After a smash-hit first season that swept old and new fans alike off their sea legs in 2023, Netflix faced a new challenge with its expanding live-action adaptation of “One Piece.” A second season would need to satisfy all sides of its audience while staying true to the manga’s spirit. Venturing out of the East Blue and into the Grand Line was, in many ways, the point of no return for both the story and showrunners — a test of their creative mettle on rockier waters.
“Into the Grand Line” — which adapts the awkwardly-paced arcs that follow the initial assembly of the Straw Hat crew — is a transitory stage full of growing pains. Everywhere Luffy leads his crew, there are dragons to be disturbed, and for better or worse, he makes it a point to take a stand. Netflix does an admirable job at being realistic with the source material, teasing out — and at times, extrapolating — the most compelling plot points to advance the story in a more personable way than the anime. In short, “Into the Grand Line” delivers what everyone asked for: more of the same.
Of special note this season is Jacob Romero Gibson’s Usopp. Broadly characterized as overly cautious and prone to telling tall tales, Usopp is imbued with a relatable vulnerability that never comes at the expense of his more braggadocious comedic beats. Gibson’s tightrope job is commendable, never falling into any one of a host of possible caricatures.
Similarly, Mackenyu gamely tempers sullen swordsman Roronoa Zoro’s intensity with moments of foggy humor, but where he truly shines this season is in his action sequences. Zoro’s fight against a hundred assassins in, on, and around Episode 3’s Whiskey Peak Saloon is representative of the show’s spectacle at its best. Although the rest of the season’s action pales fairly dramatically in comparison, the sets, stunts, and score remain some of the best in the game.
Taz Skylar’s crew chef, Sanji, as well as Emily Rudd’s crew navigator, Nami, both deftly bounce through action sequences and off fellow crew members, all while shouldering the more emotionally charged scenes among the Straw Hats. The crew’s chemistry — a highlight of last season — tangibly deepens; its chemistry was so palpable it warranted protective eyewear.
Whereas audiences bought into the confidently eccentric yet wholly sincere world of “One Piece” in Season 1, Season 2 threw even more color into the mix. Each new character expands and deepens the world in their own way. Lera Abova slinks brooding and catlike as Miss All Sunday, a cool but deadly persona concealing her character’s multitudes. While more underwhelming than expected, her introduction, as well as those of her assassin associates in Baroque Works, opens more doors of darkness to conquer down the line. Contrasting her ruthlessness is Nefertari Vivi of Alabasta (Charithra Chandran), an undercover princess determined to save her kingdom from Baroque Works by any means possible. Vivi makes for a grounding, if temporary, addition to Luffy’s crew, aligning it with her strong moral compass and giving the Straw Hats a concrete cause to fight for in the next season. Callum Kerr’s Captain Smoker is another standout, carrying a Marine might — and a cigar bandolier — which posed the first real threat to Luffy’s apparent invincibility.
Befitting its budget and parent streamer, “One Piece” is host to consistently stellar visual effects. As the cast of supernaturally-powered characters grows, increasingly outlandish abilities and situations are convincingly brought to life. Creature work is heightened with the introduction of Tony Tony Chopper, a reindeer-boy hybrid who joins the Straw Hats as the crew’s doctor. While dubious blue-screen backgrounds pose an issue beyond the reach of modern technology, “One Piece” makes up for it with masterful integration of practical sets and effects. Chopper is again a standout in this department, but everyone — from a pair of ethnically-ambiguous giants to a legion of regurgitated cyborg mutants — is outfitted in fantastic costuming and makeup. It’s nice to see expensive, teen-oriented Netflix shows looking this good again.
Inaki Godoy’s hyperelastic captain Luffy — arguably the revelation of the first season — is still impishly charming, although there’s a persistent feeling that the luster is fading. We are given no reason to believe that Luffy is anything but hopelessly devoted to his crew, but as the stakes and scale increase, the strain of finding new depths of that devotion has become palpable, if not yet obtrusive. This feels less like a failure of Godoy’s performance than of the material he has to work with. The few chances Netflix had to shed light on Luffy’s reflective qualities in addition to his stretchy ones — such as the “impossible” scaling of Drum Mountain with a gravely-ill Nami on his back — the showrunners dimmed the significance of.
It is an unenviable task to complimentarily portray the unwavering naivety of a character who has aged a matter of days in-universe, when it’s been nearly three years since the first season’s release. To his credit, Godoy’s Luffy remains reassuringly familiar. To his detriment, it is to a degree that the audience is left wondering how soon he’ll outgrow the shtick, or vice versa.
If “Into the Grand Line” comes close to truly slipping up, it’s in its pace. Whereas the first season’s template was to dispense a new crew member’s backstory with each episode, the second season’s arcs are divided into the islands the crew hops to, which works in the first three episodes, but falters as longer arcs are devoted to each sequential island. The culminating three-episode Drum Island stretch moves at an ungainly clip, bouncing between past and present in a way that undermines the material’s gravity. The result remains consistent and energetic enough to enthrall, but falls short of Season 1’s crow’s nest of a high bar.
Its blemishes may just barely hold “Into the Grand Line” back from topping its predecessor, but this sophomore season still manages to sail triumphantly over the horizon as a great anime adaptation. Its winning approach recalls Richard Donner’s thoughts on his “Superman” (1978): “The key to the whole concept … is verisimilitude. We’ve treated it as truth.” As confident as ever, “One Piece” has solidified its status as the gold standard for adapting the campy and gonzo with earnestness and heart, among anime and otherwise.
