Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ season 2 casting news has me curious about Tony Tony Chopper

This week, One Piece fans finally got our live action Nico Robin and Crocodile castings. That means that, now, we’ve gotten every major casting from season two—with one glaring exception. We still don’t know about Tony Tony Chopper.

During Netflix’s Geeked Week event, we got a tease of the back of Chopper’s head, and everyone went absolutely wild. That’s our son, and we cannot wait to see him. But my first viewing of the clip was taken out of context, with Iñaki Godoy saying “oh my god” over the top, and I found myself wondering, “That‘s Chopper’s voice?!” (Friends, it was not.)

With all the news and the teases this week, my curiosity over how Netflix’s live action One Piece will treat my dear boy—how he’ll move, how his face looks, and how he’ll sound—is higher than ever.

Hoping for the best for my son

One Piece‘s live action castings famously don’t miss—unless you want to get into the discussion about the complicated feelings over not picking Egyptian actors for Vivi and Cobra. So I have faith that they’ll find the right voice for a character as beloved and important as Chopper. But the wait! Goddamn, they’re really making us wait!

In Japanese, Chopper shares his voice actress, Ikue Otani, with Pikachu (and Morgana from Persona 5, if you’d like that extra trivia). In other words, we’re all used to Chopper’s voice is just as adorable as he is. We need cute.

One easy solution would be to recruit Chopper’s English dub actress, Brina Palencia. It looks like they’re going the CG route with Chopper, as opposed to making Chopper a puppet, as many wished. That means he’s animated, so you can just get the person who already plays him while animated. There’s a history of using the anime cast within OPLA already, since the anime’s iconic Japanese cast cast performed the Japanese dub of OPLA.

It’s possible they might also want someone who could be on set to perform actorly feats for the cast to interact with. But also, Palencia has done TV acting. She appeared in The Walking Dead, even. Still, it’s possible they want to create their own identity, and therefore have a new actor for Chopper.

Whether OPLA decides to strengthen its ties to the anime by recruiting Chopper’s anime voice actress or cast someone new, I’m eager to see what’s in store for my dear, special little guy.