One Piece is the undisputed king of manga in the industry, and its numbers speak for themselves. One Piece is, by far, the best-selling manga ever, and no other series even gets close to achieving what it has over the last 28 years of serialization. While the One Piece manga is amazing, the series does struggle in the anime department, even though there has been an improvement in recent years.
One Piece’s Ending Will Kill Anime Forever
One Piece is in its final saga, and its ending will destroy anime.
When it comes to anime, only one series can rightfully be named the King, and that's Demon Slayer, a series whose anime and movie success has taken the whole world by storm. Demon Slayer will only keep on growing from here onwards, especially as its next two movies edge closer.
One Piece Is The King of Manga, But The King of Anime is Demon Slayer
- Demon Slayer Has Surpassed All Expectations
- It Has The Two Biggest Anime Movies To Date
When it comes to iconic manga series, there can be absolutely no doubt about the fact that One Piece is at the very top. For quite a while now, One Piece has been the best-selling manga in the world, with close to 600 million copies in circulation. No other manga series, not even Dragon Ball or Naruto, comes remotely close. This number isn’t just high due to the length of the One Piece story, as the series still has an insanely high sales per volume. Fans would be absolutely right to call One Piece the King of Manga, or the greatest manga ever made.
When it comes to anime, however, things are very different. The One Piece anime, which is a weekly series, has struggled severely over the years, being plagued with terrible pacing and subpar animation. The animation has recently improved since the Wano arc, but there are still some pretty significant dips compared to other series.
Demon Slayer Is Officially Set To Make Anime History
Anime history has been made as Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle breaks yet another major record.
Due to all of this, one can’t really call One Piece the king of anime as well. This title belongs to none other than Demon Slayer. Over the years, Demon Slayer has proven just how successful its anime is. The series exploded after its masterful first season, but it was only the beginning.
What really makes Demon Slayer stand out among the rest is its monumental movie success, something that's quite clearly unprecedented. Both of its original movies, Mugen Train, and Infinity Castle, are Japan’s number 1 and 2 box office hits. For one series to achieve that is astounding, and will likely never be replicated again.
Will One Piece Ever Get A Movie As Big As Demon Slayer?
There’s Potential, But It Might Not Be Doable
One Piece doesn’t have the biggest movie in Japan, but it still did incredibly well at the box office with its 2022 release, One Piece: Film Red. The movie was, for some time, in the top 5 at the Japanese box office, and it still remains in the top 10.
This is very impressive, especially as the movie is non-canon, unlike Demon Slayer’s movies. This has many fans believing that a true canon One Piece movie could be the breakout the series needs. For example, some fans think a God Valley movie should be genuinely considered a movie project.
In theory, this sounds amazing, but canon movies might be quite hard to pull off with One Piece due to it being a weekly series and just how long some One Piece arcs stretch. God Valley will be adapted into the anime soon when the Elbaf arc kicks off, and with it already being in the anime, not as many will be as interested in seeing it on the big screen.
There doesn’t seem to be much hope for One Piece getting a major canon movie release, sadly, which means One Piece’s future theatrical releases will just have to rely on ideas Oda rejected for his manga and gave to the producers.
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is out now. Fans who don’t want to wait for the movies to drop can check the manga out on Manga Plus. Meanwhile, for the anime, the series currently has 4 anime seasons. These anime seasons can all be found on Crunchyroll. The remainder of the series will, however, be animated into movies, which fans will have to wait for their theatrical release to watch, depending on their country.
- Release Date
- October 20, 1999
- Network
- Fuji TV
- Directors
- Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
Cast
-
Mayumi TanakaMonkey D. Luffy (voice) -
Kazuya NakaiRoronoa Zoro (voice)
WHERE TO WATCH
One Piece is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. The series follows protagonist Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirate crew as they explore the Grand Line to find the King of the Pirates' ultimate treasure, the One Piece, in order to become the next king. The manga's popularity helped it spin off into a larger media franchise, including an anime with more than 1,000 episodes.
- Studio
- Toei Animation
- Creator
- Eiichiro Oda
- Streaming Service(s)
- Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu, Pluto TV
