How Many Seasons Netflix Would Need to Adapt Entire One Piece Manga

Season 1 of the live-action One Piece has 8 episodes. The anime has over 1000 so far. So how many episodes of the Netflix series will it take to adapt the entire manga?

First of all, it's worth noting that major networks and streaming sites rarely stick to the canon when adapting work for television. Just look at Game of Thrones. So the answer to this question lies very much in what Netflix wants from the series as a whole.

It's also worth noting that the first 8 episodes covered more than 100 chapters of the manga. By that logic, 10-12 seasons would seem to be necessary. But considering that the One Piece manga is published weekly, it becomes clear that in a decade (assuming 10 seasons at 1 per year) there will be much more story to tell.

Inevitable spin-offs could lead to another GoT disaster

Looking at the current trends in TV and streaming, it seems likely that there will be some spin-offs if the series maintains its current popularity. And there's always the risk that the showrunners will go their own way, based on what they think will appeal more to a TV audience. Let's not forget that making a Netflix show is an attempt by the franchise to reach a wider audience.

Certainly, Season 1 leaves little doubt that the funding will be there for whatever direction the show takes in the future. But television is a very different medium from comic books, and the audience demands are not the same.

TV adaptations tend to focus more on plot than character development, which suggests that the Netflix adaptation will at least move through the rest of the canon at a similar pace. Then there's the question of whether the number of episodes per season could be increased.

More episodes, fewer seasons?

Going from 8 to, say, 10 or 12 is unlikely to result in a pro rata increase in the amount of material covered. It would more likely result in each season covering even more of the source material.

This all means that it's impossible to predict how many seasons of One Piece there will be. A rough estimate would be somewhere between 6 and 12. But 12 is an awful lot of seasons for any show, and history suggests that we can expect the series to end before the number of seasons reaches double figures.