There’s a new One Piece movie titled One Piece Film: Red on the horizon, and with the upcoming One Piece Netflix series in mind, Red needs to break the biggest rule anime has about what is and isn't canon. Details about Netflix’s One Piece are currently sparse, but what is known about it gives a good idea of what will be covered in season one. Red’s nature as an anime movie makes it unlikely that it will be incorporated into the show, but based on what’s happening in the film, that needs to change.
The general rule of thumb when it comes to anime adapted from a manga is that anything that wasn’t in the original manga is non-canon filler. Naturally, anime movies, which are usually just extra-long episodes, almost always fall into this category, save for rare examples like The Last: Naruto the Movie, which served as a canon epilogue to Naruto, and the My Hero Academia movies which, according to the author, are all canon. The One Piece movies, however, are more typical fare of non-canon anime movies; Shiki and Daft Green from Strong World are canon, as is Laugh Tale’s spelling from Stampede, but the actual events of those movies explicitly aren’t. Because of that, it’s unlikely that the film, or any of the filler arcs, in general, will be incorporated into the upcoming Netflix series since they will probably try to stick as close to canon as possible.
That being said, it would undoubtedly be to Netflix’s One Piece’s benefit if One Piece Film: Red broke that trend and was canon to the story. This is because One Piece Film: Red will focus on a new character named Uta, who is not only Shanks’ daughter but Luffy’s childhood friend. Red hasn’t been released yet, but Uta is bound to have had a significant impact on both characters, so making the movie canon could be an easy way to further develop Luffy and Shanks’ characters for the live-action series.
One Piece Film: Red becoming canon could also open the floodgates for other filler material to be incorporated into both the live-action series and the general canon. The G-8 arc, for example, is held in high regard by people for how likable the new characters are and for how different it is from a typical One Piece story arc. As for the movies, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, directed by Belle's Mamoru Hosoda, does an excellent job of setting up the idea of Luffy losing all of his friends, and Strong World, Z, and Stampede all provide a lot of valuable worldbuilding with their stories. Plenty of filler stories could add a lot to the Netflix series by being canon, and Red becoming canon could help kickstart that.
Anime movies tend to be non-canon to the stories they’re based on, but Netflix’s One Piece series would greatly benefit from the upcoming One Piece Film: Red bucking that trend. Uta being Shanks’ daughter and Luffy’s childhood friend means that she’ll likely be the source of a lot of character development for the both of them and that being canon could end up adding a lot of material for the show to use, in addition to justifying other One Piece filler stories being incorporated into the series. There’s no way of knowing what direction the upcoming Netflix series will take One Piece, but something like this would certainly be a great way to start.
One Piece releases new episodes Saturdays on Crunchyroll.