One Piece is one of the most iconic anime and manga series in the entire medium’s history. Its animated adaptation regularly tops trending anime charts, and its 100 manga volumes have been going strong since summer 1997. But now, One Piece may be set to close.
In a Japanese print advertisement celebrating One Piece’s 100th volume, series writer and illustrator Eiichiro Oda teased a photo of a work-in-progress One Piece chapter along with the ominous phrase, “The story is in the final stage.”
Given One Piece already has over 1,000 manga chapters released, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Oda said in both 2019 and 2020 that he planned to end the story in about half a decade, Anime News Network reports. But now, we know the series’ closure is in sight for sure. It remains unclear how the end will impact One Piece’s equally prolific anime, which is less than a dozen episodes away from reaching its own 1,000 mark in November.
One Piece fans should rest easy either way, as yet another adaptation is on the way. Netflix is turning the series into a live-action show, and just today, Netflix Geeked teased its teleplay script for Episode #101: “Romance Dawn.” So even if the manga and anime’s story comes to a close in just a few years, expect plenty more One Piece media to binge along the way.
