LEGO One Piece minifigure is going to be a huge challenge

With LEGO One Piece and some of its minifigures confirmed, one character's iconic move is going to be a huge challenge for the LEGO Group.

LEGO One Piece is officially coming later this year and while further details have yet to be announced, we at least know a few important things about the exciting theme, including at least five minifigures. So far, only the main cast has been confirmed for minifigures, including Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Roronoa Zoro, Usopp and Sanji. While the perfect element already exists to depict Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro is going to present a much bigger challenge for the LEGO Group.

One of Zoro's most iconic moves in the One Piece manga, anime and the first episode of the adaptation is Three Sword Style. This style of sword fighting used by Zoro is recognised by the third sword being held in his mouth. This is something an unmodified minifigure simply won't be able to do.

Since minifigure mouths are printed on a round head element, they can't physically open – especially not enough to hold a katana piece. Methods to recreate this sword fighting style have been devised by the community, including by LEGONG77.

This tactic has a major downside though – the additional elements make the minifigure considerably bulkier. It's one solution to recreating Three Sword Style, but it's not ideal and the minds at the LEGO Group hopefully have another strategy in mind before One Piece becomes a theme later this year.

Another option is to create a new head element that can either hold a sword in the mouth via an internal clip or has an external clip attached to it. Alternatively, Three Sword Style might not be suitable for a LEGO set at all and we may only see Zoro with two swords in the upcoming LEGO One Piece sets, despite this being an iconic move for the character.

We'll have to wait and see exactly what happens with Zoro when the One Piece models are eventually revealed. No date has been announced for the reveal at the time of writing but in the meantime, you can click here for a reminder of everything we know about LEGO One Piece.

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