Pirate captain Don Krieg may not have been the most feared of all the Straw Hat Gang’s adversaries, but many fans were still puzzled by his brief appearance. But why was his role cut in the first place?
From the very beginning, there was the question of how it would be possible to adapt such a gigantic manga series like “One Piece” into a live-action series. It was clear that there would be some drastic cuts compared to the original. Nevertheless, the first season of the Netflix production was convincing and has already been extended for a second season.
Nevertheless, massive cuts were made. One character who particularly suffered from the time cuts was Captain Don Krieg. The leader of the Krieg pirate gang is one of the most notorious villains on the East Blue, and his steel armour brings back memories of the Swiss Army Knife investigator “Inspector Gadget”. For beneath his armour slumbers a veritable arsenal of diverse weapons that possess immense destructive power.
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While War Fleet is also dismantled by Dracule “Hawk Eyes” Mihawk in the manga and the anime adaptation, however, a fierce battle with the Straw Hat Pirates still ensues at the ship’s Baratié restaurant. In the “One Piece” real series, however, the villain in shining armour becomes an unimportant footnote and merely degenerates into the whipping boy of “Hawk Eyes” (Steven John Ward).
WHY WAS DON KRIEGS APPEARANCE CUT?
In an interview with IGN, showrunner Steven Madea explained why it was only enough for Don Krieg (Milton Schorr) to make a brief appearance on the show. He had to forfeit extra screentime in favour of Arlong (McKinley Belcher III) and his gang of fish people, as he was going to get more time to be established as the big villain of the first season:
“With Arlong, the idea was that in an eight-episode television series, you want to feel like there’s a big obstacle at the end of the journey. So if you only introduce Arlong in episodes 7 and 8, you would have felt: ‘Wait a minute, who is this guy? He’s really scary, but I don’t really know him yet. […]’. And so we said: ‘Hey, let’s bring him forward. Let’s introduce him in an early episode as a big bad threat that comes back later in the season. And instead of Krieg, who’s a standalone antagonist who doesn’t really get us anywhere, let’s introduce Arlong instead.'”
THAT’S WHY DON KRIEGS APPEARANCE WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT
And yet, Don Krieg would have been important to the development of the series and the Straw Hat Pirate Gang. True, his appearance is limited to just that fight at the ship’s Baratié restaurant. However, it is the first time that Ruffy meets a pirate who has failed on a grand scale on the Grandline.
For the audience and also the Straw Hats, this character provides an introduction to the dangers and power relations they may encounter on the Grandline. If a fleet of 50 ships, led by a quite defensible captain, is taken apart there, what chance do Ruffy and his crew have of surviving in these waters? This is the first time it really becomes clear that the Straw Hat Gang have a long way to go if they really want to make a name for themselves on the Grandline.
