One Piece, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s monumentally successful manga series about a crew of plucky pirates chasing their dreams, is a hit. The first season dropped on Netflix in 2023 and quickly dominated the charts. The second season, which dropped on March 10 of this year, also did very well, snatching 16.8 million views in its first four days of availability. Critics and fans love the show: season 2 has a rare 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes; and over on IMDb, fans rate the second season even higher than the first. It’s pretty rare to find a live-action remake of an anime series that isn’t terrible, so One Piece is a rare and beautiful beast.
But ratings are down from the first season, which brought in 18.5 million views in its first four days. Moreover, the ratings aren’t coming from where Netflix would like them too, which could put the show’s future in doubt.
One Piece topped the charts around the world…
…but not in the United States
When it debuted, One Piece took the number one spot in many major markets across the globe, including Germany, Brazil, Mexico, France, and India. But Netflix markets aren’t created equal. While Netflix has some 325 million paid subscribers worldwide, around 66.7 million come from the United States, or about 20%. No other country comes close to that amount. The United Kingdom comes in second with 18.4 million subscribers, then Brazil and Germany with 16.6 million each, then Mexico with 13.9 million, and so on.
This means that when it comes to figuring out whether a Netflix show is doing well, views from the United States matter more than views from other countries, which is bad news for One Piece. Even though the show was easily the most watched TV series worldwide during its debut week, it lagged behind in the US, where it was bested by the likes of Love Is Blind: The Reunion, Virgin River, and Age of Attraction. (For the record, the action movie War Machine outpaced everything that week in terms of views, although One Piece clocked more hours, per Variety.)
Even now, almost a month after One Piece season 2 dropped, it’s still in the top five most watched shows on Netflix worldwide, according to Flix Patrol, but it’s nearly dropped out of the top 10 in the United States. That poses an interesting question for Netflix: can it continue investing in One Piece on the hopes that a global audience can buoy the show even as the US audience seems to be losing interest?
Why did US viewership for One Piece season 2 drop?
And what is Netflix doing about it?
Netflix has a long history of making great foreign language shows. Squid Game, an action drama out of South Korea, is the most-watched series in the streamer’s history. But the first season of Squid Game took the number one spot on the US charts for weeks on end when it came out in September of 2021. The situation with One Piece is different.
Netflix ran a pretty robust promotional campaign for One Piece season 2, including a Super Bowl commercial, so the diminished interest from US audiences likely isn’t due to lack of awareness. Nor is it likely due to a distaste for anime or One Piece in general; One Piece is globally popular, and there’s more demand for anime in the United States than in any country outside of Japan.
And yet, it seems like One Piece didn’t keep parts of its US audience from season 1, suggesting that the novelty wore off, or that people lost interest during the long, two-and-a-half-year wait between seasons. One Piece season 2 debuted when shows like Bridgerton and The Night Agent were burning up the charts, and maybe US viewers thought those shows were more worth their time.
Long waits between seasons are a common problem for expensive fantasy shows like One Piece, and to Netflix’s credit, it’s a problem they’re trying to address. The streamer started work on One Piece season 3 far sooner than it did on season 2, meaning we’ll very likely only have to wait a year before seeing more episodes. (I’ve always been of the opinion that it would help if Netflix released episodes of big shows weekly instead of dropping every episode of a new season all at once, since that would help the show stay top of mind for longer. But that’s another story.)
One Piece season 3 (and beyond)
How much of the Grand Line will we see?
One Piece season 2 still did well, despite the drop in US ratings. But that drop could endanger the show’s future. Season 3 is already guaranteed, but Netflix hasn’t renewed the show for season 4. If they’re waiting to see how season 3 does, that could mean another long wait, which could get the show stuck in a spiral.
Long waits are especially damaging to a show like One Piece, which is based on a manga and anime series that have both been running since the 1990s; they have over 1,000 chapters and episodes respectively. If Netflix hopes to adapt even half of this story before the cast members become senior citizens, they have to get a move on. But they may not be willing to do that if US ratings aren’t robust, and they won’t have another test case until season 3 drops next year. And then, even if ratings are great, they wouldn’t be able to get out another season for a long while after, which could depress ratings again. Welcome to the spiral.
How long will One Piece last?
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It’s unclear how many seasons One Piece could have in the end; rumors have put it at anywhere from six to 12. The show itself is a bright, fun adventure series with a likable group of characters, a great sense of imagination, and anime-style over-the-top action that still feels rooted in reality. It truly is a rare show, and it’d be a shame if Netflix blinked at this point. Here’s hoping they have some faith and commit to getting seasons out relatively quickly. And if that doesn’t result in improved US ratings…well, they make billions of dollars in profit every year; they’ll be fine.
- Release Date
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August 31, 2023
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Matt Owens, Steven Maeda, Joe Tracz
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Iñaki Godoy
Monkey D. Luffy
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