99a0f600 701d 11ef b282 4535eb84fe4b.jpg
Creators and fans of the Japanese anime series One Piece share insights on why the show has become one of the most popular franchises globally.
With over 1,000 episodes to its name, the show has attracted fans like French President Emmanuel Macron and rapper Travis Scott. Its manga counterpart has sold over 500 million copies, earning a Guinness World Record.
Additionally, One Piece merchandise is widely available, with clothing stores across the country offering products inspired by the series.
One Piece is a Japanese anime celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024.
Based on a manga series by Eiichiro Oda, the story follows Monkey D. Luffy, the captain of a pirate crew, as they journey across the world in search of the legendary treasure known as the One Piece. Throughout their adventure, they clash with both the government and rival pirates, utilizing unique powers gained by consuming “Devil Fruits.”
Now streaming on BBC iPlayer, creators and fans share their insights on how One Piece evolved into the global phenomenon it is today.
When Zach Logan launched his One Piece Podcast in 2009, the anime was relatively unknown in the United States.
“You could measure it by the anime conventions we attended,” he tells the BBC. “Today, they’d be flooded with One Piece fans, but back then it was just a handful—two people, and their baby dressed up as Chopper.” In One Piece, Chopper is a toddler-sized mix of human and reindeer.
Logan recalls the show in the late 2000s as a “niche within a niche,” with only a small following in the already limited anime fanbase in the US.
In Japan, however, One Piece’s success was almost immediate. When it debuted in Shonen Jump in 1997, the magazine was losing readership to its competitor, Shonen Magazine. One Piece’s inclusion helped Shonen Jump reclaim its position as Japan’s most-read manga.
Hiroyuki Nakano, the current editor of the One Piece manga, was an early reader of the series.
“I remember being truly amazed, thinking, ‘an incredible comic has begun,’” he says through an interpreter.
In the mid-1990s, manga (the term for a variety of Japanese comic books and graphic novels) was at its peak, with 1.34 billion manga volumes sold in 1995. Popular titles of the time included Dragon Ball (about a martial artist in search of magical orbs), Slam Dunk (focused on a basketball team), and Doraemon (about a time-traveling robotic cat).
For Nakano, however, the One Piece comic series revolutionized the industry. “Instead of relying on a haphazard, week-by-week method,” he explains, “it carefully developed characters, creating a story structure that builds to an emotional climax.”
“There was a strong focus on cliffhangers in manga before One Piece,” he adds. “This often led to disappointments when the story developments didn’t meet the high expectations set by those cliffhangers.”
When discussing the anime series, Logan emphasizes that One Piece’s storytelling approach gives it a stronger emotional impact compared to other anime.
He points to the Drum Island arc (episodes 78 to 91), where viewers learn about Chopper’s tragic backstory, including how he was rejected by his fellow reindeer. “Watching Drum Island,” he says, “anyone with a soul would cry.”
The first episode of the anime aired in October 1999, but it took over a decade for the series to gain a significant following outside Japan.
The show first debuted in the US in 2004, but the early dubbed version faced criticism for its unconvincing voice acting and censorship, such as removing blood from battles and replacing guns with water pistols or shovels.
“People were turned off by the first version of it,” Logan recalls.
He notes that the international popularity of One Piece skyrocketed during the pandemic. “It was like gasoline on a fire. When people were at home, they had no excuse not to watch a show with 900-plus episodes.”
