At the annual manga and anime convention Jump Festa, it was announced that WIT Studio, the anime studio behind “Vinland Saga,” “Ranking of Kings,” and early “Attack on Titan” is working on a remake of “One Piece” for Netflix. Titled “The One Piece” (because apparently no one at Toei or Netflix listened to Justin Timberlake in “The Social Network”) the anime is set to remake the series starting from the East Blue Saga with completely new animation.
Now, there is reason to be excited about this. “One Piece,” especially early “One Piece,” is not exactly the pinnacle of visual storytelling. Suffering from a weekly broadcast schedule, the show now looks very, very dated, and its pacing is notoriously bad — to the point where a lot of fans specify the manga when recommending “One Piece.” Having WIT Studio, which has made some of the best anime of the past decade, tackle this promises a better-looking show that more accurately captures what makes the manga one of the best pieces of fiction from the past century.
And ultimately that’s all that matters: that it will be easier to recommend “The One Piece” remake to new fans than the original. Viewers will undoubtedly be more inclined to watch this new show than a 25-year-old anime with extremely ’90s visuals and pacing. Just like the “One Piece” live-action show’s biggest accomplishment is simply to get new people hooked on Eiichiro Oda’s masterpiece, “The One Piece” has the potential to bring in millions of new fans.