 Hello my Nakamotachi, this is Joygirl and we are going to discuss all the new One Piece goodness that we have to look forward to. We are in the year of One Piece. Seriously, 2021 is the year of One Piece. This year we've reached various milestones with the series reaching 1000 chapters and 100 volumes in the manga and then also 1000 episodes of the anime in the same year. And then on top of these impressive milestones, the One Piece live action by Netflix and a new One Piece movie have also been announced to come in 2022. What a time to be alive. What a time to be a One Piece fan. So we're going to spend some time discussing these two sources of One Piece media that we have to look forward to for next year, which is a topic that many of you have requested that I share my thoughts on, which I really appreciate seeing because I know a lot of my fellow content creators have covered this topic before so I wasn't actually planning on discussing this, but to know that you guys are interested in and value my thoughts too really means a lot to me. And I love the community. Okay, first I was getting emotional about what a great year we've had and now this. Let's get into the discussion before I get proper sappy. So the news for the casting for the live action has been highly anticipated since the adaptation was announced to be in the works in 2020. And now that the cast is announced, it makes it feel like the live action is now soon upon us and the first thing that I want to say is I'm just super happy because apart from the fact that it's just more One Piece content that I can consume, the fact that it's being done by Netflix means that the live action will get a whole lot more people interested in and hearing the good news of One Piece. And this could translate to new manga readers, which is just great news for the world because One Piece is such an amazing series and deserves all the love, especially for someone like me who grew up around kids who like Naruto and Bleach. But One Piece wasn't as widely talked about because it wasn't seen as cool, given its goofy aesthetics. The live action could potentially break the barrier of why people don't want to get started on the series. I imagine the audience that Netflix has is different from usual Crunchyroll or other strictly anime streaming site members and One Piece will surely be trending upon its release and will spike curiosity for those who've never seen the series before. And I do have high hopes about this because I saw that Cowboy Bebop, which has also recently been released in live action form, has been trending on Netflix so I think regardless of the reception, it will at the least introduce a lot of people to the series. And based on the episode list that Netflix released, we've known for a while that it will cover East Blue up to the end of the Arlong Park arc. And this is perfect because I think Arlong Park is the arc that really captivated most viewers. I'll admit for me that I knew I was hooked in the series earlier than that, but when sharing One Piece journey stories with other fans, I often hear that it was Arlong Park when they got invested and it's understandable because we've got Nami's Help Me moment and of course, The Walk. And because it seems like the live adaptation is only planned for the East Blue saga at this stage, we've only had the casting news for the East Blue 5. And it's exciting to see that Oda released a statement about the actors and the adaptation because I feel like he must have felt that these characters that he created were being well represented and being embodied by the selected actors, so that alone already gives me some faith. And the cast members themselves really do excite me. Looking at the cast as a whole, I love that they're already in character. Makenyu Arata, who's playing Zoro, tagged everyone but Taz Skylar, the actor playing Sanji, in his Instagram post announcing the cast. It reminds me of when the Seiyu for Sanji for the One Piece anime, Hiroaki Hirata, wished Zoro a happy birthday with a blank message, and then the Seiyu for Zoro, Kazuya Nakai, returned the favor by addressing Sanji as bastard chef in his birthday message for the straw hat cook this time. But speaking of the chef, we've seen Taz Skylar cooking for everyone and true to staying in character when the whole crew was hanging out with the directors Matt Owens and Steve Meider, Makenyu wasn't there, which makes me assume that he probably got lost. Such a Zoro thing to do. Now looking at the individual cast members, it's not hard to picture the actors playing their respective East Blue Five character. Firstly, in Aki Godoy, he has the very goofiness and childlike quality needed for Luffy's character. Seeing him rolling around in the grass really captured Luffy's carefree nature and how curious he is about the world. And I don't know if it's just because of his age, but in Aki's eyes, I think they really play a big role in why I see him nailing this role because they really possess the very pure, adventure-loving curiosity of Luffy's character. And on the flip side, I've also seen a clip of Inaki being serious and I have a good feeling that he'll also be able to portray the sheer ferocity Luffy exudes when he's angry. The balance between pure childlikeness and aggression is important to capturing Luffy, and I see that both in Aki Godoy. Now onto Makenyu, we didn't really see much of him in the official announcement, but it's probably the actor people are most familiar with, given some of his other important roles such as in the live-action Ruron Ikenchi movie. Now from that clip alone, I'd say that I am pretty confident in this casting as well, especially the stoic badass quality of the sort spin. I hope that we'll actually get to see the goofiest side of Zoro that we saw in the earlier days of One Piece, but we may have to wait for Netflix to extend the live-action past the first season to see all of those moments. Emily Rudd as Nami is the fan-favorite for the role even before the announcement was released, and you can easily see her as Nami. I've watched bits and pieces of her other stuff such as Fear Street, and from this, I can see her pull off Nami quite well, particularly in the emotional scenes, which is fitting because for the content planned to be covered for the live-action, Nami will be somewhat of a great character, and that Help Me scene is going to be that turning point for everyone to fall in love with Nami. And if you weren't convinced about Emily Rudd, just look at this. Now Jacob Romero Gibson, who'll be playing Usopp, is an intriguing and exciting choice in my opinion. I can see the Usopp in him, but I particularly see a lot of post-timeskip Usopp in Jacob. I also saw a photo of