One Piece is one of the most popular anime and manga franchises ever and despite live-action adaptations having a poor record, Netflix took the plunge. The result was a series that has received positive reviews overall, from both fans and critics for its fun, adventurous tone, characters, and relative faithfulness to the source material. It has even been renewed for a second season by Netflix.
One of the changes made to One Piece by Netflix was in terms of the outfits worn by Nami, the only female Straw Hat Pirate so far, and how its overt sexuality was toned down by making it less revealing. While this approach, explained by costume designer Diana Cilliers, has been lauded by many, it could be potentially problematic down the line for one character in particular.
Why did Netflix make Nami’s outfits more conservative?
Female characters wearing highly revealing outfits are common in One Piece, but that was something Netflix changed in order to preserve the innocence of the series, as Diana Cilliers explained to Insider in an interview. According to her, Nami’s costumes being more conservative wasn’t quite a conscious decision, but they were certainly alert to the changes made to the character. Nami’s nurturing personality was something Netflix wanted to focus on, and Cilliers said:
“Nami was, in a way, the big sister. Instead of being in any way elaborate or flaunting herself, she was not that kind of character at all. She was nurturing everyone around her”.
Despite Nami being given short skirts initially, this was changed in order to bring across her nurturing side, and also to keep the series’ innocence and purity intact whilst not taking anything away from the story.
Conservative outfits could be a problem for this One Piece character
There is one character in One Piece who could face the same treatment as Nami, and that is Boa Hancock, captain of the Kuja Pirates and Empress of Amazon Lily. Like the main protagonist Monkey D. Luffy whom she is in love with, Hancock too has eaten a Devil Fruit but was forced to eat it, unlike Luffy who chose to. Her Devil Fruit is called the Mero Mero no Mi, or the Love-Love Fruit in English, and it allows her to turn people into stone.
It isn’t quite as simple as that, though, as there is a catch: the person in question must be attracted to her. The characters of One Piece, whether they be male or female, find her almost impossible to resist owing to her beauty and charm, and she has even been termed the most beautiful person in the world. That is why her outfits could pose a problem for Netflix, as her dressing conservatively like Nami could potentially reduce the amount of attraction people feel toward her.
Of course, this is a potential problem that won’t need to be tackled for years, since Boa Hancock’s debut is well into the future from where the Netflix series finished. Furthermore, Netflix may well find a solution without comprising their outfit philosophy or the character and plot.
Source: Insider
