I'm on episode 7 out of 8.
My thoughts:
This is excellent. It truly gets One Piece. One Piece is not about the battles and its strengths have always been the adventure, romance, the crew chemistry, world building, storytelling, and characters. Due to the fact it's live action when it does have fights it keeps it limited. In episodes 6 and 7 and it plays out like a television drama, more than a shounen you would think One Piece is supposed to be and it works so well.
If they polish the fight choreography for season 2
but as it is, this show absolutely nails One Piece and does a lot of fitting changes that helps tie the East Blue Saga together and eases some pacing (Mihawk takes out Don Krieg himself and Arlong first fights Luffy at Baratie). The most damning thing it's missing are some of the more silly character moments like this:
VIDEO But I understand why, for pacing reasons, they left it out. What amazes me is that despite this the crew chemistry is absolutely incredible.
edit:
Finished it.
Loved it. There's some flaws and niggles but I thought this was really fantastic stuff. It really strikes to the heart of One Piece and I enjoyed every second despite having the occasional nitpick.
The best thing about it is that it takes One Piece's greatest strengths, such as its sense of adventure, large world, world building, storytelling, and characters and pushes those to the forefront not only because they're good but because of the limited nature of wacky hijinks in the fights in a live action setting. By putting story ahead of fights, it accentuates and improves on One Piece while taking full advantage of live action filmmakings greatest strengths. That said, this also makes the fights and fight choreography the weakest link of the season. If season 2 has improved fights this could go from B+ to A+. Really good stuff. I've been a One Piece fan almost 20 years now and I'm shocked to see something I love that has been a part of my life for so long so polished and cared for. The live action manga/anime curse seems to have been broken.