I've posted about this before but it continues to fascinate me. I'm also not talking about the more obviously fucked up topic of the sexualising of teenage girls in Japanese media, but what constitutes an "older" person over there.
I'm currently watching the Netflix adaptation of One Piece, and saw some Japanese discussion about the show's portrayal of Shanks and the actor playing him, who looks like this on the show:
There were comments saying that he "looks too much like a man past his prime" but also comments like "I like seeing attractive older men in media" and I'm just confused since he looks like a perfectly normal handsome actor man. They talked about him like Western social media talked about a 65-year-old Jeff Goldblum
I guess you turn into an ossan immediately after your 25th birthday
I didn't realise he was that old- I just thought he looked fitting as modern day Shanks since in the manga he doesn't look radically different. Like just throw the new outfit and a fuller beard on him or something and you can say he's aged 10 TV/movie years. The actor playing Garp addresses the crowd during Roger's execution set 22 years before the show takes place and I think they just dyed his hair and shaved his beard slightly compared to how he appears during the scenes set during present day.
Spoilers:
spoiler
Yes, Garp actually plays a big role in this retelling of the East Blue arc. After Morgan is defeated, Garp takes notice and begins personally tailing Luffy and crew. Helmeppo and Koby get immediately stationed on his ship and also appear throughout the season, going through the character development Oda later presented in the chapter title page stills. I like it so farOf course, that doesn't take into account how much real-world time will pass until we get to the point where we actually see Shanks again. Still, the actor did a fine job portraying him.
Also- Buggy does mention serving on a ship with Shanks to Luffy! I was just expecting it to cut to the flashback right after, but that didn't happen. The entire section with Buggy and crew was greatly shortened and altered so it takes place entirely within one episode so I can see why it was excised (for now at least*). Just to give you an idea, Buggy is the only one that gets an entire fight- Cabaji gets choked out after taunting a captured Zoro for a bit and the rest of Buggy's crew is beaten by Nami and Zoro off-screen after they escape.
They kind of took Buggy in a slightly different direction and his interactions with Luffy are set up to lead into the rest of Luffy's flashbacks since the opening episode only had half of them, up until the moment Shanks discovers Luffy has eaten the Devil Fruit. Buggy is slightly less of a slapstick character in the live action version and slightly more of a creepy murder clown. It's a great and funny performance though
More spoilers:
spoiler
I said for now because while the third episode is the first half of the Usopp recruitment/Captain Kuro plot, a B plot involves Arlong and his crew of all people showing up to Buggy's circus after he's been defeated to threaten him and he offers to take them to Luffy. Nami's hidden snail transponder that she used to secretly communicate with them gets accidentally taken out which is why they're out looking for her, I think. I have no clue how this and the Garp plotline are going to play out but I'm excited to find out
I would highly recommend checking out the show, it really is surprisingly well done and most importantly, just a fun time
This might sway me to give it a shot despite my prejudice against live action remakes. This is to me a good way to turn a remake into an interpretation.
This, however, seems like a missed opportunity. I would think if you are doing a live action you'd want to show much more of Zoro since cool sword shit is much easier to pull off than any of the other goofy powers other characters have.
Oh yeah, I couldn't wait for Cabaji to fight Zoro on a unicycle and was more than a bit bummed when I realised it wasn't going to happen. Kind of sucks since they really nailed the look and costume and he is seen riding the unicycle. I guess to compensate, Zoro's introduction in the first episode is an entirely new fight scene with a Baroque Works recruiter (the original Mr. 7).