One Piece is both one of the most popular shonen anime of all time, and it ranks among the longest-running, too, amassing even more episodes than its "shonen big three" competitors, Naruto and Bleach. Given its immense length, most audiences would feel intimidated to jump into the One Piece anime from the very beginning. The One Piece episode count is truly vast and is still growing, after all.

Since the launch of One Piece's anime back in October 1999, the anime has racked up hundreds of episodes. If a dedicated anime fan decided to curl up and binge the now-legendary show, they must ask: how long does it take to watch One Piece, or if they should even watch the series' movies. Given how large the One Piece episode count is, this is an increasingly difficult question to answer.

Updated by Timothy Blake Donohoo on March 12, 2014: One Piece remains one of the biggest and most successful anime franchises in the world, and it's only gotten more popular. Of course, this has made the One Piece episode count quite large, making some wonder how long it takes to watch One Piece. The answer is fairly straightforward, though it becomes more complicated when the One Piece movies get thrown into the mix. Thankfully, shows such as the live-action remake and the upcoming series The One Piece makes watching the entire adventure somewhat easier for newcomers.

How Many Episodes of One Piece Are There?

Based on the ever longer-running manga by Eiichiro Oda, the One Piece anime first began airing in October 1999, making the show almost 25 years old as of the Spring 2024 anime season. Throughout the years, it has amassed almost as many seasons and feature-length anime films as well.

This long length has created a large One Piece episode count, and as of March 2024, there are 1097 (and counting) One Piece episodes total. Anyone looking to begin their One Piece watch time or pick it back up can find it on a variety of streaming platforms, including Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, though not all of these platforms feature every episode.

How Many One Piece Movies Are There?

Unlike many anime movies, the One Piece movies are integrated into the ongoing saga, which fits the One Piece show's anthology-style storytelling. To date, there are fifteen One Piece films, with the most recent, One Piece: Red, having been released in August 2022. Set during the Wano arc, One Piece: Red also exists within its own timeframe, so it continues to expand the overall story as a whole.

Adding all fifteen movies to the viewing list extends a viewer's One Piece watch time, and by quite a bit. Combining the films with the extensive episode list, committed viewers should be able to watch the entire series eventually, but it's going to take some serious dedication. Anyone wondering "How long does it take to watch One Piece?" will definitely add a large handful of hours to the viewing experience if they choose to add the 15 movies.

How Long Does It Take To Watch One Piece?

The One Piece anime is now reaching its 1,097th episode, which airs on March 17, 2024. That means it would take a first-time viewer a very long time to be up-to-date with any future episodes. The episodes range between 22 and 24 minutes long. Using the latter as the norm and multiplying it by 1097, binging the series would therefore last a total of 26,328 minutes. This equals 438.8 hours or 18.28 days. Adding all fifteen films tacks on another 22.1 hours, extending the total One Piece watch time to 460.9 hours, or 19.20 days.

That is, of course, if fans watch the entire One Piece episode count without ever sleeping or taking a break. If viewers were to spend the eight hours a day that would usually be reserved for work or school consuming the anime instead, it would take 54.85 days to catch up with all One Piece episodes. With the movies added into the mix, the total number of days to catch up entirely would be 57.61. That's assuming they did this every day for eight hours, including weekends. That would be almost two months' worth of continued viewing — a pretty arduous task.

Removing two and a half minutes from each episode for the intro/outro, the 1097 episodes last a total of about 22.585.5 minutes. This equals out to 393.09 hours or 16.38 days, putting it over two solid weeks of solid, consecutive viewing with no breaks for other shows or activities, including sleep. The One Piece manga entered into its final saga, which means that many more episodes are still on the way to bring all that new content onto the small screen. Catching up will become even more difficult as weeks pass, but a dedicated viewer could get it done. In short, while it's still a serious challenge to watch this enormous amount of content, there's never a bad time to set sail with One Piece. In fact, it may be easier than ever.

The Netflix One Piece Shows Offer an Alternative to Watching the Entire Anime

Netflix released its live-action take on One Piece in 2023, despite the fact many fans had been skeptical of the project beforehand. Despite this, the series released to rave reviews, and many viewers found themselves astounded at how well the Netflix project translated the source material to live action. Most importantly, the live-action One Piece has proven that other anime franchises could work in the same medium. Truncating many of the earliest arcs in the series, Netflix's live-action version heavily streamlines the One Piece watch time. After all, it's only 8 episodes, a far cry from the nearly 1,100 of the anime. The entirety of the series so far is 451 minutes long, making it a little over 7 and a half hours' worth of content. If watching all the One Piece episodes total for the anime is too intimidating, those wanting to get into the series might choose the live-action show instead.

Likewise, completionists won't have to watch too much more if they add the Netflix series to their One Piece episode count. When combined with the original anime and the movies, it's a total of 28,105 minutes, which comes up to 468.41 hours of content. Another option is the upcoming anime series The One Piece, which will also air on Netflix (making it the streaming king for the broader franchise). This series is a remake of the anime, starting over from the beginning and potentially streamlining the storyline. It's unknown how many episodes and minutes it will add to the One Piece watch time, however, so fans wanting to go ahead and get started on the classic anime might as well do so.