In the live-action adaptation of One Piece, real actors take on the roles of the Straw Hat crew. The swordsman Zoro is portrayed by Mackenyu Arata. However, unlike his colleagues, he had to tone it down a bit as he even surpassed Zoro’s skills.
Why is Mackenyu too good for Zoro? In an interview, Mackenyu’s colleague Steven John Ward, who appears in the series as Mihawk, revealed that Mackenyu is a good swordsman (via TikTok). The actor playing Zoro has been taking sword fighting lessons since he was about 3 years old.
The problem: At the beginning of One Piece, Mihawk is the best swordsman in the world. Zoro has the big dream of surpassing him one day. However, at the very start of the anime, Zoro loses to Mihawk in a duel.
You can get a glimpse of how good his skills really are in the following trailer:
That is why the actor playing Mihawk had to make an effort to make his swordsmanship look better than Mackenyu’s. He had to learn in 3 months what Mackenyu had about 23 years to perfect.
The extent of Mackenyu’s skills is highlighted in an example from Ward:
This man is so good at sword fighting. He would attack you with the sword in a way that he would stop just a few millimeters in front of my nose. He is really incredible with swords.
Steven John Ward, via TikTok
However, Ward revealed that the actor playing Zoro helped him a bit. He might have purposely acted a bit clumsy or shared tips on how to appear like a real swordsman.
Another Straw Hat pirate had to train harder
What do fans say about it? In the comments below the TikTok video featuring the interview, many fans are impressed by the performance of the two. Both acted fantastically.
One user assumes that we will see even better fights with Zoro in season 2. Mackenyu could not bring his own stunt double team due to the Covid pandemic that was present at the time of filming.
The stunt team provided for him on site could not keep up with him. Therefore, Mackenyu had to tone it down a bit. Whether that is true, we will see with season 2 of the Netflix series.
Were the other actors also such natural talents? Besides Zoro, Sanji is one of the Straw Hat pirates who shows the most physical effort. Unlike Luffy, his fight effects were not created with CGI, which is why actor Taz Skylar trained 8 hours daily to shoot as many scenes as possible without his stunt double. Through his intense training, he was able to perform the fight scenes himself.
Another member of the Straw Hat crew probably won’t have to worry, as CGI effects will be used here just like with Luffy. The premiere will be in season 2: One Piece on Netflix is getting season 2 and a new character is joining
