One Piece: Why this arc was cut from the live-action series

The Loguetown arc was cut from Netflix’s live-action One Piece, and now the showrunners have revealed their regrets.

The live-action One Piece is finally on Netflix, though obviously not to the scope of the anime series, which has been going for over 20 years. There are only eight episodes in the live-action series, meaning only a certain section of the story can be covered. And while the show covered many arcs, one storyline it cut short was the Loguetown arc.

The plan for the series had initially indicated that there would be 100 chapters of the original manga adapted. Because of this, fans were surprised not to see the Loguetown arc, since it encompassed the final five chapters of those 100.

Now, the live-action co-showrunner Steven Maeda has revealed his reasons, and his regrets.

One Piece showrunners regret cutting Loguetown arc

In an interview with Screen Rant, Steven Maeda revealed one of his biggest regrets when it came to adapting the material for the live-action show, which was having to cut the Loguetown arc. He stated that there had been plans to keep it in, but cut it to avoid rushing the whole season:

“The biggest one for me that we didn’t get to do was Loguetown in the present day, and we needed two more episodes to be able to do it and there wasn’t the budget, there wasn’t the screen time. And there wasn’t room in the eight episodes to do it the way that it deserved to be done.

“And so we see Loguetown in the very beginning with Rogers’ execution. And then, of course, I wanted to come back to Loguetown and just couldn’t fit it in the eight episodes. I felt like we were rushing, and it was also a very expensive build. And so that’s a regret, for sure.”

However, the arc may not be cut completely, as Maeda’s sentiments hint that there could be plans to portray the storyline in another season. Which it should, since the arc holds a lot of importance: It has the return of Buggy, along with Alvida, and many other characters, friend or foe, that we won’t spoil.

The One Piece live-action remake is now available to stream in full on Netflix. In the meantime, check out our other coverage below:

• Netflix renews One Piece live-action for second season
• One Piece live-action cast & characters
• One Piece live-action Season 2 script confusion explained
• Why One Piece live-action could have 12 seasons
• One Piece live-action: 6 arcs likely to be adapted in Season 2
• One Piece live-action becomes the top series in over 50 countries
• One Piece live-action series review: A joyous sail through the seas