Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ Live Action Showrunner Steven Maeda Expresses Interest in Developing ‘Spy X Family’ Live-Action Adaptation

Nerdigans Inc. |

Oct 21, 2023

As Netflix continues to invest in anime to live action adaptions including new seasons for Alice in Borderland and One Piece, it seems the latter’s showrunner Steve Maeda wants to translate Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family manga into live action.

Set in a Cold War-esque period of counterintelligence warfare and intelligence-hungry subterfuge, the adaptation of Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family follows Twilight, a highly-skilled spy for the Westaslis agency whose latest assignment is to spy on the leader of the neighboring Ostania nation.

In order to even get close to the Ostanian politician, Twilight – under the alias Loid Forger – ends up adopting a daughter and faking a marriage to a local woman.

However, unbeknownst to Twilight, both members of his fake family hold startling secrets, with his ‘wife’ Yor actually being the alter-ego of a notorious assassin known as the Thorn Princess and his ‘daughter’ Anya possessing the ability to read the minds of those around her.

The One Piece showrunner revealed he has been actively pursuing an opportunity to helm a live action adaptation of Tatsuya Endo’s best selling manga while speaking to Comicbook.com.

“I love Spy X Family so much,” Maeda told the outlet. “It’s just wonderful. It’s funny you mentioned that one. I’ve been chasing Spy Family for a while.”

Despite his desire to tackle a Spy x Family live action adaptation, the Helix showrunner admitted the difficult obstacles faced translating anime and manga to live action.

“I think there are so many wonderful stories,” Maeda acknowledged. “It just has been, I think, difficult getting the crossover… [Anime] really is such wonderful source material. There are so many great manga and anime titles out there that tell these wonderful stories and they just haven’t been tapped yet.”

“And so not every underlying piece of material needs a live action,” he added. “But boy, it would be amazing to see some of them.”

While a Spy x Family live action adaptation may not be in the works, Netflix has expanded its library with anime live action adaptations including the beloved Kingdom and Rurouni Kenshin films.

Netflix also currently has several live action adaptations in the works including Yu Yu Hakusho and a new adaptation of Death Note from Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers.

The second season of the Spy x Family anime debuted on October 7th with same day simulcasts on Crunchyroll. In addition the series movie Spy x Family CODE: White releases in Japanese theaters on December 22nd.