Lego One Piece Showrunner Wanted to Push the Humor "to Another Level"

The showrunner and executive producer of Lego One Piece says the big draw of retelling the story in Lego animation was "the opportunity to tell it in a little bit of a different way with a little bit more humor to it." Having already worked on One Piece as a writer on the live action series, he told me the chance to push the comedy further this time really spoke to him.

I had a chance to check out the first episode, and it is just so much fun. I am a fan, and the live action was actually my first exposure to One Piece, because I had always been very afraid of diving into more than 1,000 episodes. So I was curious what pulled someone from that live action team into this new version, and where the jokes, the visuals and the cast came from.

A comedy background drew him to Lego One Piece's bigger humor

He explained that he comes from a comedy background, so being able to joke around more was what spoke to him. He was quick to point out that there are plenty of jokes in the live action too, but he wanted "to really kind of push it to another level." And, he added with a laugh, it is Lego, which was exciting no matter what.

When I asked whether he grew up playing with Lego, he said he definitely did as a kid, though not that much. He now has two young sons, so he expects Lego will re-enter his life in a pretty substantial way fairly soon. What really resonated with him, he said, was the first Lego movie: how awesome, funny and well told it was, and how it put Lego on the map as an animation juggernaut, along with everything the brand has done since.

The team hunted for Lego build moments like the Going Merry

He said there are moments in the live action that already felt like natural Lego material, pointing to the building of the Going Merry as a pretty great Lego moment. That led to a lot of discussion in the writers' process about whether a scene had room for a build moment or a big Lego specific gag.

The team went through the scripts and the animatics looking for more opportunities, asking whether there was another place, and another place, to fit something in. He said the Lego humor needed to be a big part of the show, so they spent a lot of time trying to get in as much as they could. As he put it, "I don't really recall anything where it was like, 'Okay, this is too much.'" His view is that with Lego, as far as your imagination can go, it will work.

Nothing was too big, though Luffy's stretching bent the rules

That was one of my own questions. Animation feels so boundless to me: anything you want to see, you can draw, whereas live action runs into roadblocks where something is physically impossible and special effects can only do so much. So I asked whether he ever imagined a sequence and had to pull back the reins for fear of upsetting the animators.

Luckily, he said, the animators are also big One Piece fans, and they never complained. Their attitude was that they could make it work. He did note that there are certain things Lego pieces cannot do that live action can, so there was always a balance to find. Luffy stretching was one case where the team decided they did not have to follow the Lego rules exactly. Beyond that, he could not recall anything being ruled too much or too big, which he said is exactly what a writer wants.

Director Chelsea's hand drawn manga touches set the show apart

I noticed the show likes to play with Lego itself. In one sequence, the frame turns into a panel, not a comic book or manga panel, but a page from the build instructions. When I asked about other nods or Easter eggs, he said he would rather leave the actual Easter eggs for fans to figure out.

What he did share was a decision made very early on with Chelsea, the director. She raised the question of how to visually differentiate this from other Lego properties and bring the world of the manga into the world of Lego. The answer was to add 2D, hand drawn, manga style elements throughout. Water splashes are hand drawn, and so are smoke bombs and explosions. Some backgrounds are even matte drawn, and certain impacts during fights are very manga specific.

He said it was an element the whole team was very proud of, and he called it not quite an Easter egg because it is right there on screen, but something different. He was generous with the credit: "Chelsea was an absolute genius when she came up with that." I noticed it too. It was not all 3D animation, and that really made it stand out from other Lego animated projects I have seen.

The live action cast returned to voice their Lego characters

I was also surprised to see a bit of live action in there, because I expected the whole thing to be Lego. When Usopp and Chopper popped up, it made sense, since they are telling the story, and it gave me Princess Bride vibes, like the grandfather reading the story.

He called having the live action actors voice their characters awesome. After living with these characters for roughly five years, they could step into the booth without the team having to figure out what each character should sound like, which made the process much more collaborative. There were small tweaks, mostly going bigger than the live action because it is animated, but otherwise it was free flowing. Everyone was excited to be part of it, which he said makes the work easy.

Because the actors know their characters so well, they would sometimes suggest that Usopp, for example, might say a line differently. He said he deferred to them: he has lived in that world a little, but not the way they have. As long as a change did not alter the context, which he said never happened, he was happy to go with it. Most sessions happened in the booth, largely over Zoom, though he did end up traveling to set. Coordinating people in Spain, Mexico, South Africa, New York and elsewhere took a lot of logistics, but he thinks the end result was well worth the early mornings.

Moving from live action writer to showrunner brought far more responsibility

He was a writer on the first two seasons of the live action, which came with some responsibilities, but he said he was nowhere near the top of the list, so there was a little less pressure. On Lego One Piece, as showrunner and executive producer, he said there are a lot more responsibilities, and there is always a lot of pressure on something this big.

Still, it felt like an organic move. Using the live action as a template took some of the pressure off, because, in his words, "We already know that we did that correctly." They wanted to change it somewhat, but they knew the foundation was solid and that they had a great story to tell because they had already told it. He was involved in a lot more logistics this time, and he enjoyed seeing the inner workings and being someone whose opinion actually matters. It is pressure, he said, but a lot of fun.

The showrunner hopes Usopp's unreliable narration will intrigue longtime fans

For fans who have read the manga, seen the anime and watched the live action, he said the hope is that this tells the same story in a much different way, and is not a one for one remake. He pointed to the different storytelling aspect with Usopp, who he described as "let's say loose with the truth," and said he hopes that intrigues people. How Usopp tells the story is, he thinks, the main thing. There are also more jokes and bigger action. "I don't even know how that's physically possible, but I think we kind of did it," he said.

He acknowledged that many fans love rewatching things they have seen a thousand times, but hopes this is a switch up they can enjoy. It is quick, about an hour, so he hopes people just have fun with it. I appreciate the retelling for friends who tell me they cannot get into One Piece because there is so much of it. Even with the shorter time commitment, nothing felt missed, and I kept wondering how they fit it all into that runtime. Having Chopper ask questions throughout also helps, and he agreed it adds clarity.

He hopes newcomers who only show up because they love Lego will think it is really cool and want to go deeper, and there are many ways to do that. It can seem like everyone is already a One Piece fan, he said, but the goal is to find the few who have not jumped in yet and bring them in. "And then we'll have world domination, and it'll be great."

Will Usopp's loose relationship with the truth win over longtime fans, or is Lego One Piece really best as a way in for newcomers?