One Piece, Season 2 – Sonya Belousova, Giona Ostinelli

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One of the television shows I have enjoyed in recent years is the Netflix series One Piece. Not only do I like the show itself, but I was also blown away by the music written by Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, as can be read in my Spotlight review. The music they wrote for the show was absolutely stunning, earning the score an eSWay award in 2023. The composers have been busy in the meantime, as they also composed an amazing score for the Netflix movie Red Sonja, which I should have reviewed but have not. In addition to that film, Belousova and Ostinelli were likely also working on the music for the second season of One Piece, as they released another 4-hour soundtrack album for the new season.

Something significant has changed for me after the show’s first season. For the first one, I wrote in my review that I knew nothing about the show or the original anime. Well, that has changed in the meantime, because between the first and second season, I was able to binge more than 1,000 episodes of the anime, and I am currently deep into the Wano Country Arc. With all this extra knowledge, it was delightful to watch the second season of the show and compare it with the anime. There were many similarities: The story is almost identical, and now I also know why the characters have these weird hairstyles and clothing. What is very different from the anime is the music Belousova and Ostinelli have composed for the show.

While the Straw Hat Pirates are having their adventures in their new, unexplored world with many exciting islands filled with wondrous new characters, you can hear some nods to the original music. The popular pirate song “Bink’s Brew” is reused in its original form, and in “Set Course for Loguetown / We Are” you can hear the tune from the first introduction song of the anime at the end. The rest of the four-hour score is all original material for the show, with many nods to the original themes of the first season, including the Straw Hat theme that can be heard throughout the whole score, representing all the pirates in Straw Hat Luffy’s crew.

With all these new stories and characters being introduced, many new themes are being created as well. I will not go through all of them due to time constraints, but I do want to highlight some. “Dr. Kureha” is a fantastic, rocky piece that represents this amazing old woman. “Dorry & Brogy” is a powerful theme featuring a hurdy-gurdy and a men’s choir, giving the two giant warriors a sense of power and honor. “Miss All Sunday” is an ominous-sounding theme in which you can hear women’s voices, and it also sounds like a theme that you would hear in a Western movie. I am quite curious how her theme will evolve as the story progresses in the following seasons.

There is one last theme that needs special attention. Three of the eight episodes are from the Drum Island Arc and introduce a new character: the human-like reindeer, Tony Tony Chopper. His theme is magnificent and very versatile. The theme is based on a song and can be heard for the first time in the second track “Am I Enough (Tony Tony Chopper),” in which it is sung by Au/Ra and a children’s choir. The children’s choir gives the character its innocence and it can be heard very well in “Tony Tony Chopper (Instrumental Suite).” This emotional version of the theme is integrated in many places in the score. What makes the Chopper character so interesting is that he is more than a small young reindeer, as can be heard in “Run Chopper Run,” where the song is sung by a men’s choir, giving the character a totally different vibe.

One thing I love about the album is that the music isn’t chronologically tied to the episodes. It makes the album a great listening experience as it blends themes with excellent action sequences, beautiful emotional build-ups, and occasional delightful standalone tracks like “Whiskey Peak Saloon,” with its funky saxophone, or the opera cue “My Sails Are Set.” Where the long album of the first season started to get a bit dull in the end, this is not the case for the second one.

I had no problem putting my years-long binge session of the One Piece anime on hold for the second season of this One Piece action show. I love this adaptation and one of the reasons for this is again the stunning orchestral score by Sonya Belousova and  Giona Ostinelli, with excellent theme integrations and fantastic musical support for all the scenes in the show. They are currently filming the third season, which will probably take more than a year to be released on Netflix. I will have caught up with all of the anime by then. I am very curious where the third season will take us, and what kind of outstanding themes and score Belousova and Ostinelli will write for it.

Listen or buy

• Buy this soundtrack from Amazon or Apple Music
• Listen to this soundtrack on Spotify

Tracklist

The highlights are in bold.

Total length: 4 hours and 19 minutes

Netflix Music (2026)