spot on.TL;DR I laughed out loud in delight multiple times at the appropriate story beats and in wonder at how cleverly some anime element was adapted to live actors in the real world.
Why Are You Shouting! The Episode Titles!
Not kidding, for a newbie like me this was well-curated and genuinely helpful before watching the show. I love it now and am already on episode like 44 or something. Thank you!
Do you ever think that if a few of these pirates just got laid once in a while, the whole anime would completely fall apart? I know it’s part and parcel, but One Piece strikes me as a particularly egregious example of an anime that’s just one giant metaphor for how sublimated sexual urges are the engine of all male activity, both for better and for worse. I’ve only been cajoled and cornered into watching, say, a dozen episodes, but man… so many shouty weirdos! That’s sexual frustration, my dudes. A couple busted nuts and they’ll take off those clown outfits and get regular jobs. 90% success rate; I guarantee it.
Credit where it’s due, though: those Japanese folks really know how to thread the needle. Even these profoundly sexless pre-teen animes always manage to include some level of sexual harassment.Maybe One Piece is just an orgasm, finally. Maybe that’s why that ultimate pirate dude let himself get killed after he found it. Big death, little death, end goals, humble-bragging to all your bros and offhandedly telling them that maybe they have what it takes, too… all the analogies check out.
So ya started reading Freud, huh?