In the manga, Kuina was afraid that the male students would soon overtake her in size and strength and that she'd be at a permanent disadvantage because of her gender, but the actors they cast were 15-16 years old and teen Zoro was already at least a head taller than her where it was the opposite in the manga with Kuina being older and bigger than little kid Zoro. Like yeah, that already happened, and you still beat Zoro in the duel regardless. Not that size would even matter in the One Piece world where regular humans can be like 15 feet tall for no reason, but this was in the first volume of the manga and the look and feel of the world hadn't solidified yet.
I totally get why they cast older actors who were presumably also martial artists- there was no way they were filming a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old dueling with full-sized katanas. I just think they should've rewritten the story to fit those older actors better.
I also couldn't help but notice that all the flashback scenes took place at a forest/park in daylight, presumably because wherever they were filming did not have a Japanese dojo or temple available. It just makes the scenes look noticeably bland and cheap in a show with otherwise excellent set design and lighting.
It was also paced worse than the manga where it goes straight from Kuina and Zoro making their promise to keep training to voices yelling about Kuina having died after falling down the stairs, and then showing her dead body at her wake and kid Zoro ragecrying while holding her sword. The abruptness and bluntness of her death is what gave the flashback its emotional punch but they drag things out over several kinda slow scenes spliced throughout the fourth episode.
A bit disappointed since I thought they really nailed Luffy's origin and it being revealed slowly over the first two episodes worked out great. Here's hoping they got the heartstring puller that is Sanji's origin right
