Here’s How Many People Watch ‘One Piece’ in 2023

One Piece has gained a massive audience over the years, selling millions of manga copies and acquiring some of the highest views with its anime series. Although this anime has been around for decades, it remains among the most popular shows to date. Still, many fans wonder exactly how many people watch One Piece in 2023.

Editor’s Note: This post was updated in December 2023.

How popular is One Piece worldwide?

One Piece is one of the most popular anime series and manga titles to date, although its popularity has always been higher in Asian regions – specifically Japan. However, the popularity of such titles is generally calculated based on combined manga sales as well as the anime adaptation’s viewership over time.

It’s no surprise that One Piece would reach the top of just about every anime list, having been aired since 1997 alongside accompanying One Piece manga issues. Many fans have seen One Piece as the most popular anime series in Japan for several years, outshining other animes by a landslide in terms of combined views by 2020, as detailed below by fans on Quora.

However, One Piece has always competed for the top spot in Japan, being aired alongside a plethora of other amazing anime series on Japanese TV networks. As seen below, thanks to fans on Quora, One Piece saw a dip in views during May 2020, only ranking 6th in Japan.

One Piece took many years to reach new heights on a global scale, ranking 8th on the Top 10 list of TV shows (The Binge Report) compiled by TV Time in 2020 and shared on Otakus’ Notes. That being said, this was still an incredible moment as it was the first time an anime series had gotten into the Top 10 list among hundreds of popular mainstream TV shows.

The anime series started taking the world by storm, raking in $20.9 billion by 2022, according to Japan-Dev, spurred on by a neverending plot as well as a string of amazing One Piece movies. However, the series’ viewership has seen ups and downs over the years, slowly gaining more fans in other regions while seeing fluctuating viewership back in Japan.

One Piece‘s global popularity vs. other anime series

While it took some time for One Piece to gain traction in Western regions, it dominated when compared to many popular anime series. As reported by Polygon, a new map calculated the most popular anime series in all 50 American states using search data collected back in 2021.

The results indicated that One Piece had the highest views within the anime series genre at the time, being preferred in 25 of the 50 American states spread across the country. It’s not only considered the best-selling manga of all time, but it has been the most sought-after anime series in the United States on many occasions.

Things become harder to track on a global scale – but, we have plenty of stats to go off, thanks to analytical studies done by Diamond Lobby. One Piece’s popularity is often compared to the likes of other iconic anime series, such as Naruto.

One Piece seemed to fall below Naruto on a global scale back in 2021, acquiring the 4th spot based on Google search data collected from 187 countries worldwide. Based on trackable data, One Piece was most popular in 9.30% of Europe, 15.21% of Asia, and 17.64% of Africa.

By 2022, One Piece was considered far more popular than Naruto worldwide, primarily being well-loved in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, Morocco, Spain, France, Vietnam, Australia, Israel, Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Belgium, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Iraq, Portugal, Turkey, Switzerland, Netherlands, Philippines, Canada, United Kingdom, Norway, Chile, Egypt, and Nepal.

The 5-year data collected from 2017 onward also indicates the highs and lows in One Piece’s popularity, while confirming that the show has gained more fans in recent years when compared to Naruto in particular. While Naruto seemed to gain a ton of runtime during global lockdowns in 2020, One Piece still appears to have gained more traction over the past year or two.

According to Gem Ranking, One Piece was the 5th most-watched TV show on Japanese SVOD Services in 2022, falling behind Ranking of King (#4), Jujutsu Kaisen (#3), Attack on Titan (#2), and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (#1). While the series has had fluctuating viewership in Japan, One Piece has always remained somewhere in the Top 10.

Are more people watching One Piece in 2023?

It seems that more people have been catching up with the One Piece saga in 2023 going forward, particularly with its numerous blockbusters as well as the new live-action One Piece adaptation on Netflix. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the One Piece series on Netflix ranked first among original series in weekly rankings, with 21.85 million hours of viewing in the United States by September 28th, 2023.

While the Netflix version of One Piece sailed to the top of the charts within weeks of its release, many fans appear to be continuing the original anime series as well. Since One Piece still has a while to go before concluding, there’s plenty of time to catch up and tag along on all of Luffy’s wild adventures.

Considering that there are conflicting reports and that figures fluctuate daily, it’s essentially impossible to determine the exact number of viewers in 2023. One Piece’s total viewership accounts for legal streaming services as well as the hundreds of illegal services that cannot necessarily be tracked using Google data or SEO tools – therefore, the true number of One Piece viewers is considerably higher in reality.

That’s everything there is to know about how many people watch One Piece in 2023. While the franchise has seen its highs and lows over the past few years, it’s certainly still one of the most well-loved anime series of all time.

What do you think about how many people watch One Piece in 2023? Let us know in the comments below!