Although Netflix’s Stranger Things proved the importance of an excellent ensemble cast in the past, it was a later fantasy series from the streaming service that outdid the show at its own game in this regard. The search for Netflix is perfect Stranger Things replacement been going on for years now. Unfortunately, it’s hard for viewers to find a series that recaptures the unique blend of small-town mystery, character drama, and sci-fi horror that made the original show so special.
Ironically, those are the shows that have come closest to being replaced Stranger Things have not been the ones most similar to the series in their premises and plots, such as HBOMax’s darker Stephen King series It: Welcome to Derry or Netflix’s one-season wonder I’m not okay with this. Instead, it’s the bigger budget, mostly family-friendly shows that have managed to become as successful as Stranger Thingsespecially for Netflix. Tim Burton’s The Addams Family re-imagining Wednesday is one such show, as is another fantasy hit that borrows heavily from the Stranger Things playbook.
From 2023, One Piece is a live-action fusion of fantasy, comedy, adventure, and even some horror based on the long-running manga and anime franchise by creator Eiichiro Oda. Although the series’ story mostly focuses on the crazy misadventures of the Straw Hat Pirates and their apparent leader Monkey D. Luffy, One Piece has almost as large a large cast as Stranger Things. This is a big part of the show’s appeal, though One Piece exceeds Stranger Things in a decisive way here.
One Piece borrowed its ensemble cast approach from Stranger Things
Both Stranger Things and One Piece has perfectly cast characters, which is all the more impressive when both shows have over a dozen main characters each. However, in case of One Piecethis casting coup is even more impressive since fans have known these characters in manga and anime for over 20 years.
As such, it would have been incredibly easy for Netflix to inadvertently miss the mark. The massive One Piece franchise has a large number of characters that make up the world HBO’s Game of Thrones and its spinoffs look small, and that cast only continues to grow alongside the source material. One Piece set the Guinness World Record for “Most copies published of the same comic series by a single author” years ago, and the manga is still going strong.
Netflix’s Stranger Things franchise struggled thanks to its ensemble cast
As such One Piece‘s sprawling source material makes its ensemble cast a perfect fit for the series. In contrast, although the viewers loved all the main characters in Stranger Thingscame the massive ensemble in the end at an award for the hit show. At the end of the day, Stranger Things was a horror series and although it was never as dark as Netflix is similar Fear Street filmthe series was meant to have some stakes.
As such, the show’s series finale got some eyeballs as Mike, Dustin, Will, Max, Lucas, Nancy, Steve, Jonathan, Robin, Holly, Joyce, Hopper, Murray and all the other supporting characters made it out of the end alive, and even Eleven’s fate was left ambiguous. Moreover, one of the biggest criticisms that the first one faces Stranger Things spinoff, Tales from ’85was its wholesale reworking of the main characters.
While Stranger Things has as huge a cast as One Piecethe show’s lack of source material means it seems unable to move on from its original protagonists. This does the future of Stranger Things franchise relatively predictable as the series can’t move beyond its core heroes. On the contrary, in contrast to Stranger ThingsNetflix’s One Piece can really benefit from its massive cast thanks to the sprawling fictional world of its story.
- Publication date
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31 August 2023
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Matt Owens, Steven Maeda, Joe Tracz
- Directors
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Tim Southam, Marc Jobst, Josef Kubota Wladyka
- Authors
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Tiffany Greshler, Diego Gutierrez, Allison Weintraub, Lindsay Gelfand
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Iñaki Godoy
Monkey D. Luffy
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