The co-showrunner of One Piece admits it would be "a challenge" to adapt the human/reindeer hybrid Chopper into live action for a potential Season 2 of the Netflix show.
Speaking to IGN (read our full chat here), creator, writer, and co-showrunner Steven Maeda discussed how transforming certain elements of original creator Eiichiro Oda's wild and wonderful world into live action can be very difficult.
While it's so far not been announced, Season 2 would bring perhaps the most complicated of these as Netflix would have to add a 90cm tall human/reindeer hybrid called Tony Tony Chopper to its regular cast alongside the likes of Iñaki Godoy as Luffy.
Maeda remained tight-lipped about any potential continuation of One Piece on Netflix, but when asked if he's thought about how Chopper would work, said: "All I know about Chopper is he's my favorite character in the show, and so I love Chopper." Admitting it would still be difficult, Maeda added that "it's a challenge for sure."
Chopper isn't the only weird creation of Oda's that presents interesting challenges for the live action team, however, and Maeda brought up that another future mainstay would also be tough. "One of my favourite powers is Nico Robin's," he said. "And so I'm very much looking to see what that's going to look like."
Robin can sprout duplicate body parts from herself, inanimate surfaces, and other people's bodies thanks to her eating a Devil Fruit, but Netflix at least has experience in adapting other powers through the likes of Luffy and Buggy.
"Buggy was a real tough one because we knew that we wanted him to break into pieces, but what do those pieces do?" Maeda asked. "There are all sorts of those types of logistical decisions. And then just, what is the coolest version of the scene? What can we do, and how do we shoot it in such a way as to make that scene exciting and to feel like something that maybe you haven't seen before?
"Or in the case of Luffy's stretchy power, which is definitely something people have seen before in other movies and TV shows, how do we do the best version of that? Knowing that we're going to have great CG, but that even great CG with stretchy powers can look really awful?"
One Piece premiered on Aug. 28 and achieved 18.5 million views within its first four days, with fans happy to see one of the manga's biggest ongoing gags continued in the show. While there's no official word on more episodes yet, the CEO of One Piece production company Tomorrow Studio said Season 2 could be ready within 18 months of the ongoing strikes ending.
In our 6/10 review, IGN said: "Netflix's One Piece is an entertaining adaptation that's hindered by a desire to recreate every major event found in its source material."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
