In this day and age, when even the mighty Netflix is vulnerable to competition, the vast majority of shows are available on one—and exactly one—streamer. Somehow, this is decidedly not the case for One Piece. The infamous pirate shounen has been running since 1999 and boasts over 1,000 episodes, with new ones released weekly.
For US audiences, One Piece is streaming on a whopping five services: Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, Hulu, and Adult Swim (via their website). And that doesn’t even count Crunchyroll’s channel on VRV! You should also note that Crunchyroll and Funimation are in the process of merging. Exactly what that’s going to look like in the future is anyone’s guess, but for now, they remain distinct websites that just so happen to share most of their libraries.
Anyway, long story short: if you want to start One Piece from the beginning (which you should!) and work up to the weekly releases, Crunchyroll and Funimation are undoubtedly the way to go. Netflix, which is producing a live-action version of the show, is only streaming up through the Alabasta arc, ie episode 130. That’s enough to figure out whether or not you love One Piece enough to buy a new streaming service altogether. But it’s also only about 10% of One Piece‘s epic glory.
Hulu fairs much, much better. A Hulu subscription will get you through episode 899 as of this writing. However, this stops short of the present Wano arc, which you definitely don’t want to miss. The animation style changes and the shift is beautiful. Also, as someone who started her One Piece journey on Hulu, the image quality is notably more low-res than Crunchyroll or Funimation. I swear I’m not some shadowy Crunchyroll hype-lady! I just really want you to enjoy One Piece to the fullest. I want you to join my cult.
However, this changes if you want to watch the dub. The dub of One Piece is far behind the sub, because production of the dub was halted until 2019. Because of the pandemic, new episodes of the dub didn’t premiere until 2021. If you want the dubbed version of One Piece, your best bet is by far Funimation. Adult Swim, via Toonami, is also airing the dub, but their website presently just offers a portion of the Fishman Island Arc. As of this writing, the One Piece dub runs until episode 794, during the Whole Cake Island Arc (which is my favorite!).
A couple of other little things to keep in mind. Crunchyroll and Funimation’s One Piece library is so vast, they include specials, like “3D2Y” and “The Episode of Sabo.” “3D2Y” is a unique story, but deeply skippable. I haven’t even watched “Episode of Sabo.” You don’t have to worry about them if you don’t want to. The One Piece movies are also non-canonical, so you don’t need to worry about those, either. However, if you’re curious, two of the better ones—Strong World and Z—are presently on Netflix.
So, there you have it. Enjoy your One Piece journey! I am so jealous you get to witness it all for the first time.
(Image credit: Toei Animation)