Jacob hanging out with Emily, and the two looked very close and cozy together, and it really reminded me of the reunion between Nami and Usopp, again after the timeskip, but I suppose it could also be seen as reminiscent of the very unique bond that these two weaker members of the crew share with each other, which has persisted throughout the story. But anyways, in some ways, just looking at the appearance alone, Jacob also looks more like Usopp. But I can also see the young look in Jacob as well, and I think that Jacob playing Usopp may actually make people warm to Usopp faster in the adaptation because I know many people dismissed him and only grew to love Usopp as the series continued in the manga or the anime. And I think Jacob, who does at face value, resemble the cooler, more mature Usopp of the post-timeskip era more, could mean that it's easier for people to become invested into how Usopp could grow. As for Tascaila, he is, as for now, the cast member who least resembles his character counterpart, just speaking in terms of appearance. But I think this is largely owed to his buzz-cut hairstyle, which understandably garnered some Eminem comments by the fans, but despite this, I don't feel very concerned about him playing Sanji at all. According to my research, his very experience, he's an award-winning writer, actor, and producer, so I'm pretty confident. Also, I've seen him practicing his kicks and his skydiving, and so my brain already made jumps to Sanji's abilities. Now these are just my first impressions and what I could gather, but obviously I'll have to wait for the teaser or a proper trailer to see how the cast fit in with their characters. It seems we may also have to wait until when to see the casting for Shanks because that hasn't been announced yet, and I'm super excited for this reveal because Shanks is a character who is just as important to the story as the East Blue Five for that first leg of the series, and so if the live adaptation plans to follow that same timeline, then Shanks is going to be one of the very first characters we're going to see in the live-action series. And now that we're on the topic of Shanks, that does bring us to the topic of the one-piece film, Red. Oda announced during Jump Fiesta 2021 that a red-haired man will be making his move in 2021, which is something which spurred heaps of excitement and discussions, and given that 2021 is now almost over and we haven't seen any big move made by Shanks yet, or any other redhead character, unless you count a certain awakening, which I don't believe received the necessary level of hype to be the source of Oda's cryptic message, I am inclined to think that this new one-piece film is what Oda was talking about. Although of course we may still get something else, but realistically we have less than 10 chapters left before the promised year of move-making ends. So based on the ending of this trailer and the title, it is going to heavily feature Shanks, which is of course exciting because he is probably one of, if not the most anticipated character fans are waiting for a deeper delve into, and based on the statistics of one-piece films, it's probably even more likely that the film won't be canon, but I think we may toe the line with this one, because I have high hopes that film Red may border the line of some canon material. The reason I say this is because based on my understanding, film Red will be created by Oda himself, and I know that there was a bit of confusion here because of the English translation in the trailer saying that it was written by Oda, whereas some of our Japanese droid fleet members told me that's not really what that means. So based on my understanding, as of now, it seems that we may have a similar situation to the film Strong World, where the story was created by Oda, including the script, whereas in the past he'd only supplied character designs and the approval for the story. And I think the film Strong World was written by Oda because it was the 10th anniversary of One Piece. Now, what do we have here? Film Red will be released in 2022, the 25th anniversary for One Piece, so I think this could raise the chances of Oda, again, having a much bigger hand in this film compared to some others of the past. Now, given that we also saw a musical girl in the trailer for Film Red, I don't think that Oda's greater involvement will mean that the whole film will be canon, and I know that there are high hopes in the community that the film will explain lots of things like the events at God Valley and such, but I really do see it being more like a Strong World scenario where the film itself wasn't strictly considered canon, but it did directly link to Chapter Zero, which is canon. And in that case, I would still be great news for us because then we could still get some more answers and a look at the very mysterious history of our enigmatic red-haired captain. But going back to that girl, I am excited to see a film focused on a girl because it seems like this was an active decision by Oda based on his comments that he released alongside the trailer that he was sick of drawing legendary old men so he wanted to draw this girl instead. But in terms of characters, what I'm also really intrigued by is the lack of the straw hats in this trailer. Now, of course, this was only the first very short teaser and we may see the straw hats appear later, but I am partly intrigued with the idea of a one-piece film which will actually be a deeper dive into non-straw hat characters. And I do think that if fans were going to be interested in a non-straw hat crew movie, then it's going to be one about the legendary shanks. But it goes without saying that we are still in the very early days and I'm just super excited. This is the first one-piece film that I'll be seeing released at the same time as everyone else because the last time when Stan Pete came out, I was still in Fishman Island and my friend wouldn't let me go watch because at that time I didn't know Sabo was alive. So this really is the best time to be a one-piece fan and it seems that the year of one piece isn't over because we also have so many milestones and exciting things to look forward to for next year. And I, for one, am just so grateful that I have you guys to enjoy this journey with. But now that you've heard my thoughts, let me know yours by leaving a comment below. Don't forget to like and share the video and please do subscribe if you'd like more one-piece discussions. You can also join our Joyfleet Discord server for more one-piece fun and even become a Patreon member for special roles and powers within that server. Thank you to our patrons who help support the channel. This is Joygirl and I'll see you again soon.