managed to see most of it through react channels, as someone who was unable to even start the manga or anime because of how violently my brain clashes with the art style (and knows perfectly well how tragic this is), and yeah, would definitely watch more of this story.
"I don't particularly care how anyone genders me and just see myself as me" yes exactly "/BRB HORRIBLE WAR CRIMES I'M NEVER QUITE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR" why tho
Alvida was cool; it'd be neat to see more of her! I feel it sticks out that she's the only named non-dude pirate captain because we expect more of our media nowadays?
A lot can be done in the background even when centering men in the storytelling; when it's not, viewers have moved past "[setting] was a Man's World" and wonder where the rest of the worldbuilding is.
His convictions are solid but still largely untested, as we see with Zoro's near-death experience and the subsequent discussion about what it means to actually captain his crew instead of just telling them they can do it.
I'm 1000% on board with the oblivious aroace Luffy headcanons I've seen here and there. Sometimes your dream is too big and wonderful for all that other stuff to even make a dent. His "??? you look like you! c:" reactions to Nami's wardrobe upgrades and "??? where did that come from o_O" at Usopp's crush are diagnostic, but what really sold me was the hat.
Responding to Nami's agony by giving her the hat which is such a huge symbol to him, something that means yes, you are important, your pain and your dreams and your life are important, it's not even in question and never was, help will always here whenever you choose to ask?
Usually the shonen character's Moment (tm) here would emphasize his manly protectiveness. This scene emphasizes Luffy's human protectiveness -- the same as Nami's mom, for whom the tangerine orchard was the same thing.
Without knowing what bits are manga-accurate (but having heard good things about the adaptation process in that respect), I definitely enjoyed the dialog. Zoro's deadpan-snark moments are perfectly timed. Given the "and now we meet this one, and now we meet this one" structure,
Nami's betrayal and backstory is withheld completely in the manga. There's no foreshadow to her and Arlong. And also no explanation as to why she wants the map or what her deal is. Also she's called Cat Burglar Nami and the manga... never shows her stealing even a little?
hmmmm! Not sure how I'd have felt if the LA didn't broadcast her not-at-all-sudden but inevitable betrayal beforehand, but giving her a goal if she didn't have one before sounds like a solid CR decision in a show where the whole point is Luffy Believes Everyone Deserves To Achieve Their Dreams.
Is her backstory relatively the same? I did hear people talking about her mother and sister and the tangerine grove, but have mostly been watching people who are also new to OP.
Okay, so a few details: - The overall surprise factor of Nami betraying them is harsher due to how long Nami is in the crew (in the show it's 7 eps, in the anime it's 30 something? So it feels a lot more betrayal-y.
- The village explained what happened to Nami, not Nami herself, so the reveal comes before Luffy comforts her? It just kinda changes the overall feel of events. - There's no real lingering question of 'is Nami a member of the crew' therefore, the answer is just an obvious yes.
Tl;dr it's a softer way of doing everything, this one was meant to be more visceral and dramatic. I like it better. Also I will make fun of the original never letting Nami do even a little thievery as a treat.
Like- this version shows Nami is both aware she has to fuck over these people she kind of likes, and that it's bothering her. Which is just better character overall. Of course how much of 'Nami is working for Arlong' was planned when Nami was introduced can't be known. Glory and fun of weekly release writing.
it sounds like the adaptation is legit done well, rebuilding the story from the ground up in the context of the adapted format instead of trying to just blindly copy one-to-one (and failing, and diverging wildly to balance the narrative discontinuities) like a lot of adaptations do
i don't super love the Dumbass Hype Man Who Is Always Positive No Matter What "just be confident and everything will be great just because!!!" character type to begin with, but when the setting contorts itself to insist that character is right, it really drives me up the wall
and yeah, it does sound like they took full advantage of we-know-how-the-story-will-go hindsight but also making it work with the changed medium, and that's excellent
Exacerangutan
If one wanted to go full sadpire on Luffy, I believe I could make a strong case for explaining all his everything as he's still nine years old and all the ways he could have grown since then were spent on a colossal effort to stay alive inside.
