The upcoming live-action One Piece series will sound familiar to those who watched the anime’s original Japanese recording.
Anime Expo 2023 announced that the original voice actors for One Piece’s Straw Hat Pirates would provide vocals for the live-action series Japanese dub, as reported by Comic Book. This news came with promotional material featuring the live-action cast as they made the announcement. The footage also showed a meeting between Iñaki Godoy, the actor playing Monkey D. Luffy in the live-action series, and the legendary Mayumi Tanaka, the VA who has voiced Luffy in the anime since the show’s first episode.
When One Piece’s Luffy Meets One Piece’s Luffy
Godoy discussed Tanaka’s influence on Monkey D. Luffy in the promo, expressing his gratitude for sharing the character with her. She, in turn, showed excitement for his casting and established her joy to be voicing Luffy again in a different form. The video concluded with Tanaka placing a straw hat on Godoy’s head. As she did this, she delivered the words Shanks gave to Luffy when he gave him the hat in Season 1 Episode 4; “I leave this hat with you. Come Bring it back to me someday, once you’ve become a great pirate.”
The rest of the cast, including Emily Rudd (Nami), Mackenyu (Roronoa Zoro), Jacob Romero (Usopp) and Taz Skylar (Sanji), explained that the original actors would also be dubbing their roles. Akemi Okamura will return to play Nami alongside Kazuya Nakai as Zoro, Kappei Yamaguchi as Usopp and Hiroaki Hirata as Sanji. Each of these actors has been instrumental to the sound of the Toei Animations project, with Nakai and Hirata even sharing a rivalry similar to their characters, Zoro and Sanji.
Netflix’s live-action One Piece series is one of the most anticipated projects coming from the platform in the near future. The project has drawn many eyes, with the show’s budget — which allegedly exceeds that of Game of Thrones — showing the level of investment the company has in it. However, many fans have expressed concern thanks to the service’s history of poor anime to live-action adaptations. This includes 2021’s Cowboy Bebop and 2017’s Death Note. The reaction to the latest trailer for the live-action One Piece has been divisive. Some fans are happy with the general direction, even in the alteration of classic characters like Buggy the Clown. However, many still lamented the quality of the footage, claiming the One Piece trailer made big mistakes.
The series will release on August 31, 2023. Additionally, the original anime is streaming on Crunchyroll, and Eiichiro Oda’s manga is available via the VIZ Media website with a Shonen Jump subscription.
Source: Netflix Anime Expo via Comic Book
Leave a Reply