One Piece Season 2 surprise casting uncovered by fans

One Piece fans have figured out a surprise casting choice for Season 2 of the live-action show that indicates a major upcoming scene.

Netflix’s One Piece Season 2 is currently filming, and we’ve been getting a slew of updates from production. One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda revealed his involvement, and several more stars and characters have been added to the cast.

One as-of-yet-unannounced addition has been found through a performer’s resume and some online sleuthing around the show. According to details dug up by fans, Nahum Hughes is playing Bartolomeo in the upcoming season, something that’s causing considerable excitement.

The information was pieced together by members of a One Piece live-action Discord server, where it was discovered that Hughes now lists Bartolomeo on his acting CV online. The character uses the name Giovanni as well, something now believed to have been a pseudonym for audition and screen-testing purposes.

Hughes was on their radar because he was among the actors rumored to be filming scenes for Loguetown with a number of the other stars.

Given that he’s a young performer with some credits to his name, the belief is that Bartolomeo will have some lines, making his appearance more than a cameo for diehard fans.

This has spurred some discussion over what’ll be covered in One Piece Season 2. Bartolomeo doesn’t become a proper character until the Dressrosa Arc, over 600 episodes into the anime. That’s a long distance from where the live-action version is (and being realistic, ever likely to get).

He does show up when Luffy gets executed in Loguetown, so the belief now is that we’ll get that scene, and perhaps some added lines too as a way of re-contextualizing the whole thing. It’s a fascinating wrinkle in what’s turning out to be an increasingly ambitious production.

It’s not even the only Straw Hats endeavor Netflix is working on either, since they’re also doing The One Piece, a top-down reboot of the anime.