What Luffy has seen of adulthood is 1. people who use their access to power to violently impose rigidly self-serving, self-aggrandizing worldviews on everyone around them, and 2. the people they hurt, who have no recourse and no protection. He had started to buy into the whole "a Real Man fights everyone on sight or he's a coward" path
until Shanks (original straw-hat guy) modeled being a good man and having that mean something too. But Shanks wasn't there all the time, and what was there all the time was a world of pain waiting to inflict itself on everyone without the power to fight it off and rewarding might-makes-right activities with more power over everyone around him.
He can't lie down. Physically can't. It would kill the personhood he's only just started to feel. So instead he creates a rigidly self-serving, self-aggrandizing worldview around the opposite of what the world is trying to do to him.
And he clings to that as obstinately as all the other pirates are clinging to their own versions of power, because if you lose your power, you're the scum on someone else's boot.
His version of power, he has decided, is preventing the abridgement of other peoples' power. Everyone else's version of reality is the opposite of this and it's taking all his strength to hold his own reality together. He can't do any of this intellectually because philosophy is genuinely not his forte and he's only been exposed to its bad-faith versions.
So he's emotionally nine years old and physically probably still a teenager and half the time it is dumb luck that he's not dead yet, but it feels like having a found family crew is new enough for him that he has not yet had to grapple with the fact that he will not always, inevitably be able to protect them through sheer determination.
Knowing nothing about his character development in the source material, I'm seeing potential for some of that growth if the live-action continues; there's a point where he encourages one of his allies to Follow His Dream and that almost ends very, very badly and it definitely gets to him.
But a lot of the way he speaks strikes me like mimicry of the way adults handwave childrens' interiority with arbitrary epigrams and "it just is because I'm bigger than you," except he's talking to the universe.
(I'm deliberately not talking about Spoiler Character Whom Luffy Dramatically Fights In The Last Episode in case you end up watching it, but that ties in very hard too.)
So in the manga Nami: - Has already stolen the map (from Buggy) - Is generally doing lying con artist things, not really thief things. - Betrays Luffy (who she just met) - And only saves him cause she's asked to kill him personally.
non-allo people can certainly acknowledge that people have attributes fitting overwhelmingly popular social definitions of attractiveness, and people with no non-allo community can easily end up mimicking the behaviors of the allo people around them without feeling the thing in any way except a vague "I'm participating!" solidarity
not turning to stone when struck with someone's magic "I am irresistable and can turn anyone attracted to me to stone" beam is pretty diagnostic if you ask me c:
meanwhile, the new-to-op internet seems divided over whether to call Luffy Stretch Armstrong or Reed Richards, which probably says something about viewer demographics but I don't know what.
I still want to know what's up with Shanks being able to tell the sea monster to go away. This has doubtless been revealed by now but I'm seeing how long it takes to run across it organically without specifically looking it up.
[edit] S2 CONFIRMED HUZZAH
it ignores them but they at least exist)still unsure how to feel about classic shonen's canon nonbinary icon being Orochimaruweird and uncomfortable, obviously!"I don't particularly care how anyone genders me and just see myself as me" yes exactly "/BRB HORRIBLE WAR CRIMES I'M NEVER QUITE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR" why thoAlso she's called Cat Burglar Nami and the manga... never shows her stealing even a little?And not just me making a face at how Oda draws ladies.- The overall surprise factor of Nami betraying them is harsher due to how long Nami is in the crew (in the show it's 7 eps, in the anime it's 30 something? So it feels a lot more betrayal-y.
- There's no real lingering question of 'is Nami a member of the crew' therefore, the answer is just an obvious yes.
found familycrew is new enough for him that he has not yet had to grapple with the fact that he will not always, inevitably be able to protect them through sheer determination.- Has already stolen the map (from Buggy)
- Is generally doing lying con artist things, not really thief things.
- Betrays Luffy (who she just met)
- And only saves him cause she's asked to kill him personally.
- Stealing a Marine uniform
- To sneak into the base
- To steal the map
- Pickpocketing Morgan
- Carrying lockpicks
Are way more thievery than she gets.
Luffy's wanted poster:
But this is still Netflix they might reverse this decision in like four weeks because they hate winning.They could, because yeah, but... /hopes.