Pictures courtesy of Netflix
It’s been a week since Netflix released the second season of live-action One Piece, and as promised, Netflix dropped 5 episodes of bonus content showcasing the incredible work Tomorrow Studios and the cast did to bring season 2 to life. Here’s what we learned.
Season 2 of One Piece is now available to stream on Netflix, so we’d recommend watching the incredible second season before reading below.
Before you read ahead, the third season is also currently filming! You can find all the details for the third season in our ongoing preview here.
The scale, size, and detail of the set designs are on a grand scale
We already knew from the first season that Tomorrow Studios had already gone above and beyond in the set designs of live-action One Piece. However, the second season brought its own unique challenges, but once again, the production team did a stellar job bringing the world to life.
The level of detail is so in-depth that there are parts of the sets that not even the most eagle-eyed fans would ever be able to spot clearly. But for the sake of bringing the world of One Piece to life, no stone has been unturned.
The set for Laboon’s stomach was built and described by Sanji actor Taz Skyler as being a five-story building. Tom Hannam, the production designer of One Piece, described how he designed Loguetown based on the beautiful and picturesque Italian city of Florence. Not to mention Whisky Peak, which in the manga is inspired by the Mexican City of Taos Pueblo, but Hannan decided to paint the town pink to make it pop, and added all the shops a pirate could ever want as the agents of Baroque Works lure in Pirates. They went even further with the design of Mr. 3’s candle house in Little Garden, making it more intricate and ornate to emphasise his artistic ability with wax.
Lastly, it was fantastic to see what went into making Walpol come to life, with not only intricate makeup but also the physical props used to create his impeccable steel jawline.
N’kone Mametja and Gavin Gomes bring Tony Tony Chopper to life
From Mikaela Hoover’s work for Chopper’s voice to the incredible CGI artists and costume designers, a lot of work went into bringing Tony Tony Chopper to life for live-action One Piece.
However, two previously unsung heroes of Chopper are actors N’Kone and Gavin Gomes. N’Kone is a South African actress who is the physical stand-in for Chopper. She provides the physical performance for the actors to work with, with Mikaela’s voice and likeness imposed into Chopper in post-production. Outside of the official Netflix posts, Mark Hiriluk (Dr. Hiriluk) has lavished extensive praise on N’Kone for her performance.
Meanwhile, Gavin Gomes is the actor used for Chopper when he uses his Heavy Point power. With Chopper’s human-human fruit powers, he can transform into his “human form,” switching from the adorable reindeer self into what is often compared to a hairy hominid cryptid. There was no CGI in the design of Heavy Point Chopper; instead, Gomes wore a full-body suit and extensive makeup to deliver a more human-like performance.
The stunts really are bigger and larger
The first season had some excellent fight choreography, but the second season takes that to an incredible new level. Nami’s actress Emily Rudd confirmed that the cast were performing most of their own stunts, with the cast receiving plenty of praise from supervising stunt coordinator Franz Spilhaus.
Taz Skyler, already well known for posting his training videos on his social media, continued to train long after the first season wrapped, ensuring he had the physicality to perform the various kicks, stunts, and acrobatics needed to play Sanji. To help with the physicality of the role of Luffy, even Iñaki Godoy has taken to learning gymnastics.
Tashigi actress Julie Rehwald, who had never worked on a project that required her to use a sword, which meant learning from scratch from the show’s swordmaster, Koji. Ultimately, she did a grand job learning swordsmanship in such a short period of time.
Oh, and Jacob Romero is maybe a little bigger, too.
Whisky Peak Saloon was the biggest stunt sequence of the show yet
From Mackenyu’s expression alone, you can tell how much more intense the stunts and choreography were in the second season, and considering how much action Zoro is involved in, it was an incredibly physical season for the actor.
None was more challenging than the fight inside the Whisky Peak Saloon. The intricate design of the set was made to have Mackenyu fight his way up the various layers of the saloon, taking down scores of Baroque Works agents in the process. Even the attention to detail was reflected in Zoro counting the number of agents he had taken out, which was ensured in the choreography.
To ensure the scene was executed to perfection, the stunt team spent an entire month choreographing it on stage before passing it to the pre-vis team on set for testing with the stunt doubles. Stunt coordinator Franz Spilhaus heaped a lot of praise on Mackenyu, even confirming that everything we see in the episode is Mackenyu in action.
Oda-San and how he created Luffy
In a very short period of time, Iñaki Godoy has done an incredible job learning Japanese and, as such, interviewed the One Piece creator, Eiichiro Oda, in the mangaka’s native tongue.
From this interview, we learned that Oda had visited the set at Tomorrow Studios in Cape Town, South Africa, and jokingly stated that he didn’t want to go home. In the video, we saw Oda with the various departments, and he was deeply touched by everyone’s dedication at Tomorrow Studios.
Iñaki also asked how Oda came up with the character of Luffy, to which Oda responded with:
“Luffy is an ideal child for me. When you become an adult and join a company, you can’t always do what you want. Entering society often means losing freedom. Luffy has a child’s heart, so he does whatever he wants. That aspect is probably, for adults already toiling in society and to children about to enter society, what makes Luffy so appealing.”
What were you impressed by in One Piece season 2? Let us know in the comments below!
