Netflix’s One Piece owes so much to actor Iñaki Godoy’s take on Luffy

polygon.com:

“One Piece” can mean many things, even to One Piece fans: There’s the anime, the manga, and now the new live-action show on Netflix. But it’s also the treasure where the anime (or manga or Netflix show) gets its name — the “One Piece” that pirate Gol D. Roger left behind and that everyone in the world of the manga (or Netflix show or anime) is seeking for themselves.

In whatever form you find it, there’s one thing that One Piece has to be about, and that’s Monkey D. Luffy. He’s more than just a hero or the center of the story; he’s the glue that holds the universe together, a happy-go-lucky goof who believes and inspires to mammoth degrees. So it was vital that Netflix found the right guy to lead its adaptation. And God bless ’em, showrunners Matt Owens and Steven Maeda found Iñaki Godoy, Luffy incarnate.

Luffy is a deceptively difficult role to play: He has to be kinda dim while still being endearing, the sort of chap for whom everything goes right eventually, thanks to some alchemic mix of fighting and luck. Even when that might frustrate — either a viewer, reader, or even one of Luffy’s Straw Hat crew — it should still feel like he’s always getting what he deserves (everything in the world??). And all the while, he has to anchor the whole story and embody that trademark shonen huff and foolhardiness. Luffy is the sort of role that, when done well, you might not even think about what a tightrope act it is to play.

In Godoy’s hands, you don’t have to: He is tailor-made for Luffy. In the live-action One Piece, the 20-year-old Mexican actor is incandescent, an incorrigible goober who delights in everything (be it sweet or sour) that comes his way. It can be hard to translate the ease of a carefree comic character,