The voice actors for Zoro and Luffy in the One Piece anime sat down to discuss their lines, and their answers about their favorite dialogue might surprise fans.
Nikkei Entertainment magazine invited Luffy’s anime voice actor, Mayumi Tanaka, and Zoro’s voice actor, Kazuya Nakai, on November 4, 2023. With sandman’s translation, fans can learn the sentences This couple’s favorite dialogue. Tanaka comes in as a group, with Ace’s “I wonder if I shouldn’t have been born,” followed by “You’ll find out while you live in it.” These lines were exchanged during the war at Marineford, also known as the War of the Summit. As Ace waited to be executed, he witnessed not only his adoptive father, Whitebeard, come to rescue him but also his brother Luffy. Despised since childhood for being the Pirate King’s son, Ace wondered if he was just a burden that needed to be thrown away. This answer from the helpless Garp speaks to his internal struggle between family ties and justice.
Zoro’s voice actor Nakai’s favorite line is not surprising since it is one of the most important lines in anime. The icon “Nothing happened!!” was said by Zoro to Kuma right after the battle at Thriller Bark, and it was one of the things that most clearly demonstrated Zoro’s loyalty to the Straw Hats. “Luffy is cool sometimes, but Zoro is ALWAYS cool,” Tanaka said. “Nakai is very determined and cold when performing in front of the microphone, but after performing, he becomes a friendly person.” Nakai humbly replied, “In the early days of the One Piece anime, I was often depressed after watching the anime air because I was the only one who wasn’t good at acting compared to the other great Straw Hat VAs.”
While many fans found it interesting to hear the voice actors’ favorite One Piece moments, they also emphasized that the anime won’t last forever. “Netflix’s live-action cast is going to grow up,” Tanaka said, “so they need to shoot the movie quickly. But we anime VAs are much older and we don’t know how many more years the One Piece anime will last, so we need to stay healthy.” This is reminiscent of Tanaka’s bittersweet comments from 2022, which stated, “I have voiced many boy characters in my time and I want to end my voice work in the industry with Luffy.”
You can watch One Piece on Crunchyroll, which recently began releasing an English dubbed version of the anime in July. The anime is currently wrapping up the “Wano” story, with the latest developments described by Crunchyroll as later: “Luffy’s journey takes him and his group to the ruins of Oden Castle, where Kin’emon tells them about his past and his plans to fight there. Onigashima. The Straw Hats are looking for allies in the Kingdom of Wano, but Kaido will not let them operate freely under his supervision.”
In September, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece announced its upcoming Season 2. The writing team for the second season was previewed in a recent behind-the-scenes look last month.
Source: Nikkei Entertainment, X (formerly Twitter)