One Piece voice actors celebrate the anime's 20th anniversary at C2E2 2020

Epic pirate adventure One Piece may be getting its first-ever live-action adaptation courtesy of Netflix, but the incredibly long-running Eiichiro Oda manga is also celebrating a big milestone on the anime side of things. With over 900 episodes released over the show's 20 years (officially observed last October), fans of Monkey D. Luffy and his motley crew know that the voice cast have plenty of war stories from their times on the seven seas. Which means that when voice actors Brina Palencia (Tony Tony Chopper) and Colleen Clinkenbeard (Luffy) sat down for an anniversary panel at C2E2 2020 -- also celebrating the return of the Funimation One PIece dub -- it wasn't hard at all to stretch an ear over for what they had to say.

"We recently did the 20th-anniversary special features" all about how One Piece came to America, Clinkenbeard said. She produces the special features on the Funimation productions, so she explained that she got to go deep on the history of One Piece for this epic interview-laden mini-doc that will release on a special anniversary disc.

Speaking about their origins of their roles, the actresses explained that they got to hear their Japanese counterparts ahead of time -- a rare event for the industry -- because those behind One Piece wanted them to be as close as possible to the original voices. Since Funimation doesn't yet have all the episodes of One Piece acquired, the American dub of the series isn't quite caught up to the Japanese original, but both panelists were adamant that they'd continue their roles throughout the foreseeable future.

And how does the hyper-prolific series keep its audience around? The actresses give all credit to the author. "Oda does such a fantastic job of making it forever interesting," Clinkenbeard said. "It's never boring," Palencia confirmed. The franchise will only get wilder from here, since the series is next headed into live action at a major streamer.

Netflix's take on One Piece will bring its 10-episode first season to Netflix in the near future.

Fans can read all of SYFY WIRE's C2E2 2020 coverage here.