‘One Piece’ Season 3 Just Added a Huge Character

In what continues to be a hot streak of truly banner casting, Netflix has announced that Cobra Kai and Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña will be joining the third season of its live-action One Piece series as fan-favorite character Portgas D. Ace.

To anyone who hasn’t read the good word of Eiichiro Oda’s long-running manga and is scratching their head at that jumble of words in the lede, allow us to take you to class and exhaustively detail how huge this casting is. To not get too deep into spoilers, Ace is a fellow devil fruit user that Luffy and his motley Straw Hat pirate crew meet on their journey into the Grand Line as they jet to the desert of Alabasta. He’s also got family ties to Luffy, as his brother—or, well, play brother.

Basically, they grew up as rugrats together, dreaming big of becoming hotshot pirates, but only Ace, being the older brother, got to jumpstart his journey earlier. Along the way, he became part of the crew of the legendary pirate Gold Roger’s rival, Edward Newgate (also known as Whitebeard)’s. Ace also has enough experience sailing the Grand Line to venture solo. But he can hold his own thanks to the power of the flame fruit, which gives him the power to manipulate fire, obviously. Keep up.

Maridueña’s casting as Ace follows yet another ingenious bit of casting from One Piece, with the nonbinary Baroque Works pirate assassin Bon Clay (a.k.a. Bentham, aka Mr. 2 Bon Kurei) being played by Tony winner Cole Escola. Knowing ball, having caught up to One Piece‘s current 1,164 chapters, Mariduena and Escola’s casting definitely sets up season 3 to be where the Netflix series goes fully into its next major arc, Alabasta. There, the Straw Hat Pirates will encounter devil fruit users Crocodile (Joe Manganiello) and Ms. All Sunday, a.k.a. Nico Robin (Lera Abova), as they attempt to nefariously overthrow King Nefertari Cobra (Sendhil Ramamurthy). After befriending the king’s daughter, Vivi (Charithra Chandran), Luffy and crew step in to stop all that.

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While all of that is allocated to season 3 territory, that doesn’t mean season 2 won’t see its fair share of wonder leading up to this major story arc. According to the cast themselves, each episode of its second season will feel like witnessing the crew embark on a new world where giants exist and whales can swim up massive streams on mountains. Still, knowing there’s even more good stuff in store for folks who are both fans of the manga and anime, as well as newbies treating the live-action series as their less intimidating gateway into the beloved shonen epic, is a win for everyone.

One Piece season 2 premieres on Netflix on March 10, 2026.

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