It may not have been a record-breaker, but One Piece officially being renewed for additional episodes by Netflix exactly two weeks to the day since it premiered still easily ranks as one of the streaming service’s faster-ever.
After debuting at number one on the viewership charts in more countries than Wednesday and The Sandman, it was entirely fitting that the platform’s first successful live-action anime adaptation would be guaranteed a new season quicker than either of them, although with a major positive must also come a crushing negative.
Netflix’s strategy for renewing shows is haphazard at the best of times given that it can take anywhere from days to well over a year and a half for a stay of execution to be confirmed, but tomorrow marks exactly six months to the day since Shadow and Bone dropped its sophomore stretch of fantastical adventures, and yet we’re nowhere near to discovering whether or not it’ll be the last.
Season 2 debuted with a solid-if-unspectacular 50 million hours watched, which then increased to 55 million in its second week, but that’s a mere drop in the ocean compared to the 140 million and 147 million enjoyed by One Piece, so it’s easy to see why Netflix has opted to pull the trigger so quickly on the latter.
It might be significantly less popular, then, but reports have at least indicated that Shadow and Bone is substantially cheaper to produce than the $18 million per episode funneled into One Piece, so that’s something. Either way, the longer the wait goes on, the less and likely it is that the GrishaVerse will be back, even if its supporters will refuse to give up until it’s an absolute certainty.
