Who Is Tony Tony Chopper? Netflix's One Piece Season 2 Character Explained
The Straw Hat Pirate crew is about to get a little bigger because Netflix's live-action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's "One Piece" is officially receiving a second season! The news came approximately two weeks after Season 1 dropped on the streaming site and was shared courtesy of Oda himself, who used the Season 2 announcement video to tease the next member of Monkey D. Luffy's (Iñaki Godoy) party. "From here on, it seems to me the Straw Hats will need a great doctor," said Oda, hidden behind his traditional censor image and transponder snail. For those who don't immediately get the reference, Oda goes on to sketch a simple picture of Tony Tony Chopper, the human-reindeer hybrid who becomes the sixth member of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Although "One Piece" features a number of human and animal hybrids, Chopper's state of being is not quite so simple. He owes his more human attributes to the Hito Hito no Mi, a Devil Fruit that bestowed him the ability to transform his body into various human states at will. Known also as "Cotton Candy Lover" because the little guy's got an incurable sweet tooth for candy floss, Chopper joins the Straw Hat pirates in the manga and anime after Luffy and his cohorts visit Drum Island.
His medical inclinations are explained by his adoptive father, a thief-turned-doctor who passed on his fascination for healing. For those less familiar with anime or manga, yes — the concept of a sentient reindeer doctor child who can shapeshift at will is perfectly normal. Natural, even. The potential strangeness only sets in after one considers a live-action adaptation of Chopper.
Will Netflix do Chopper justice?
To Netflix's credit, "One Piece" Season 1 features solid, campy CGI that sells Eiichiro Oda's wild story. Remember, there are already rubber and psychic pirates, so a reindeer pirate isn't exactly going to stand out as odd. That being said, Tony Tony Chopper comes with a different challenge than making Buggy the Star Clown (Jeff Ward) detach his limbs because the latter is a layer of CGI sprinkled over an onscreen human being, while the former is probably going to be wholly computer generated. And that's fine! Movies throw CGI characters into live-action spaces all the time. For instance, "The Guardians of the Galaxy" nailed its iteration of Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper).
The specific concern with Tony Tony Chopper is that he is supposed to be cute in a whimsical world and Hollywood tends to distort cute designs with an unsettling attempt at realism. Remember Paramount's first take on Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwartz)? Yeah, it wasn't pretty. Fortunately, the studio listened to the fans and gave the Blue Blur another pass before releasing the film. In that vein, we know that Netflix can offer decent CGI characters, too. Its adaptation of Gerard Way's "The Umbrella Academy" featured a believable — if that's even the right word for it — version of Pogo (Adam Godley) the monkey butler.
Chopper also offers the challenge of being a character with multiple different recognizable forms. He might choose to exist predominantly as a Funko Pop doll but he can also grow to the size of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or even become a quadruped again. It's a lot to nail down and it won't be easy but, as long as Oda sticks around to guide Netflix, "One Piece" fans should breathe easily.