One Piece: Into the Grand Line

With his crew assembled, Monkey D. Luffy finally sets out for the Grand Line: a stretch of dangerous waters said to be hold the long sought after One Piece.  Luffy and his crew of misfits have braved a lot to get this far but they haven’t faced anything like the foes waiting for them along the Grand Line.  A guild of dangerous assassins, Baroque Works, sets their twisted sights on the Straw Hats and a special cargo they’ve come across.  In order to survive, Luffy and his friends will have their resolves tested like never before.  Will the Grand Line be where their dreams come true or where their dreams go to die?

There’s a moment during the Season Premiere of Netflix’s One Piece, where Luffy looks upon the execution site of Gold Roger.  He says he just wanted to see it and pay tribute to the man who started it all and respectfully tips his hat to the towering momument with a smile on his face.  It was right here that I thought to myself, “This feels right.”  That can basically calmly sum up my thoughts on One Piece: Into the Grand Line.  Season One was great but compared to Season Two feels more like a proof of concept for the bigger and better things to come and let me tell ya, they have arrived delivering on almost every front.  This is the season that proves beyond the shadow of any doubt that Live Action Anime can work when you have the right team of writers, willingness to indulge in the spirit of Anime, and yeah having the OG creator onboard to supervise doesn’t hurt either. 
 
One thing I really wanted from Season One couldn’t come until it’s close as we saw the Straw Hats begin to assemble every couple of episodes. Season Two wastes no time giving me that Avengers style banter and comraderie I wanted to see more of between Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Usopp and Sanji.  In a show whose casting has been pretty slam dunk from the get go, this quintet shines whether theyre all together or set off in different pairings, I really think you get one scene with everyone in a different pair across all 8 episodes, it’s awesome.  Still leading this merry troop of misfits, Inaki Godoy continues to excel as Luffy, embodying his “never give up, never surrender” attitude to a T and being given a lot of very dramatic scenes to show off Luffy not just being a one trick rubber pony.  His go getter mindset remains infectious and while everyone is fantastic, whenever he himself is on screen, the energy boost is unmissable. 
 
Naturally, a whole host of new faces enters the fray in Season Two.  We’ll talk about the two biggest additions in a moment but for now I’m centering on the new Marines and Baroque Works cast.  Don’t let their very Anime fashion sense fool you, Baroque Works is scary as hell.  Teased throughout Season One, this league of assassins brings so much menace to the table you are genuinely afraid for Luffy and Company’s safety.  Scary as Hell, but also damn they can be so cool too.  The duo dogging the Straw Hats the most are Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine, played by Camrus Johnson (Hey Luke Fox from Batwoman) and Jazzara Jaslyn respectively.  These two are just the epitome of villainous awesomeness with their unique (and kinda disgusting in 5’s case) powers and confidence.  Shout out also to the always amazing David Dastmalchian as Mr. 3 who may be the scariest Baroque Works agent we see this season.  As for the Marines, well their side of the story doesn’t get as much screentime in Season One.  I was surprised by the amount of character development Coby and Helmeppo got during that Season, setting them up to be bigger players going forward.  While newcomer Smoker has a cool power set and Tashigi is cute as heck, neither have a lot of screentime to advance their own stories.  Smoker is just there to look cool and do nothing else while we definitely don’t get enough of Tashigi’s swordgirl otaku loving energy (and that cute happy dance).  Idk, maybe this is a Season Three thing we need to wait for?
 
Alright, you wanna know about Chopper and Robin right?  Well while she only gets a bit more screentime than Smoker and Tashigi, Lera Abova’s Nico Robin is everything fans had been hoping for since the show was announced.  She’s breathtakingly beautiful, oozes confidence and sensuality and commands the screen everytime she appears. It leaves a lasting impression that has no doubt made her an instant fan favorite that will no doubt have a bigger role to play in the series going forward.  Then there’s Chopper.  I was so scared we were gonna get him late in the season and wouldn’t get a lot of him. Well while he does come in during the back half for sure, Chopper screentime is abundant and holy crap you’re just as pumped to see him as Luffy.  Chopper’s clearly CG but when he hulks out, I’ll be damned if I couldn’t tell if he looked practical under a ton of make up and costume layers.  This is on par with Gollum how involved and interactive Chopper is with the set and cast.  And it cannot be understated how well Mikaela Hoover nails the voice work.  This was a character that was always going to be one of the biggest challenges to adapt for Live Action TV.  Ladies and Gents, they clearly went all in on Chopper and he is really there and here to stay for the journey going forward, heck freaking yes. 

Been talking a lot about the cast but what about the rest of One Piece Season Two?  Well it certainly more than matches the “Grand” in “Grand Line” in terms of sheer scale.  From Monstro sized whales to literal Giants and a monarch with a mechanical mouth, everything is bigger here and more Anime than every before.  Visually, the show still really works and I can see why it’s taken almost 3 years between Seasons to make this vision of the Grand Line come to life.  But more than computer animation and realistic sets, is the writing.  Easily the most stand out dramatic high point of Season One was Nami tearfully asking Luffy for help saving her village and Luffy loudly declaring “OF COURSE I WILLLL!!!!”  Yeah there’s like four different moments like that in Season Two alone that produce the same amount of tears.  It doesn’t matter what island you land on or what town you visit, everyone has a story that will bring you to tears and want to see righted by Luffy if a wrong was committed.  Getting emotional over a whale’s backstory definitely wasn’t on my bingo card.  Definitley bring the tissues for Choppers backstory for sure. 
 
Lastly, let’s talk action.  Talk about working overtime to top Season One, Into the Grand Line not only has Giants throwing down but the Straw Hats getting to flex like never before.  While Luffy, Nami and Usopp get their share to time to shine in combat, the real kings of kick ass for them are Zoro and Sanji.  Zoro’s epic fight against 100 Baroque Works agents is one of the best highlights of the season.  Mackenyu is no stranger to Live Action Anime fights thanks to his work in Rurouni Kenshin: The Final and the Fullmetal Alchemist sequels.  Here though, his sword work gets dialed up to 11 and it’s a miracle the camera can keep up with the continuous long shots of him going full Devil May Cry on the poor souls trying to get in his way.  Taz Skylar isn’t slouching either as Sanji, putting in plenty of fancy kicks and footwork with the handsome Chef’s style of combat.  He too also gets one of the best and craziest fights in the Season, one worthy of the shows first real F bomb (unless I missed one in the first season).  And yes, he definitely landed the kill hit on that T-Rex, I’ll stand with him on that.
 
You know you’ve done something right with a Live Action Anime adaptation when Luffy and Vivi gaze upon Dinosaurs in true awe and Luffy’s main takeaway is an excited “I wanna ride one”.  One Piece: Into the Grand Line has this same kind of energy running through all 8 of it’s excellent episodes packed to the brim in equal measure with fun, humor, drama, tears, action, spectacle and a whole lot of heart.  Not often do you see an adaptation with all of these factors and it proves that the sins of Live Action Anime adaptations past could have been avoided had they not followed One Piece’s example: be true to the source and not be afraid to have some freaking fun with the visuals, general audience perceptions be damned.  And while Season Three may end up being the saving grace for the characters from Season Two who didn’t get proper screentime of character arcs, getting got the Grand Line and sailing again with the finest Live Action Anime crew ever assembled was worth a three year long wait and I hope the heck we don’t have to wait as long to throwdown with everyone again in Alabastar.
 
9/10