Comparing Mediums- One Piece Part 2

 

Part 2: Orange Town

The Manga

One Piece’s 2^nd arc, Orange Town, is the introduction of 3 very important aspects of the series’ world, that being Nami, Buggy, and how Luffy takes on the aspirations and dreams of others. The basic overview of the arc is this: Luffy crashes Buggy the Clown’s party of destruction in Orange Town where he meets Nami, the thief that steals from pirates. Luffy eventually asks Nami to join his crew, and she becomes angry with him after he mentions he’s a pirate. Nami sells out Luffy to Buggy, offering her fealty to him (when in reality she just wants to rob him blind), but backs out when the initiation into his crew is killing Luffy. Luffy escapes with Zoro’s help, and as they hide out in what’s left of Orange Town, they meet Chou-Chou the dog, who they learn has been protecting his deceased master’s pet food store in his memory. When Chou-Chou isn’t able to fight a giant lion, Luffy fights for the dog, kicking the crap out of said lion and Buggy as well. Sending Buggy flying has freed the townspeople, and Nami has temporarily joined our budding Straw Hat crew, on their way to the Grand Line (with a few stops along the way.)

Starting with Nami, this arc just a good job of introducing her as a rogue element, where you definitely don’t know where her loyalties lie, but paints her above all else as a person that will do the right thing in the end. This sets up the arc her character will go on over the course of this saga well, and her chemistry with Luffy and Zoro works so well that she feels like she belongs in the crew, even if she outright fights against it. Buggy as well, feels like he fits. This is the first introduction to pirates being antagonists, since all we really had was Captain Morgan in the previous arc, who was a Marine. Buggy has wacky powers, a crew of pirate circus performers, but feels like a threat to Orange Town that must be dealt with. His connection to Shanks is an interesting inclusion given Luffy’s established relationship with him as well. This connecting piece is a small one, but is the beginning of Oda tying things together, as well as bringing past characters up in a new context that gives them current and believable relevance in the story. But the most important aspect of this arc is Chou-Chou and that food store. Every One Piece fan knows the cycle: First, the story introduces a seemingly random character with a certain quirk they have or action they do. We later find out through a backstory that this trait or action has intensely emotional significance to the character and a creates a devastating emotional reaction in the reader, and in most cases, Luffy or another Straw Hat fights with newfound conviction because of this. There are many fan favorite backstories and memorable moments like this, and it all starts with Chou-Chou.

I don’t know if it was a translation decision or a creative one, but in these early arcs every character uses a lot more “Pirate” slang than they do in the rest of the series. It’s only a complaint from the perspective of a re-read, as this element is dropped (I think after this arc) and never addressed again. My only real problem is with the pacing. Again, this may only be a problem with the re-read because the pacing of this arc chapter to chapter seems slower in comparison with later arcs and sagas. In terms of art, Oda has always been consistent from the beginning, and this arc is no exception. Big moments are emphasized with big panels, such as Buggy’s power being showcased or Zoro getting stabbed. The art style really shows its versatility with Buggy and Luffy’s fight, as the imagination in these two devil fruit powers could easily be lost if the art style hindered that creativity rather than highlighting it.

 

The Anime

The main difference between the anime and the manga (besides Chou-Chou the dog’s barks being voiced by a human being for some reason) is a carryover from the previous arc, where Nami was previously shown to be a thief and Buggy was teased as the next arcs villain. Besides these inclusions, as well as including Luffy’s backstory now instead of earlier, the arc is mostly the same. The real highlight in the anime has to be the voice acting and the animation once again. One Piece’s art style transfers over well into moving animation, and the real highlight of the voicework in this arc has to be Buggy the Clown. Buggy gets far more characterization later down the line, but in this arc he serves as a solid antagonist that feels both like an incredibly ‘out there’ concept of a pirate clown that ate something called the chop chop fruit, as well as a credible threat for our newly formed crew to take on.

Not much to say beyond that, but trust me, I have many thoughts on the changes the live action made.

Live Action

There are many differences Netflix made in order to fit such a sizeable arc into just one episode. For starters, because the live action has understandable budget restrictions, the entire scenario around Buggy is shifted. In the manga, the arc spanned the entirety of Orange Town, but in the live action the arc mostly takes place in a new location, Buggy’s circus tent. The circus tent is entirely new but feels consistent with Buggy and doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, to show my hand a little bit, I think Orange Town overall was done a bit better in the live action than the manga. While the very important aspect of Chou-Chou is missing, the remixing of this arc feels nice and concise, and I think that rests on the shoulder of Buggy the Clown. Jeff Ward who plays Buggy does such a phenomenal job that it makes Orange Town one of my favorite episodes in this first season. Not only is the performance a highlight, but from a writing standpoint, the characterization of Buggy is an interesting blend of Orange Town Buggy, along with the Buggy we see later in the story. I think this was a very wise decision because the change in characterization makes him a much more vibrant showman. It’s really quite good and Id honestly recommend the show up to this episode just for Ward’s performance alone.

Enough Buggy talk though, as there are still plenty of interesting changes to highlight. I think a really interesting and necessary change was to have the citizens of Orange Town being held captive, since that makes their safety a constant concern for Luffy and brings heightened tension to several scenes. Another change I really enjoyed was this little line from Zoro, where he talks about how Luffy is impacting him, just by Luffy being Luffy. It’s a change from the manga, where they tend to bond through their trust in each other during combat, but it works a lot better in the live action because Zoro’s arc in the live action is becoming a crew member, rather than joining first and believing second. It’s an interesting thing on my part, since one of my complaints with the show overall is that Zoro’s arc feels a bit muddled because he doesn’t join until so late in the season, but this moment is really solid even taking that opinion into account. While Nami doesn’t ever actively try to betray Luffy like she did in the manga, but they were still able to portray him as “a different kind of pirate” through the freeing of the Orange Town people, which I also really liked seeing.

 

So far, I would say that Orange Town is my favorite episode among the two that I have reviewed, and that is mostly due to the excellent Buggy performance we got in this episode. The conciseness of this arc, while preserving most of what makes it significant was really cool to see, which is unfortunate, because the next arc, Syrup Village, suffers a lot of bumps and bruises in its transfer to live action. More on that in Part 3 though. Thank you for reading my review.