Steven Maeda put his soul into One Piece.
Summary Fans of One Piece who will enjoy watching their favorite manga/anime universe come to life on Netflix have to thank the passion and dedication of Steven Maeda and Matthew Owens, the two showrunners, writers, and executive producers who managed to do something that many people believed to be impossible. The epic saga created by Eiichiro Oda was thought to be impossible to adapt to live action, especially after the lukewarm reception that Cowboy Bebop had.
I was a fan before, but I hadn't really dived in deep. I had read a couple of chapters early. But I really didn't understand the true breadth and scope of the world. And so I very quickly got up to speed with the first 100 chapters. And then was so taken, I just said, if there's a way to be a part of this, I've got to do it. And then and then I kept reading, it's like now I'm caught up, I think chapter 1089.
What were the main challenges of adopting such a popular story, and one that comes from such a different medium? Steven Maeda: Exactly. I've worked on some popular shows but they had nothing like the fan base of One Piece. People are so passionate and they're so terrified of you know, ruining their favorite manga that, you know, I felt a huge sense of responsibility to them.
And another one was pulling up Arlong because Arlong doesn't really come in until the Arlong Park chapters. But one of the things that we were able to convince Oda-san [to do] was pulling Arlong up introducing him early, taking him to Baratie, and kind of swapping him with the Don Krieg storyline in a way to make Arlong our big bad of the first season, which I think worked very well.
This early part of One Piece is all about introducing the Straw Hats, showing their backstories, and telling fans who they are and what they are going to do from now on. Do you have a favorite Straw Hat backstory or moment? Steven Maeda: Yes. The biggest one for me that we didn't get to do, was Logue Town in the present day, and we needed two more episodes to be able to do it and there wasn't the budget, there wasn't the screen time. And there wasn't room in the eight episodes to do it the way that it deserved to be done. And so we see Logue Town in the very beginning with Rogers' execution.
As a showrunner, you must have kept in mind the hard lessons learned by previous live-action adaptations of anime such as Cowboy Bebop or Death Note. How did you try to be different from these shows? And what's the recipe that you found and applied to your show? Steven Maeda: My personal opinion is: absolutely. I love weekly drops of shows, I love the way to be able to have the anticipation built week to week, especially in a show that you really love from the beginning. You're so then looking forward to the next week, and the next week after that. And I go crazy over shows that I really like and the episodes aren't out yet, I have to wait. That being said, Netflix is Netflix, and they're doing their thing.
Is there one funny Oda story you can share with us maybe from his visit to the set or from your personal interactions?
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