{"id":649387,"date":"2026-03-12T02:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/649387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T02:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:52:17","slug":"tony-tony-chopper-dragon-characters-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/649387\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Tony Chopper, Dragon Characters Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0<\/strong>This story contains spoilers for \u201cOne Piece<\/a>\u201d Season 2, now streaming on Netflix. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe doctor is in the house: Netflix\u2019s \u201cOne Piece\u201d finally introduced human-reindeer hybrid Tony Tony Chopper in the seventh episode of the second season. It\u2019s a moment that fans of the iconic fuzzy character from Eiichiro Oda\u2019s original \u201cOne Piece\u201d manga have been waiting for since the live-action adaptation was first announced, and one many were worried was too hard to pull off.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd \u201cOne Piece\u201d stars I\u00f1aki Godoy (Monkey D. Luffy), Mackenyu (Roronoa Zoro), Taz Skylar (Sanji), Emily Rudd (Nami) and Jacob Romero (Usopp) assure that bringing the tiny doctor to life was a big task that showrunners Matt Owens and Joe Tracz took very seriously.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, he\u2019s there with us,\u201d Mackenyu tells Variety in a group interview alongside his \u201cOne Piece\u201d co-stars, noting the practical aspects of filming with CGI character Chopper for Season 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix\u2019s \u201cOne Piece\u201d cast Mikaela Hoover to star as the voice and motion capture actor for Chopper, who would carry his tragic backstory \u2014\u00a0and then brought in performers N\u2019kone Mametja to be the on-set proxy and Gavin Gomes to play the supersized \u201cheavy point\u201d version of Chopper he shape shifts into.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s like eight or nine people that go into creating the experience that Chopper is, from on set to its completion,\u201d Romero says. \u201cWe have an actress that\u2019s there \u2014 N\u2019kone, she\u2019s amazing. She\u2019s there with us on the day, crawling around and being like a live presence, filling those lines with emotion and also just helping us block the scenes and all this stuff. There\u2019s also a stuffy version of Chopper that they bring out.\u201d (Skylar says the stuffy version is \u201ca great listener\u201d that \u201cyou can request to have put in your tent, if you want company.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tRomero continues: \u201cThere\u2019s CGI eyes that also come out. Then we have the heavy-point version, which is Gavin, who\u2019s in full prosthetics. So we joke that Chopper is the highest-maintenance actor that we work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe do so many takes for him,\u201d Rudd says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEach version of Chopper has a different personality. Gavin is like a big, mischievous, energetic dude,\u201d Skylar says, as Rudd adds: \u201cN\u2019kone is the sweetest person you\u2019ll ever meet in your entire life, just so gentle and warm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough \u201cMikaela brings all the character to him,\u201d Skylar says, the cast says all the setup assisted in the authenticity of their scenes with the CGI\u2019d Chopper.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a layered production, but just like all the sets and everything else, there\u2019s something there that we could reach out to and interact with and help build our emotional connection with this character,\u201d Romero says.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the end of the season, Chopper has formally joined the Straw Hat Pirates as a crew member on the Going Merry and, along with Princess Vivi (Charithra Chandran), will be a major cast member in Season 3, which is currently in production in South Africa. <\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing these introductions, as well as the early Season 2 tease of the character Dragon (which Godoy says is \u201ca cool thing\u201d that \u201cfans that know what\u2019s up\u201d will understand the implications of), more iconic characters are set to come in Season 3. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut how many characters \u201cOne Piece\u201d fans get to see in the end is TBD, and up to just how far the creators and cast are willing to go when it comes to adapting the more than 1,000-episode anime into a live-action show.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s something that we\u2019ll just see along the way. And as long as it makes sense,\u201d Godoy says. \u201cI don\u2019t think we have an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m committed,\u201d Romero says. \u201cFor the next 150 years, I\u2019m fully committed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers for \u201cOne Piece\u201d Season 2, now streaming on Netflix. The doctor is in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":649388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,242648,80745,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-649387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-just-watched","tag-one-piece","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116213943192777512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}