From One Piece to The Changeling, Should You Add These To Your Watchlist?
From a choose-your-own-adventure romance to wondrous other worldly adventures, Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado shares the new projects you don’t want to miss.
Choose Love
Laura Marano stars in Netflix’s new interactive rom-com Choose Love, which allows you to choose-your-own-adventure through three potential love matches for her character Cami to end up with. When I played it through the first time I went with her long term boyfriend and it ended pretty quickly, which was a bit anticlimactic, but the fun of it is going back and playing through the various scenarios.
Will she choose her serious boyfriend (Scott Michael Foster), the charitable artist from her past (Jordi Webber), or an epic rockstar (Avan Jogia)? It’s all up to you. Plus if you make her fall in love with all three throughout playing, you unlock a fun dance party with the whole cast. It’s a cute story to play through, but it does lack high stakes and big emotionally impactful consequences. Essentially, she’ll have a happy ending whatever you choose.
Choose Love is streaming on Netflix.
One Piece
Follow along in the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat crew as they explore dangerous worlds in search of the One Piece and fight for their dreams together in the live action adaptation of One Piece. I didn’t know what to expect going into this series based off the hit Japanese manga, but it definitely lived up to the hype.
The casting was perfect across the board. Episode two with Buggy the Clown is a particular highlight, showing off the excellent costumes, makeup, effects, and casting. They perfectly balanced moving the story along, while also diving deeper into the backgrounds of each character. The world is just so rich and wondrous that you can’t help but want to see more and explore the strong messages of friendship, adventure, and going after your dreams. One Piece is definitely the best live action adaptation of an anime that Netflix has done so far.
One Piece is streaming on Netflix.
The Changeling
LaKeith Stanfield and Clark Backo find themselves in a dark fairytale odyssey through a New York City they never knew existed in The Changeling, based on the book by Victor LaValle. The duo play first time parents Apollo and Emma… that is until Emma does something horrific and mysteriously vanishes.
Stanfield anchors this project with a rich and layered take on fatherhood. The adaptation is extremely faithful to the book and introduces dark magical realism and disorienting truths that are as intriguing as they are frustrating. A stunning and complicated take on parenthood, postpartum, and generational trauma through the eyes of Black parents, The Changeling will leave you captivated.
The Changeling hits Apple TV+ starting September 8.
