Luffy (Iñaki Godoy, whose character always refers to himself by saying his whole name), who is on a quest to find a legendary, long-missing treasure known as the One Piece, a feat that would allow him to fulfill his goal of proclaiming himself the king of pirates. The basic plot involves a young aspiring pirate named Monkey D. Instead, the eight-episode first season falls prey to the pitfalls associated with trying to translate a very different art form to live-action life, a challenge Netflix already experienced with the short-lived “Cowboy Bebop.” The difficulties can be seen in “One Piece’s” all-over-the-map tone, which at various times feels like a children’s series, a surreal dream filtered through the mind of director David Lynch and a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie produced while on hallucinogenic drugs. And if you haven’t familiarized yourself with it yet, this live-action Netflix series version of the outlandish pirate adventure feels like a poor place to start, offering scant incentive to bother trying to catch up now.
“One Piece” is based on one of the most popular manga series ever, with a quarter-century’s worth of history filling its sails.