Note: This story contains spoilers from “One Piece” Season 2.
War is coming in “One Piece.”
The second season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series took care of the first half of the popular Alabasta Arc – one many consider to be the first epic storyline with sweeping repercussions. “One Piece” co-showrunner Joe Tracz knew the arc held a special place in fans hearts which is why the choice was made to split the storyline across two seasons to focus on additions like Chopper, Vivi, and Baroque Works now so the war to come could be done justice next season.
“It’s epic,” Tracz told TheWrap. “It’s why we split the story over two seasons. We’re currently filming Season 3, which is the second part of the Alabasta story. We knew that arc is so beloved, it’s so important, it’s so complicated, that to try to compress it into one eight-episode season was always going to leave out some of the heart of it.”
He added: “The chance to split that up and to let the story really be about meeting Miss Wednesday, who turns out to be Vivi, we’re learning about Baroque Works and this bigger plan this criminal organization has, and setting up a third season, where we’re going to get to Alabasta and fight this war. It was always a two-season plan. We’re lucky enough that we’re getting to wrap up that story.”
The season ends with Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) and the Straw Hat pirates agreeing to help Vivi get back to Alabasta, but the hurdles are far from over. A final scene finally introduces Joe Manganiello’s Crocodile – a Bond villain comp if there ever was one – who has been pulling the Baroque Works strings all season. Luffy and Crocodile are on a collision course and it’ll be the first time the hopeful King of the Pirates is likely to be tested.
“When we meet Crocodile in Season 2, we see him in the confines of his office. It’s a classic Bond lair – you see underwater the fish swimming by him, and also something much larger than a fish that we’ll discover for more of Season 3,” Tracz said. “He’s the bad guy who works in the shadows. And Luffy, we talk about it in Season 2, is a punch first, ask questions later kind of hero. He feels like he can Gum-Gum his way through any problem. Crocodile is someone who works in the shadows, he has plans within plans, he’s not doing his own dirty work.”
He continued: “I think what we want fans in Season 2 to be thinking is how are our hero and our new villain are alike and different from each other? There’s already some things that are similar about these guys. But where Luffy is just a kid of action, here’s Crocodile who works in the shadows, and we’ll see in Season 3 what happens when he gets his hands dirty.”
Fans of Eiichiro Oda’s story likely noticed that certain scenes and reveals in Season 2 happened much earlier than they did in the long-running manga and anime. Tracz told TheWrap the benefit and joy of adapting the story now is their ability to seed things coming down the road much earlier because of how much they know from the manga.
“Sometimes it’s about a funny story for fans just to reward them for paying attention. But sometimes it is just adding depth to what’s already there,” Tracz said. “In Season 2 we have a Gold Roger flashback that’s not part of this area in the manga, but it’s a way to set up some bigger mysteries in the sceneries that Oda doesn’t get to until later.”
He finished: “There is a thing where stories often return and circle back to the beginnings as they’re ending. So it’s fun to know that we’re still telling the beginning of this story while fans of the manga are getting to experience the end.”
The post ‘One Piece’ Boss Talks Doing the Alabasta Arc Justice and Setting Up Luffy vs. Crocodile in Season 3 appeared first on TheWrap.
