One Piece's 2026 Netflix Return Replaces Luffy To Start A New Trend
Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.
Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."
One Piece has returned in 2026 with a new release that replaces Luffy in a key way, and it marks the start of a trend for Netflix's take on the beloved fantasy franchise. Netflix's slate of TV shows features quite a few fantasy hits, with the genre performing well for the streaming service both in the United States and around the world.
Over the years, Netflix has found success with fantasy shows in both live-action and animation, with a few hits including Henry Cavill's The Witcher, Arcane, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and One Piece. All of these shows have something in common, the fact that they are all adaptations. Be it from novels, manga, anime, video games, or more, Netflix's fantasy shows tend to succeed in casting and story.
One Piece's cast is living proof of that, as the streaming service needed to get beloved characters that have appeared in hundreds of animated episodes right for this live-action take. Chief among them was casting the right Monkey D. Luffy, making him charismatic and optimistic, rather than coming across as annoying, which could have been the result with an actor who did not perfectly embody the character.
Thankfully, Netflix's One Piece dodged a bullet in that regard when it cast Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, with the actor approved by franchise creator Eiichiro Oda himself. That is why it is so interesting that Netflix's new One Piece release in 2026 replaces Luffy as the character it focuses on, a trend that is seemingly only starting at the streamer.
Netflix's One Piece Releases Are Making A Trend Out Of Replacing Luffy
After season 1 was released back in 2023, Netflix's One Piece season 2 was released on March 10, with all of its eight episodes dropping on the streaming service at once. More recently, on September 29, Netflix released another One Piece project for fans of the hit fantasy series before season 3 is set to come to the streaming service in 2027. The franchise went back to its animated roots, with Lego One Piece, a two-part special that goes over the story of the first two seasons of the live-action series in with the usual Lego humor and visual style.
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Along with that new project came a change of focus, as Usopp is the main character of Lego One Piece, telling Chopper about the events of the show's first two seasons, although with some creative liberties that put him above Luffy as the main player in the Straw Hats' success thus far.
This Netflix trend of replacing Luffy as the focus begins with the Lego special and should carry over to 2027's One Piece season 3, which will be about Charithra Chandran's Vivi trying to save her home of Alabasta from a rebellion put in motion by Joe Manganiello's Sir Crocodile. Given how there are multiple arcs in the One Piece anime where Luffy is absent or not the main focus, there is a chance that future Netflix One Piece releases will bring back this trend after 2027.
Netflix Will Even Replace The Original One Piece Anime
It is not only Luffy that Netflix is replacing, but also the original One Piece anime. No, that does not mean that the Toei Animation series is coming to an end, but Netflix is developing a new way to experience the story. The streamer's The One Piece will debut in February 2027, with the upcoming Netflix anime being produced by WIT Studio.
The One Piece season 1 will consist of seven episodes and adapt the first 50 chapters of the manga, ending with Luffy meeting Sanji. The goal is for the new series to be a retelling without the filler of the original anime, so there is a chance that new viewers will rather start the franchise through The One Piece than get lost in over 1000 episodes of the pre-existing series. As such, Netflix's new One Piece trend could continue in another format, beyond just replacing Luffy as the focus of certain releases.
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One Piece
7/10
- Release Date
- August 31, 2023
- Network
- Netflix
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Iñaki Godoy
Monkey D. Luffy
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Emily Rudd
Nami
Young pirate Monkey D. Luffy and his diverse crew embark on a daring quest for treasure and notoriety. Kicking off with the Season 1 release on Netflix in 2023, One Piece brings the adventurous world of the popular manga to life in live-action, capturing Luffy's relentless pursuit of the legendary One Piece treasure.
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Lego One Piece
- Release Date
- 2026 - 2026-00-00
- Network
- Netflix
Cast
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Iñaki Godoy
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
-
Emily Rudd
Nami (voice)
An animated adventure film that brings the world of One Piece to life in Lego's vibrant block style. Usopp narrates the saga of the Straw Hat Pirates as they navigate the East Blue and Grand Line, chronicling their exploits prior to Chopper's arrival.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.