An alternate version of Earth, and one that is currently in the midst of the 'Golden Age of Pirates'. Ruthless cut-throat pirates rule the seas, and only the strongest have the chance to lay claim to the mythical treasure known as 'One Piece' that was left behind by the greatest pirate of them all Gold Roger. Years after the death of Gold Roger, a young boy by the name of Monkey D. Luffy has dreams of raising his own crew, finding One Piece, and declaring himself as Pirate King. After eating a devil fruit that grants Luffy the power to make his body like rubber, it gives him enormous strength and agility. When Luffy finally comes of age, he sets sail from Foosha Village in East Blue and sets upon his grand adventure to become the next Pirate King.
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Almost every ship you see in the show is a real, physical build rather than a green-screen job. Showrunner Matt Owens has said the Going Merry and the other vessels were constructed at roughly three-quarter scale, which still made them genuinely enormous to work with on set.
The bulk of Season 1 was shot at Cape Town Film Studios in South Africa. The location wasn't random either, the crew there had already worked on pirate-heavy productions before and had ships and rigging expertise ready to go.
A chunk of the show's nautical hardware isn't new at all. Director Steven Maeda has talked about repurposing ships and set pieces left behind from the Starz pirate drama Black Sails, which had also filmed in the same Cape Town facilities years earlier.
The Straw Hats aren't just wearing generic pirate gear. Several of their outfits, including looks for Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Usopp and Sanji, were pulled straight from color spread artwork that creator Eiichiro Oda drew for the manga's cover pages.
The opening execution scene in Loguetown is stacked with blink-and-you'll-miss-them appearances. Younger versions of Mihawk, Shanks, Buggy, Smoker and even Monkey D. Dragon are all tucked into the crowd if you know where to look.
During young Luffy's flashback, while Shanks stitches up his cheek, there's a quiet instrumental of the pirate shanty Binks' Sake playing in the background. In the source material that song doesn't properly show up until way later, so hearing it here is a neat little nod that rewards long-time readers.
Fans were bummed the show skipped Mihawk's famous solo arrival at the Baratie, but his little ship, the Hitsugibune, actually does appear. It's docked quietly among other boats in Loguetown during the very first minutes of the pilot.
Nami's first outfit in the live-action isn't a fresh design, it's based on one of Oda's earliest concepts for the character, back when he'd toyed with the idea of her being a cyborg who fought with a battle-axe.
Keep an eye on the background wanted posters and you'll spot a torn one reading '...endish' with a familiar face. That's Cavendish of the White Horse, a character who won't actually show up in the story proper until much later arcs.
While Nami flips through her cartography notes after swiping a ship from the Buggy Pirates, one page briefly shows a sketch of Wano, complete with a mountain resembling Fuji and a town resembling Ebisu, arcs that were, at the time, still years away from being adapted.
