One of Netflix's biggest shows of the year, One Piece, is to get another adaptation over at Netflix, and this one seems to be even closer to the source’s roots.
Netflix is making an animated version of One Piece, called The One Piece. This follows its live action adaptation, released at the end of August.
We honestly weren’t sure if One Piece would be a hit, or any good, ahead of its release. But it was met with largely positive reviews, and racked up more than 285 million hours of viewing in its first two weeks on Netflix.
The adaptation news came out of Jump Festa 2024, an anime festival held in Japan.
Its makers say the show will be “distinct from the TV anime series,” according to Variety, which has been broadcast since 1999. More than 1000 episodes of the show have been made to date.
We picture this Netflix version being a lot more expensive, and unlikely to reach anything like those figures.
It will use “cutting-edge visual technology,” according to the statement at the announcement, but will pick up the story at the beginning, with Monkey D. Luffy assembling his crew to become a pirate.
The One Piece is being produced by WIT Studio, whose work you may well already have seen.
It made the Attack on Titan series, first broadcast in 2013 and available to stream through Crunchyroll in the UK or Disney Plus in the US. More recently it also made Spy x Family.
These shows give you an idea of what to expect: animated in a hand-drawn style, and lavish. A tease at the animation process also confirms this.
There’s no news of when The One Piece will be out, just a teaser trailer dropped on YouTube...
Netflix has also confirmed a second season of the live action version of One Piece, announced just two weeks after the show first aired.
There’s certainly no lack of source material to work from. As well as a 1000-episode anime TV show, the manga is currently 107 volumes long, having been in production since 1997.
- These are the best Netflix TV shows of 2023