Meet The Pirates

Maeda describes the distinct personalities of the pirate crew. “Zoro’s the grunge guy who doesn’t seem to care about much. Smells like teen spirit. Luffy’s, the eternal optimist; the one that only sees freedom and opportunity. He enjoys playing the fool, but he is a capable leader and captain nonetheless. And, Nami is somewhere in between – the bridge. She’s the practicalist,” he decides.

One Piece is propelled by Luffy as the protagonist, but all three characters have their own perspectives in terms of how they view the world, their goals, and how they interact with each other.

Luffy is the instigator of change rather than dramatically changing himself. He is especially static character-wise in the first hundred chapters of the manga series of One Piece. Maeda concluded that he needed to be fleshed out in the television series to give him more a character arc. “With Luffy, it’s about keeping him genuine and keeping him real. Having that optimism be unflagging and never apologizing for it. He never listens to a naysayer. ‘Yeah, it’s impossible, but I’m gonna do it anyway.‘”

Despite his soaring ambition and drive, even Monkey D. Luffy has his limits. The creative instilled some self-doubt into him when Zoro gets hurt while fighting Dracule “Hawk-Eye” Mihawk (Steven John Ward), regarded as the world’s greatest swordsman, on the Baratie restaurant. “Luffy questions himself before finally concluding, ‘My belief is enough to get me through.’”

Roronoa Zoro (Mackenyu Arata) Photo by Casey Crafford/ Netflix

Zoro and Nami are both cynical, stuck, and reluctantly resigned to their life situations. They have both lost their way until they meet Luffy who helps them become unstuck and helps them enjoy life again.

“When we first meet Zoro, he’s working as a bounty hunter. He’s dropping heads and getting paid, deliberately getting into bar fights, and being self-destructive. He needs some kind of compass, which he finds in Luffy.” He now has some direction in life.

“Nami has the most interesting and conflicted backstory, because on the one hand, she seems like a very cold-blooded, calculating character. She’s a thief and openly rationalizes, ‘I wanted to eat so I had to steal. I didn’t choose to be a thief.’ There’s clearly something else going on with her, but we just can’t put a finger on it. It’s not until we realize that she’s a member of Arlong’s crew when things start to fall into place,” continues Maeda.

“We discover she’s trying to buy back her town. She really has an altruistic motive. That revelation is so big for that character and it also gave us a satisfying emotional bookend for the season.”

“It’s also a huge, symbolic moment for Nami when Luffy puts his hat his straw hat on her head and rallies everybody else to go and fight Arlong,” adds Maeda.

The season ends on a crescendo with Luffy, Nami, and Zoro coming into their own.

Tone, Energy, Speed

One Piece unfurls as a swashbuckling ride at whipsaw speed. “There’s so much plot and story going on. So many characters that are met. It felt like ample opportunity to keep the pace really up tempo,” declares Maeda. Luffy is very energetic and brings a lot of passion to his world and to the other characters,” states Steven. “Pacing-wise, I think it’s about keeping the adventure up and alive and always moving forward.”

“Tonally, One Piece is about embracing the mash-up of time periods, technology, and fantasy.” It is about merging incongruent worlds. “There are pirates here who wear pirate garb and period clothing. There are people in the towns who are wearing t-shirts and modern casual clothes. The Marines are wearing ball caps. Some use lanterns and some use electric lights. There are anachronistic elements trying to work together in harmony.”

Not to mention the fantasy elements when Monkey’s rubber arms and legs stretch and the snail phones which are completely bonkers. However, they work within the chaotic context of the show.

It’s difficult to pinpoint a prevailing genre, but Maeda considers One Piece to be an action comedy at its heart. “It’s also very surreal, fantastical, and very dramatic.”

Nami (Emily Rudd) Photo by Casey Crafford/ Netflix

The writers’ room was filled with a similar frenetic energy. It took almost two years to fine tune the scripts for the entire season. “Part of that reason was because we were all trying to figure out what the show was,” mentions Maeda.

There were multiple budget ranges proposed for the show, so the number of expensive visual effects were adjusted accordingly in different versions. “We started out with something that was ten episodes long and very expensive, but did not hew as closely to the manga.” In the end, they opted for the high end of the low budget range to keep it looking as close to the manga as possible.

One Piece can be difficult to track with so much relentless feverish excitement. Yet Steven Maeda made space for the quieter, gentler, character-revealing moments in the show for some respite. “I think there are two real emotional moments that come to mind as signature points. One is in the young Luffy (Calrton Osorio) flashback with Red-Haired Shanks (Peter Gadiot) where we learned the story of how he got the straw hat.” Steven believes this is a real tearjerker moment. Shanks gave Monkey the hat on loan which can be returned upon Monkey’s return. This was the same hat he put on Nami’s head. It’s instrumental in naming them The Straw Hat Pirates.

“The simple straw hat really tells the story of how Luffy matures in his journey. Instead of being a headstrong little kid, he starts growing up and becomes more of the man that he is when he we meet him in the present day,” notes Maeda.

Another pivotal moment in One Piece occurs when they are sailing away in the final episode and Nami unfolds the main sail to reveal with Luffy’s Jolly Roger logo on it. He’s finally gets his wish of becoming King Of Yhe Pirates with his very own crew.