At the end of One Piece Season 1, Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Usopp and Sanji were ready to set sail for The Grand Line. Following a brief stop in Loguetown, they’ll reach their destination in One Piece Season 2, and one of the first things they’ll see is the massive, scarred whale known as Laboon. While we continue waiting to learn when we’ll be able to stream the next season with a Netflix subscription, Taz Skylar, who plays Sanji, opened up about the experience of working inside the gigantic Laboon set.
Although the One Piece Season 2 trailer showed a glimpse of Laboon at the end, EW has shared crisp images of the whale in all his glory. Obviously CGI is necessary to bring this “Big Friendly” creature to “life,” but the show’s crew also went the extra mile to construct this set. Taz Skylar revealed that the practical Laboon was repurposed from the One Piece team’s largest boat set, explaining:
Literally the size of a cruise ship… They had the whole stomach lined in, and the stomach acid at the bottom. It had shipwrecks inside the whale, and it was way bigger than the size of a normal whale; it was the size of a monster, dinosaur whale — like a megalodon whale. Huge whale.
Like his counterpart from the original manga/anime, Laboon from Netflix’s One Piece has been living for decades by Reverse Mountain, which is one of the main entrances into The Grand Line and has a river flowing upwards. His scars come from repeatedly ramming his head into the side of the mountain in an attempt to try to reach the pirates that he traveled with as a child. Those pirates left Laboon in the care of Crocus, a doctor played by Game of Thrones’ Clive Russell.
For those who haven’t read the One Piece manga or watched the anime, you can still infer from what Taz Skylar said about the Laboon set that some of the Netflix show’s characters will end up inside of the whale. And yet, as incredible as the set looked, it lacked a roof, which resulted in an awkward situation. The actor recalled:
If it rained, we were screwed. So, one day, it started raining really badly and we all took shelter in the butt of the whale, waiting for it to stop raining. It was one of the most surreal experiences.
Laboon is just the opening salvo of what awaits the Straw Hat Pirates after they cross the Grand Line. One Piece Season 2 will also feature the giants Brogy and Dorry and the adorable walking and talking reindeer Chopper, and on a less positive note, our protagonists will clash with the criminal organization Baroque Works. These are all stepping stones on Luffy’s journey to become King of the Pirates and find the One Piece with the help of his friends.
Hopefully these recent looks at One Piece Season 2 means that means that the episodes will premiere on Netflix in early 2026. The good news is that the show’s already been renewed for Season 3, so this take on Eiichiro Oda’s fantastical universe isn’t going away anytime soon.