Netflix has announced some big-name additions to the season 2 casts of its live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender and One Piece adaptations.
Revealed as part of Netflix Geeked Week 2024’s live event, the streaming giant confirmed that three actors – one for Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2, and two for One Piece season 2 – will join those shows’ cast rosters for their next chapters.
Who is Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Toph? And who’s playing them?
On the Avatar front, US actress Miya Cech, who some readers might recognize from The Santa Clauses on Disney Plus and/or Netflix’s Beef, aka one of the best shows of 2023, has been hired to play fan-favorite character Toph. In the animated original, the blind earthbender – one of the most naturally gifted and powerful of her generation, we’ll have you know – joins Aang and the rest of Team Avatar on their quest to put an end to the Fire Nation’s quest to become the world’s tyrannical rulers.
Cech’s hiring wasn’t the only Avatar-related announcement made by one of the world’s best streaming services during Geeked Week Live. Netflix also confirmed that production had officially started on season 2, with principal photography beginning just six months after Netflix announced two more seasons of its Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action retelling. It’s unclear if the series’ final two installments will be filmed back-to-back, but the revelation that season 2 has entered full production suggests they won’t.
Who are Miss All Sunday and Mr. 0 in One Piece? And which actors will portray them?
As for One Piece, Netflix confirmed that its adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s beloved manga series, which has also been turned into one of the best anime, has added two more names to its extensive cast list. Lera Abova and Geeked Week Live host Joe Manganiello are its newest hires, with the pair set to play Miss All Sunday and Mr. 0/Crocodile in the one of the best Netflix shows’ sophomore outing.
Abova, who starred in Peacock comedy series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, will play All Sunday, whose real name is Nico Robins and who’s the vice president of the Baroque Works, a covert criminal syndicate set up with the sole aim of destabilizing and then conquering the Arabasta Kingdom. Manganiello, whose credits range include 2002’s Spider-Man movie, True Blood, How I Met Your Mother, and a brief cameo as Deathstroke in the now defunct DC Extended Universe (DCEU), will play the Baroque Works’ mob boss/warlord.
Ironically, fans already knew that Abova and Manganiello would be part of season 2’s cast. Yesterday (September 19), Netflix’s PR team accidentally leaked the pair’s hiring on its in-house Tudum website. The information was removed not long after the error was spotted, but not before What’s on Netflix noticed and reported on the faux-pas.
Those weren’t the only One Piece-focused unveilings that had fans salivating at Geeked Week Live and at home, though. Per the YouTube video above, Netflix also released a behind-the-scenes recording of season 2’s first table read, which teased the arrival of beloved character Chopper. With Netflix strongly suggesting that season 2 of One Piece season 2 would cover the Arabasta Saga from its manga namesake, we already had an inkling that Chopper would show up at some point. This, though, confirms the half-reindeer, half-human hybrid will make his grand entrance next season.
As part of an earlier Geeked Week reveal, Jeff Ward, who plays the villainous Buggy the Clown, invited fans on a brief behind-the-scenes tour of One Piece season 2’s various sets, too, before hinting that the series would return sometime in 2025. If both shows return next year, it could be another successful 12-month period for Netflix on the iconic anime adaptation front.
