One Piece Season 2 Trailer Reveals A Fan-Favorite Backstory

One Piece Season 1 successfully moved the long-spanning anime into live-action, but it was only an adaptation of the story in its nascent form: Monkey D. Luffy set out to find the One Piece and become King of the Pirates by assembling his crew and heading for the Grand Line. Now, in Season 2, we’re officially setting sail with the main plot, even picking up a shiny new subtitle along the way: One Piece: Into the Grand Line.

We’ve slowly learned more about what will be included in this season, including the devious assassins of Baroque Works, but the latest Season 2 trailer shows exactly what story arcs fans will see unfold when the season premieres next month. This includes a story that introduces an adorable addition to the crew of the Going Merry, albeit with one of the most heartbreaking backstories in One Piece. Check out the trailer below:

There are plenty of strange creatures in this trailer, from dinosaurs and whales to tiny otters with seashell weapons. But one critter will be very familiar to anyone who has seen the One Piece anime: Tony Tony Chopper, the ultra-intelligent reindeer who consumed a Devil Fruit that allows an animal to morph into an animal-human hybrid. So while he’s able to morph into his original reindeer form at any time — something we see briefly in the trailer — he’s usually a small, bipedal figure wearing a hat.

In One Piece, the Straw Hats meet Chopper when Nami falls ill, and they’re forced to make a pit stop on wintery Drum Island. There’s only one doctor, Dr. Kureha (Katey Sagal in live-action), and Chopper is their assistant. Over this storyline, Luffy learns Chopper’s background: when he was younger, the elderly Dr. Hiriluk took him in and trained him to become a doctor too. But one day, Dr. Hiriluk cast Chopper out, and Chopper didn’t realize until it was too late that they did so because Dr. Hiriluk was terminally ill. In the trailer’s most bittersweet shot, we see Chopper sitting next to Dr. Hiriluk as they look at the moon, meaning we’ll see this backstory as part of the Drum Island arc.

One Piece may be known for its cartoonish action and goofy characters, but it's also capable of showing real heart. Season 2 will have plenty of the former thanks to the Borque Works assassins, but that won’t come at the expense of the enduring storytelling that has kept fans entertained for decades. With only a month left until the next live-action installment, now’s your chance to get caught up with these pirates so you can watch them come into their own and set out in the never-ending search for eternal glory.

One Piece: Into the Grand Line premieres March 10 on Netflix.