One Piece mangaka Eiichiro Oda is worshipped as a God in the series’ fandom, thanks to his exceptional worldbuilding and also his foreshadowing skills which complement each other well. When it comes to the world of One Piece, Oda is the judge and executioner.

However, despite having unquestionable command over the series he created, Oda was caught off-guard by a question that was put forth by the Netflix live action adaptation’s production designer Richard Bridgland.

The author himself found the query, which was related to a worldbuilding aspect of One Piece, so genuine that he had no option but acknowledged it.

The world building aspect being questioned was electricity.

During the pre-production, when Bridgland was working with cinematographer Nicole Whitaker, the matter of lighting came up.

Lighting holds a much higher importance when it came to live-action adaptations than anime, which can just ‘fabricate’ its own light, and even manga, whose black and white panels only make a distinction between day and night.

Depending on whether or not there was electricity in the world of One Piece, the designs for the sets’ lighting would change completely. And this was not an easy task to deal with, according to Bridgland.

“I remember one of the big things was about whether there was electricity in the world. It was really interesting because I needed to have electricity in the world for lighting because otherwise everything was gonna be candlelight and fire and everything, and it was gonna be so it could get very one note like that,” the production designer told Collider’s Mark Thomas.

Oda was indeed stumped by this question, because it was probably not something he had think about much during all these years of creating the work.

“It was interesting because he came back, and he said, ‘That’s such a good question’. He’d never really thought of it in such a bold way,” Bridgland said, recollecting the mangaka’s response.

However, the discussion on electricity as a world building aspect in One Piece did not end there. Bridgland also asked Oda if he could use the concept of Cola Power, which is famously used by Franky to power all his tech, and which appears at a later stage in the manga, instead of electricity in the live action adaptation.

But Oda felt that introducing Cola Power this early in the series would not be wise choice and opted against it. Instead, he gave the live-action team the permission to use electricity.

“Look, don’t use the cola power. That’s something that appears later in the story arc, but let’s say, yes, there’s electricity,” Oda responded to Bridgland.

So, as a result of this discussion, both electricity and Cola Power exist in the world of One Piece Live Action at this point.

One Piece live-action will release on Aug 31, 2023, exclusively on Netflix. A final trailer for the series was released on Aug 30, 2023. You can check it out below.

The One Piece live-action cast includes Iñaki Godoy, who portrays Monkey D. Luffy, Emily Rudd as Nami, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, and Taz Skylar will play Sanji. Colton Osorio will portray a young Luffy.

Furthermore, Peter Gadiot will play Shanks, Morgan Davies as Koby, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino as Alvida, Aidan Scott as Helmeppo, Jeff Ward as Buggy, McKinley Belcher III as Arlong, and Vincent Regan as Garp.

The other cast members include:

• Alexander Maniatis as Klahadore
• Steven Ward as Mihawk
• Craig Fairbrass as Chef Zeff
• Langley Kirkwood as Captain Morgan
• Celeste Loots as Kaya
• Chioma Umeala as Nojiko

It was previously revealed that the original Japanese voice actors will be returning to portray their characters for the Japanese dub of the live-action adaptation

The live-action will be adapting the East-Blue Saga from the One Piece manga and then “broaden from there”. Matt Owens will serve as the upcoming show’s writer, while Steven Maeda and Becky Clements will be executive producers along with Eiichiro Oda.

The soundtrack for the live action, titled “Wealth, Fame, Power,” is composed by Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, best known for their work on “The Witcher“.

Netflix will exclusively stream the series, produced by Tomorrow Studios, a partnership between producer Marty Adelstein and ITV Studios.

The live action adaptation was under production in South Africa since Feb 1, 2022.

Source: Collider