Netflix's One Piece anime has been running for countless episodes and has explored many different storylines, meaning Netflix's TV show has barely scratched the surface.

However, the biggest problem that the live-action show currently faces is the extended gap between seasons. Although One Piece is one of Netflix's most ed shows at the moment, it will be difficult to maintain this popularity when audiences are made to wait over two years for each story. As audiences have seen with other long-running Netflix shows like Stranger Things, these long waits between seasons can make it difficult to regulate the characters' ages. This is just one of the many problems that One Piece will have to overcome if it's going to become the next great live-action anime adaptation.

One Piece's Live-Action Actors Will Eventually Age Out Of Their Characters

The Show Will Have To Adapt The Characters' Ages

One of the biggest problems posed by the long gap between One Piece's first and second seasons (and any future installments) is the growing age gap between the characters and the actors. Since the show is an adaptation, the characters already have ages established in previous works. And when they are animated, it is much easier for them to stay the same age indefinitely even if the voice actors are getting older. However, if Netflix's show wants to stay true to the original, it will need to stay close to the characters' ages in the source material, if not exactly the same.

This could be a major problem for One Piece if the wait between seasons gets any longer, as there's no way to prevent the actors from getting older during this time off-air. The actors could easily play characters younger than themselves — this is something that's done all the time on TV — but it would still potentially raise questions about the series' accuracy and tone. There are plenty of key moments from the One Piece anime that must be included in season 2 of the show, and these may not feel authentic if the actors are clearly a different age than their characters should be.

One Piece's Two-Year Time Skip Is The Perfect Chance To Adjust The Characters' Ages

The Anime Includes A Perfect Opportunity To Age The Characters

Coincidentally, there's an obvious in-universe tool that One Piece's writers could leverage to overcome this problem. Although the live-action show is nowhere near this point in the story yet, there's actually a very useful time skip in the One Piece anime that propels the story forward two years, aging up the characters and developing their stories off-screen. If the Netflix show can reach this important moment in the narrative in a timely fashion, the writers could use it to neatly explain the actors getting older between seasons.

Nothing major happens to the characters during this window, so there's no reason for the writers to stick to exactly two years.

The writers could even make this time skip even longer in the Netflix TV show, as two years is a somewhat arbitrary number concerning the actual story. Nothing major happens to the characters during this window, so there's no reason for the writers to stick to exactly two years. They could easily increase it to three, four, or even five years depending on how much time has ed since the first season's release (or applying to any future hiatuses). With reports that season 2 of One Piece may not come out until 2026, this could prove to be extremely useful.

Netflix's One Piece Characters Can Age More Realistically Than The Ones In The Manga

The Writers Can Make An Interesting Change To Their Character Arcs

The reason that One Piece fans are so concerned about the characters' ages in the Netflix show is that aging works very differently in anime and manga. Again, because the characters are animated or illustrated, there's no requirement to age them up alongside their actors. For this reason, many of One Piece's most important characters have remained the same age for multiple years of the show.

One Piece's anime has much more freedom when it comes to playing around with the show's timeline when it can claim so much is happening within a certain period, no matter how long it takes them to produce new episodes. It's much easier to elongate certain periods of time, flash forward or backward in time, and not worry about casting older or younger versions of the characters. Unfortunately, this is a liberty that doesn't carry across into the live-action format.

The first season of Netflix's One Piece was released on August 31, 2023.

For this reason, it may be a good idea to give the One Piece characters a more logical aging process in the Netflix show. The writers may have to change certain aspects of the story to make the characters older as the seasons progress, which means that some plot points may appear out of order. Thankfully, the few changes that One Piece made to the anime have all been executed with care and respect for the source material, so there's no reason to expect that this would be any different.

Netflix Cannot Take Too Long To Release New Seasons Of One Piece

The Show Needs To Hurry If It Wants To Maintain Interest

Regardless of how the Netflix One Piece writers decide to tackle this looming problem, it is vital that audiences aren't made to wait several years between seasons. This is detrimental to the show's success in many ways: Not only does it run the risk of viewers losing interest and not returning after two years, but it also means that existing fans of One Piece's anime may not invest time in this adaptation in the first place. They know the anime will always be there, and it's releasing episodes at a much higher rate than the live-action show.

Netflix will always be in competition with the anime, so it's important that this live-action version can keep up to speed; the aging problem is only the tip of the iceberg.

Netflix will always be in competition with the anime, so it's important that this live-action version can keep up to speed; the aging problem is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much existing material in the One Piece universe that Netflix needs to cover before the important time skip, and it's entirely possible the show simply won't reach that part of the story in time. Some creative liberties will definitely need to be taken, but if these are done correctly, Netflix's One Piece can exist concurrently with the anime — albeit for a slightly different audience.