One Piece Season 3 Has Begun Filming, And I’m So Glad We’ll Be Seeing Way More Of Four Specific Characters

One Piece Season 2 is just a few months away from premiering on the 2026 TV schedule, but for the Netflix subscription-exclusive show’s cast and crew, the time has come to work on Season 3. The third batch of One Piece episodes are now filming in Cape Town, South Africa. Along with this announcement coming with a cool tease tied to Portgas D. Ace, Monkey D. Luffy’s brother, I’m excited to learn that four characters we’re meeting in Season 2 will have a lot more screen time in Season 3.

Let’s start with that tease first. As seen below, the One Piece Season 3 premiere script, titled “Where There’s Smoke,” is sitting out in the desert alongside a human skull, a Log Pose (which allows one to safely traverse the Grand Line), and a distinctive-looking dagger. That dagger, in fact, belongs to Ace, who will be played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña in the live-action adaptation.

As if this wasn’t a big enough One Piece reveal to kick off this week, Netflix also announced that Joe Manganiello, Mikaela Hoover, Lera Abova and Sendhil Ramamurthy have all been promoted to series regulars in Season 3. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s familiar with the Alabasta arc from the One Piece manga or anime, but it’s nonetheless good to hear that Manganiello’s Crocodile, Hoover’s Tony Tony Chopper, Abova’s Miss All-Sunday and Ramamurthy’s Nefartari Cobra we’ll have more to do following their introductions in Season 2.  We’ll also spend more time with Charithra Chandran’s Miss Wednesday in Season 3.

I won’t share any details about why these four characters in particular have bigger roles in One Piece Season 3 for those who haven’t read the manga or watched the anime. However, I do want to go back to the script for Season 3’s first episode, which was written by Ashley Wigfield and is directed by Christoph Schrewe. To provide a minor spoiler, I’d say it’s a strong bet that this is where we’ll see Luffy and Ace reunite in Alabasta, which wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t run into Callum Kerr’s Smoker, a Marine Captain. Luffy and Smoker will first cross paths during Season 2 in the Loguetown story.

Along with Xolo Maridueña debuting as Ace, One Piece Season 3 will introduce Cole Escola as Bon Clay, a.k.a. Mr. 2, a high-ranking member of the Baroque Works criminal syndicate. More casting news is forthcoming, but given how long it took Season 1 and 2 to film, don’t expect Season 3 to premiere until sometime in 2027. Not to fret though, as One Piece’s second season will drop March 10, 2026 on Netflix. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for our continuing coverage of the series.