There have been many discussions ahead of the release of Season 1 of One Piece. The live-action adaptation was initially set to have ten episodes; something we hinted wouldn’t stay as initially announced by Oda before the pandemic. Still, it was later revealed to only consist of eight episodes, an internal mandate from Netflix, and nothing towards the actual series at the time.
So, many wondered if we would even get to truly visit all East Blue islands, and once the series was released, we sadly only got a brief glimpse at Loguetown in the first episode. Still, they managed to tie the series’ main themes throughout without the necessity of the town that is named prologue and epilogue. In a Reddit AMA, showrunner Matt Owens confirmed that the reason it wasn’t included was due to the episode reduction.
Skipped? Never! It wasn’t included in season 1 because our episode number got reduced. And to try to cram it in would not have done service to it or the story it had to share space with. Loguetown is not “cut” we just haven’t gotten there yet!
Matt Owens
It’s not too surprising and it is a shame that they didn’t get to keep their initial plans for the episode structure. There are some small elements where one can tell they likely adapted the pacing from that initial pitch but it manages to pull it all together in creative ways. Plus, the tease in the first post-credit sequence hints at a perfect set-up with Loguetown introducing Smoker as a major antagonist going into the new season.
Source: Reddit
