Turns Out The Witcher Had a Positive Impact on Netflix's One Piece

Sonya Belousova, who created the music for both The Witcher from Netflix and the live-action adaptation of One Piece, explained how the former influenced the latter in terms of musical settings.

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Mateusz Libera21 September 2023

Source: One Piece, Matt Owens i Steven Maeda, Netflix, 2023

Sonya Belousova is a Russian-born composer who was responsible for composing the music for the first season of Netflix's The Witcher (along with Giona Ostinelli). Soon after, she got a new assignment - creating the soundtrack for the live-action One Piece. The TV adaptation of the popular manga and anime, in turn, quickly became one of the most popular productions of the year. The series is based on a record-breaking manga. Although it is currently difficult to say whether the show will be able to fully adapt the stories created by Eiichiro Oda, today we can find out what was behind the creation of a four-hour soundtrack for the live-action series.

In an interview with Screen Rant Belousova shared an anecdote related to her work on The Witcher. Because fans complained that some of the songs were not included on the official soundtrack, although they were used in the series, Belousova knew that in One Piece she could not disappoint the viewers in a similar way.

"When we were shooting The Witcher, we had a song titled Song of the White Wolf, which was played in two versions. At the end of the episode, you can hear this song played on the violin, and in the credits it is joined by vocals performed by Declan de Barry. We added [to the official soundtrack - ed. note] the version with vocals that appeared during the closing credits, and yet we still hear that the official soundtrack was missing the off-vocal version. It's exactly the same song. But we still hear it from the fans. So hell yeah, [One Piece soundtrack is - ed.note] four hours long."

The composer's work on the music for The Witcher caught the attention of the creators of One Piece. Giona Ostinelli and Sonya Belousova mentioned, that to get this engagement, they sent a passionate video in which they convince the creators to give them a chance. The main arguments were that each of the characters will have their own distinctive instrumental and leitmotif, and many of the songs will blend together, creating new, though familiar after a few episodes, compositions.

This was enough for the pair of composers to be tasked with creating the soundtrack for the adaptation of One Piece. The result was a gigantic soundtrack, lasting as long as 4 hours, although, as Belousova recalls, in reality it's still less than half of what she composed for the show together with Ostinelli.

When asked about the second season, Belousova replied briefly, "Ideas are being born."

One Piece is available on Netflix.

More:Tomasz Baginski Defends Simplifications in The Witcher; 'It's Necessary'

RELATED TOPICS: anime fantasy trivia Matt Owens The Witcher

Mateusz Libera

He began his writing adventure by creating stories, later he followed the humanities path, choosing studies in journalism and social communication. He published his first texts on his personal blog and for contests. At the beginning of 2023, he joined the film department of GRYOnline.pl, where he started working as an author of articles about movies. He is interested in fantasy, history, RPG games, and strategies. He is also a long-time player of League of Legends - he has been playing since the second season. Additionally, he writes adventure and fantasy books, but in this field he is still a novice. Currently, he has published one collection of stories.

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