Netflix’s One Piece: Joe Manganiello Explains How Crocodile Is Luffy’s “Dark Potential Future”

One Piece has added Joe Manganiello to the cast of Netflix’s live-action series ahead of Season 2, and the star explained that his character represents a “dark potential future” path for Monkey D. Luffy. One Piece is now hard at work on its production for Season 2 of the live-action series since earlier this year, and the cast has been getting stacked with all sorts of new additions making their debuts in the coming arcs from Eiichiro Oda’s original manga series. Manganiello was announced to be officially joining the cast during Netflix’s Geeked Week this year, and has since revealed how much research he’s done into the characters. 

In a special video released by Netflix featuring One Piece‘s showrunner Matt Owens, Joe Manganiello opened up about joining the live-action series as Sir Crocodile and revealed that he’s been actually doing quite a bit of research into the role. In talking about his approach to the character leading into the new episodes, Manganiello explained that while going over all of the material he came across a unique vision for the character. Mentioning Crocodile’s loss to Whitebeard, Manganiello explained that he represents a “dark potential future” for Luffy in where he wallowed in his losses than overcome them. 

Netflix’s One Piece: How Crocodile Is Like Luffy

“I have like tables and chairs full of all these different versions of Crocodile to look at while I’m going through this material. But I mean, for me, a lot of it is, it has to be real,” Manganiello began. “And especially when you’re playing a character that people want to call a ‘villain,’ it’s like, well, he just has different intentions. And a different path than some of the other characters.” Through all of this, Manganiello also honed in on a connection between Crocodile and Luffy that fans might not have even recognized themselves after all this time. 

“But what I found, he is this flip side of the coin from Luffy. Potentially,” Manganiello continued. “He represents this dark potential future for Luffy. If he’s affected or allows the trauma of defeat to infect him the way it was for me, and I think that there’s a part of Crocodile that wants everyone to suffer the way he did after Whitebeard, or with the disappointment of not becoming the King of the Pirates and letting that go. And of course, not trusting your friends.” So as Manganiello sees it, Luffy can become just like Crocodile if he goes down a darker path. 

Who Is Crocodile? 

Crocodile makes his debut in Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga as the first major foe that Luffy and the Straw Hats will come across in their adventures across the Grand Line. The first season came to an end with the tease that the Straw Hats would officially begin this adventure, and soon they’ll discover that all of the threats to come are much more dangerous than anyone they have faced in the East Blue. And the biggest example of this change is Crocodile, who is in control of the mysterious Baroque Works group. 

With Manganiello’s insight, it seems that One Piece will be showcasing a different side of this villain for the live-action series. It’ll likely be a much different take on it that Manganiello will bring to the table, and it makes it even more exciting to see it all come to fruition. But as of the time of this publication, the release window or date for One Piece Season 2 has yet to be announced.