Mackenyu, the actor who plays Roronoa Zoro in the One Piece live-action adaptation by Netflix has received quite a lot of love and appreciation from the fans for his portrayal. Mackenyu was able to bring out the rude, but insanely strong persona of Zoro from the anime and manga in real life, thus earning the respect from One Piece fans.
His performance as the swordsman of the Straw Hat Pirates was spot on, and fans eagerly await to see him bring the role of Zoro back to life once again in season 2. While season 2 might not have a major focus on the character, fans still want to see Mackenyu portraying Zoro at its best. However, One Piece fans are not the only ones who are in love with Mackenyu.
Eiichiro Oda, the creator of the original One Piece manga, also seems to have become a Mackenyu fan. He loved Mackenyu’s enactment of Zoro so much that since the release of the first season of One Piece Live-action, Oda hears Mackenyu’s voice every time he draws Roronoa Zoro. This information was revealed by Kazuki Yao, the voice actor of Franky, the Shipwright of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Eiichiro Oda Hears Mackenyu’s Voice While Drawing Roronoa Zoro
During the Kuwait Comic Con, Mackenyu and Franky’s voice actor Yao shared a panel. A clip of the panel was shared by @philazora, the popular Mackenyu fan account on X (formerly Twitter), in which fans can see Yao talking about how Eiichiro Oda hears Mackenyu’s voice whenever he draws Zoro in the storyline of One Piece.
Yao stated:
“And whenever he’s drawing Zoro, he hears Macken’s voice. Yeah! Somehow, that’s how it is! So he draws [Zoro] while imagining Macken’s voice to the extent that everything has become unified. It’s because the staff and the actors created this together. That becomes powerful. It’s an incredible work.”
Since the first season of One Piece live-action, Oda has been deeply associated with the storyline, the cast, the character depiction, and almost every aspect of the series. He believes that the live-action series has the potential to reach a lot further than the fans and critics expect, thus he has been developing Zoro by imagining Mackenyu’s voice and behavior to help him in the future.
Eiichiro Oda’s Involvement in One Piece Live-Action
As an executive producer of the One Piece live-action series, Oda is closely involved with the series. The creators and the showrunners have explicitly confirmed this multiple times, that nothing in the series is changed without Oda’s permission. Also, the involvement of the creator of the original work helps in the betterment of the series in general.
Although Oda has accepted that some changes are needed for the One Piece live-action series, he has had some non-negotiables for the series, and the staff, despite having the freedom to interpret their story according to their convenience, respect Oda’s decisions and trust him with the success of the storyline or the series in general.
As Oda has helped in the success of the first season of Netflix’s One Piece live-action adaptation, fans can trust that the creator is going to step in once again for the second season and make sure it is a potential success just like its predecessor.
You can watch One Piece live-action on Netflix.
