One Piece of bubblegum TV makes all the world’s troubles go away in Netflix’s anime remake
Netflix gives us a break from the referendum with One Piece - the most buttered up, sugared-up, pirate family adventure you can imagine.
September is really shaping up to be a month where we’ll all need the telly to give us a few decent bubblegum, trashy distractions.
What is the cure for referendum messes that engulf the nation, kids and grandkids who go insane due to exams, and the general malaise you feel knowing summer is oh so close but oh so far away? Rather dumb sitcoms and even dumber action thrillers.
And boy there are some dumb popcorn TV shows around at the moment.
Dumb is not a bad thing in the slightest, when it’s done right. Not everything can be Succession or The Crown (though those two have more in common with the good old soap opera than we care to admit to ourselves).
Netflix is really giving us a break from the humdrum and, well, from thinking very much, with One Piece – the most buttered up, sugared-up family adventure you can imagine.
Based on one of the most famous Japanese anime cartoons of all time, this major English-language, live action adaptation really could join the likes of Doctor Who and Wednesday, Stranger Things and These Dark Materials in being a show a whole family can enjoy together.
Our hero (Inaki Godoy) is a wannabe teen pirate who can’t swim but has the magical power to stretch like a piece of gum. Together with a motley crew of assassins, pickpockets, and total misfits he’s off to find the One Piece – a mysterious treasure which will make anyone who finds it king of the seas and the richest person in the known world. And so follows sword fights and sea monsters and goodness knows what.
The first thing to say about One Piece is that it looks simply sumptuous. The pirate costumes are insane, the special effects are pretty top-notch and the cinematography is out of this world.
This is exactly how a cartoon should be brought to life. The boldness of the colours on screen grabs one immediately – not done so well in a family adventure show since the Matt Smith days of Who – and makes the ridiculousness of it all seem so real.
Godoy is going to be a big star. He’s incredibly charming as the young rubbery pirate with a pure heart. Other standouts include Mackenyu as a master swordsman and Emily Rudd as a wily thief who becomes Godoy’s second-in-command.
One Piece is bubblegum as can be. It’s Peter Pan with an anime strain and some Pirates of the Caribbean sprinkles on top. This show will make the sea-sickest viewer want to go to the ocean and hunt for buried treasure.
If you want something a bit more adult but still silly, Netflix’s biggest rating hit of the past week or so is ideal.
Who is Erin Carter? is the story of a young mum and schoolteacher who, naturally, can kill any evil so-and-so with her bare hands. Evin Ahmad stars as the British substitute teacher who’s been totally and unquestioningly embraced by her new school in Barcelona.
After all, who would asks questions when the most beautiful woman who ever lived turns up in your fancy Catalan school with absolutely no ID and all her work references are totally made up?
But everything seems to unravel a bit when Ahmad single-handedly beats the living hell out of a scary masked robber at the local supermarket.
Before you know it, she’s having knife fights with mysterious assailants from her past in classrooms late at night and she’s under suspicion from the Barcelona coppers.
It’s all very silly and the script was hardly written by Sophocles. The dialogue can be pretty atrocious and even the lowest of criminals looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch model.
But Who is Erin Carter? is certainly a whole heap of fun.
Ahmad is gorgeous and mysterious as our Kill Bill-esque heroine who’s hiding a violent past and she has a great love interest in her innocent and insanely handsome nurse hubby (Sean Teale).
But the real star is Indica Watson – Ahmad’s spiky young daughter who’s going blind and enjoys nothing more than beating the boys in her posh-as school to a pulp.
This tween psycho – who goes around threatening everyone in primary school with a smile on her face – is more of a killer than her blood-soaked Ma could ever dream of being.
Watson is a fantastic young actor and we’re surely going to be seeing more of her on screen.
If you’re a bit over guns and explosions and fisticuffs, maybe a good laugh is your September escape.
And Killing It, with Australian comedy star Claudia O’Doherty, is just what you need.
This Stan show – now in its second season – is ostensibly a star vehicle for American comic Craig Robinson, a scene-stealer in the US version of The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Judd Apatow gross-out flicks like Hot Tub Time Machine.
Robinson is a down-and-out single father who’s tried to climb up the greasy pole with a berry farm he’s set up in the swampiest of Florida swamps.
After getting the dough for the farm killing snakes in season one, Robinson is now having to contend with depressive farm inspectors, a scary swampland crime family and the general incompetence of his farm workers.
Lucky he has the strangest of business partners at his side in the form of O’Doherty, the cheeriest critter in all the Florida jungle. This Sydney-born comic actor is someone we’ll be talking about for decades to come. Her timing is incredible and her ability to say the most deranged, biting things through a chipmunk-like grin is uproariously funny.
If you enjoy Killing It, you should definitely check out O’Doherty’s web-series, Sarah’s Channel, where she plays a social media beauty influencer trapped with goblins in a dystopian future. The manic energy and Mary Poppins level of cheer she brings to the screen is perfectly matched with Robinson’s sarcastic, grumpy, under-siege persona. They’re a perfect odd couple for the streaming world of the 2020s.
One Piece is streaming on Netflix.
Who is Erin Carter? is streaming on Netflix
Killing It is streaming on Stan
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