Image / Netflix
Let’s be real: the first time you lay eyes on a grown man rocking a huge red nose that’s clearly a circus prop or a pirate ship that looks like a duck in a pirate costume, your brain starts yelping at you “Disney Channel”. Now that we’re in an era where House of the Dragon and The Last of Us have got us all thinking that “high-brow” means “muddy and depressing”, the One Piece aesthetic comes across as a massive risk. But showrunner Matt Owens says the super bright, over-the-top look isn’t about being low budget – it’s the whole point.
The show throws itself wholeheartedly into what we’re calling “Manga Fidelity”. Costume designer Diana Cilliers hasn’t been digging through dusty pirate history books. She’s basically been living in Eiichiro Oda’s Color Walk art books for years. That’s why Luffy’s vest is still a primary school red and Zoro’s hair looks like a freshly mowed lawn. If they’d gone all gritty reboot on these characters, the sheer absurdity of the whole world would have started to get really, really disturbing. You can’t make a guy who stretches like a rubber band look “realistic” without making him into something out of a Cronenberg horror movie.
Then there’s the Practicality Paradox. Because Netflix actually built the Going Merry and the Baratie as full size, real sets – a big concern for a show set at sea – in Cape Town, they have a real presence that just doesn’t get from CGI alone. But because they’re painted up in those super iconic “Manga colours”, they end up feeling like a high-end theme park that’s trying to get you to suspend disbelief. It’s like the “Stage Play Effect” that’s asking audiences to go along for the ride rather than complaining that it doesn’t make sense.
As we move into Season 2 in March, the “clean” aesthetic is finally going to get a real test. The recent teaser for Drum Island (which showrunner Joe Tracz said is basically their “Winterfell”) shows a much wilder, snow-covered landscape. It’s the ultimate test: can the Straw Hats keep their bright, corny, lovable icon-ness alive while surviving in a world that looks like it should be in a proper war epic? After all, for a show that managed to avoid the pitfalls of the “anime adaptation curse”, the bright colours might just be its secret weapon.
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