Published Oct 26, 2026, 11:46 PM EDT
Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
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One Piece is not the greatest live-action anime adaptation on Netflix. When it comes to sheer popularity, One Piece easily ranks far above all anime adaptations on the streaming service. Even in terms of acclaim, One Piece is doing incredibly well and boasts an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% after two seasons.
However, Netflix is the streaming home of another acclaimed live-action anime that arguably beats One Piece in more ways than one. The series, Parasyte: The Grey, is based on Hitoshi Iwaaki's manga, Parasyte. Its first anime adaptation, Parasyte: The Maxim, premiered in 2014 and instantly became a cult classic shōnen.
Like One Piece, Parasyte seems a little too bizarre to be translated to the live-action medium. Yet, similar to One Piece, Parasyte: The Grey achieves the impossible and does a brilliant job of turning its original anime and manga's offbeat story and visual style into a compelling live-action story. It is almost a perfect live-action anime adaptation, deserving to be touted as one of Netflix's best offerings.
Parasyte: The Grey Narrowly Beats One Piece As Netflix's Best Live-Action Anime Adaptation
Image via NetflixAnime adaptations were considered "cursed" for a very long time before One Piece changed the game. However, Parasyte: The Grey, too, marked a turning point for anime adaptations on Netflix. It also manages to edge out One Piece because it cleverly avoids being compared to its original anime and manga.
Unlike One Piece, it operates more as a spin-off/parallel story that changes the original anime's setting to South Korea. This allows Parasyte: The Grey to feature a whole new set of characters and themes. One of One Piece's biggest challenges was always going to be translating the original anime's campy tone, over-the-top comedy, and uncanny action scenes.
Although the live-action One Piece series handles these aspects quite well, there are moments where it is hard not to see it as a cosplayed recreation of the source material. Parasyte: The Grey avoids these issues by adopting a more serious tone than its original manga and anime.
Instead of trying to translate anime humor into the live-action medium, it almost completely drops its source's campy elements.
Parasyte's original concept also seems better suited for the live-action medium. Unlike One Piece, the original Parasyte anime and manga are fairly straightforward with their storytelling. They focus on two primary characters: Shinichi Izumi and the alien parasite, Migi, who partially infects him. The anime and the manga do not unfold hundreds of interconnected stories with a vast array of eccentric characters.
Netflix's Parasyte: The Grey takes the same approach as its source material and ties the story's central alien invasion and body horror to relatable themes of social divides and class warfare.
Parasyte: The Grey's Approach Wouldn't Work For One Piece
Netflix's One Piece would have been panned by viewers and critics if it had tried to oversimplify its original anime and manga lore. Many anime adaptations, like Dragonball Evolution and 2017's Death Note, have struggled because they ignored what made their source material appealing. They completely glossed over the fascinating showdowns, multi-layered arcs, and vast rosters their original anime boasted.
Like many previous anime adaptations, One Piece, too, could have fallen for the same trap. Similar to Parasyte: The Grey, it could have also taken a spin-off approach by changing the original anime's setting and focusing on a whole new set of characters. However, that would have completely ruined the series.
While Parasyte: The Maxim's partial appeal lies in Shinichi and Migi's interactions, the show's core hook comes from its central parasitic alien invasion. Parasyte: The Grey brilliantly borrows this hook and makes its live-action drama work. One Piece's entire appeal lies in its character beats and original worldbuilding. Giving up on that would have turned the Netflix live-action series into something completely unrecognizable.
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