One Piece is the biggest manga series in the world. Sales don't lie – One Piece currently has over 600 million volumes in circulation, which is quite an impressive figure. But for all the success of One Piece, it also faces some struggles. Beyond manga breaks, fans have a bigger problem to worry about.
A big problem for One Piece Fans is repeated pauses
Oda needs more breaks than before due to his health
One Piece is a slow burn thing that requires patience from fans. This manga has been released pretty consistently since 1997 until now, which is 28 years.
Despite this extremely long series of over 1100 chapters, the story of One Piece has been consistent in quality, if not improved. It's the best-selling manga in the world for a reason.
That said, one thing that fans dislike about the series is the creator, Eiichiro Oda, who takes a lot of breaks, which is quite shocking. Oda is not as young as he used to be, and of course he needs more time to take care of himself, as well as take care of his family. Oda has previously shared that he gets some time to rest and spend time with his family because of the work on One Piece.
However, it is true that Oda seems to increase the frequency of his breaks slowly. A few years ago, breaks were rare. Around 2020, Oda started taking a break every four or five chapters. After the conclusion of Wano, Oda switched to going on hiatus after every third chapter. But now it seems that Oda may start going on a break every two weeks.
While breaks are definitely a problem to deal with, One Piece fans may be facing a bigger problem — and that has to do with declining manga sales.
Races are a big problem, but One Piece faces another big problem
One Piece is still one of the best-selling manga, but sales are declining
Breaks are annoying, but at the end of the day, Oda doesn't go on long hiatuses like many other mangakas, so fans should count themselves lucky that they get new One Piece content almost every week.
The real question One Piece series may face, however, is declining sales. One Piece sales aren't quite what they used to be, and they really peaked in Marineford. Then, a One Piece the volume would easily have over 2 million copies sold per volume and 2.5 million wasn't a hard number to reach either. And even after the peak has passed, One Piece still never quite fell below 1.5 million sales, until Egghead.
Following Wano's conclusion, there is a clear decline in sales that looks set to only get worse. Soon it may be possible for One Piece sales to fall below one million per volume.
When I was a kid, I thought to myself: I would love to draw a manga with the most hyped ending! I wonder if I can take it! Now we only have a small piece of the Wano arc left, the preparations are almost done. Took me 25 years lol. That said, it's good if you start reading from now. Because from now on… it will be… THE ONE PIECE!! The mysteries of this world, I will draw them all! It will be super interesting! Fasten your seat belt! And please stay with me a little longer! — Eiichiro Oda, author of One Piece, 2022
This is definitely worrying and it shows One Piece suffering from reader loss. That doesn't mean the story is dropping in quality now, just that the story is so long that some people eventually lose interest or simply wait for the story to move on so they can read it in one go. It's not unusual for a long series to experience that.
The One Piece comics desperately need to bring in new readers. The live-action and anime remake can definitely make a difference and expand One Piece's popularity globally.
Where can you watch and read One Piece?
Available on Crunchyroll and Manga Plus
One Piece is quite a long series, and since it is a weekly anime, the number of episodes keeps growing with each passing week. Right now, the anime has over 1100 episodes to catch up on, and all of them are on Crunchyroll.
Coming to the manga, One Piece Chapter 1163 will be released in two weeks. As usual, One Piece will be released on Sunday. In Japan, One Piece releases at 12pm JST on Monday. However, the vast majority of international readers will see the chapter available on October 26th. The official release date of One Piece Chapter 1163 is October 26, 2025. Fans can read the chapter for free on Manga Plus.
Source: X
- 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
- Author
-
Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
-
Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
-
Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
