Netflix Will Get One Piece Over With August 31

Netflix showed off many trailers and revealed a lot of news this afternoon during their annual press event, which is called TUDUM after the noise Netflix makes whenever you turn it on. But if social media is any indication, one announcement overshadowed the rest, and not for the reason Netflix hoped. It is now public knowledge that the streamer is making a live-action version of One Piece, and everyone who’s seen the trailer they put out can’t….stop….mocking it. How TUDUM can you get?

One Piece is about a naive and reckless young fellow named Monkey D. Luffy whose life goal is to become King of the Pirates by finding the world’s greatest treasure (the One Piece of the title). He assembles a motley crew to accomplish this including a surly swordsman, a goofball with a slingshot and a greedy navigator. That much hasn’t been changed, but I have never understood how it’s possible to remake a show like this with real people without changing everything about it, and…the trailer suggests that is what has been done.

One Piece is the most cartoony, over-the-top anime in the world with big bulging eyes, constant screaming, and exaggerated situations. This is why I love it. Since you can’t do any of that here, the wackiness of it has been massively scaled back. Luffy doesn’t feel quite as lively, and lines like “I’m sensing a little tension amongst the crew” aren’t really things he typically says. The trailer contains almost no Devil Fruit powers except for one bad-looking Gum Gum Pistol before the title reveal.

Despite the lack of effects, the show looks ridiculously expensive, the kind of thing Netflix isn’t really in a position to fund anymore unless it’s a massive hit. The one-season state of this feels like an inevitability, a weird burp in anime history that will only be referenced by YouTubers in review videos. Or maybe it’ll go on for five seasons; what do we know?

Netflix’s One Piece premieres August 31 with all eight episodes.