One Piece Season 2 is available with a Netflix subscription, and it's jam-packed with all the action and fighting fans have come to expect. This included the big Whisky Peak showdown in which Baroque Works tried to sabotage the Straw Hats, and they had to fight their way off the island. In the live-action adaptation, this included a scene in which Zoro had to take on 100 men before his showdown with Mr. 9. Now, the actor behind this fight is sharing details about it, and the fact that there actually were 100 fighters isn't the only wild BTS information he revealed.
Zoro actor Mackenyu, who is a big fan of the franchise, told IGN that he insisted on the scene actually featuring 100 fighters. He also shared some additional details on how it came together:
The process of making that stunt sequence, I told them that it's gotta be a hundred. They're going to count them...six hours for that whole sequence. We had eight days to shoot that whole thing with a broken finger...a lot more work for me, but it was definitely worth it.
I agree with Mackenyu, who has a pretty fun dynamic with One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. That, paired with his fandom, probably gave him the desire to make the scene as big as possible, which resulted in one of Season 2's most memorable moments by far.
The only downside is that it only raised the bar higher for Season 3, which the One Piece cast is in the process of filming. Fortunately, Alabasta is one of the more acclaimed arcs of the series, so I would imagine we'll get a ton of great scenes with Zoro and the rest of the cast. We'll also get Xolo Maridueña as Ace, which will be a treat to watch.
Of course, hearing about 6-hour filming sessions for one fight scene doesn't ease my fear that One Piece will run out of time to tell as much of its story as it wants to. As much as the creators want to go deep into the manga's story, the elaborate set pieces, filming, and time may just wind up making this an impossible series to do all the way through, at least with the same cast. I've seen Mackenyu joke he'd be 80 by the time they filmed the Wano arc, but at this point, that feels like an accurate timeline.
One Piece's live-action adaptation has taken some measures to move the story along, however, and introduced some story elements much earlier than the manga and anime did. Perhaps with that, they'll be able to get through more content in a shorter time, and we'll get to see some of the wild stuff that happens later on in the story after all. Zoro fighting 100 soldiers isn't anything compared to some of his later feats.
One Piece Season 2 is available to stream right now as part of Netflix's 2026 schedule. We're in for a wait for new episodes, but I'm sure that when all is said and done, it'll be well worth it to see whatever the cast and crew have cooked up.
