One Piece Chopper: Everything About The Doctor Coming In Season 2
When Eichiro Oda announced that One Piece Season 2 was moving forward, the manga creator included a brief sketch of Tony Tony Chopper, the Straw Hat Pirates resident doctor. A fan-favorite character, the diminutive physician may only be two feet tall, but he is a Devil Fruit user and, well, a reindeer. Alright, buckle up because it’s going to get weird.
Let’s be honest, a reindeer using Devil Fruit to become a doctor isn’t the strangest thing you’ve heard about One Piece.
Much like Rudolph, Chopper was an outcast among the reindeer because of his nose, which, in this case, is blue. After eating the Human Human Fruit, he gained human-like abilities, including speech, advanced thought, and the power to transform. Normally, Chopper can be found in his adorable pint-size half-human/half-reindeer hybrid form.
Considering himself a monster, Chopper is reluctant to join Luffy when the overly enthusiastic pirate tries to convince him during One Piece’s Arabasta Saga. Specifically, the Drum Island arc, partly because Luffy and Sanji tried to cook Chopper and also because Chopper doesn’t want to leave Dr. Kureha, his only friend.
We can understand Chopper’s reluctance; after all, Luffy can be a bit…much….but that’s part of his charm. Eventually, the reindeer joins the Straw Hat Pirates, using the extensive medical knowledge gained from his time with Dr. Kureha and Dr. Hiriluk to keep the crew in fighting shape.
Chopper And His Rumble Balls
Though his skills pale in comparison to the great fighters of One Piece, Chopper is still capable of joining the crew on the battlefield, where he uses the Rumble Ball as his weapon of choice. A small sphere filled with a concoction of drugs, the Rumble Ball augments Chopper’s Devil Fruit powers.
These augments range from dramatically increasing the size of his horns to use them as weapons (horn point) to toughening his fur (guard point) and even making him smarter, as with the brain point formula.
Performance-enhancing drugs get you banned from the Olympics, but in One Piece, they allow Chopper to contribute to a battle. The trial and error of developing his Rumble Ball formulas took years, with some unfortunate side effects, resulting in his monster point form capable of destroying entire villages.
The augmentations last for only three minutes and require waiting for hours between each use, so while Chopper can fight with them, he still pales compared to the dedicated combatants.
Chopper’s introduction in Season 2 will differ from that of the One Piece anime and is likely going to be condensed into one episode.
The anime already made a change to Chopper from the original One Piece manga by removing the side-effect of his Rumble Balls. Anime staff wasn’t aware of the side-effects when writing and designing the first arcs that include Chopper, so no side-effect appears until the Enies Lobby arc, nearly 200 episodes after his introduction.
Chopper is the first character in One Piece shown to augment Devil Fruit powers, but he’s not the last. What separates the good doctor from the rest is that Chopper’s augmentation is entirely based on his medicinal knowledge and not the usage of a Haki.
Netflix’s live-action One Piece has changed the introductions for nearly every character to date, and Chopper will likely be the same. Fourteen episodes comprise the Drum Island arc in the anime, which, if Season 1 is any indication, could be condensed to one episode in Season 2.
Regardless of how the live-action changes Chopper, expect the good doctor to become an immediate fan favorite again once he makes his debut. The unofficial mascot of One Piece, Chopper, is adorable, intelligent, and a perfect addition to the Straw Hat Pirates.
