This year, the One Piece manga turned 27 years old while the anime will soon hit its 25th anniversary. Respectively, they contain 1,123 chapters and 1,115 episodes each (at the time of this writing). And that's not even counting all of the movies, supplementary material and tie-in stories, and sheer amount of merchandise that One Piece has spawned. If you're thinking about checking out the series, it seems like a gargantuan effort. The One Piece story is as vast and sprawling as the seas within its pages.
Of course, there are official efforts being made to make its size more palatable. Netflix's popular live action series covered roughly 95 chapters in its eight-episode first season, with a second season on the way. Meanwhile, a second anime adaptation called The One Piece is in the works. Set to debut on Netflix (the success of the live action series has influenced the streaming service to pretty much go all-in on the franchise,) it's being made partly in order to lure in potential viewers that are intimidated by the current anime's immense episode count. However, if your main goal is to somehow convince fans that One Piece isn't as protracted as it looks, you've picked the wrong manga. One Piece is long no matter how you try to adapt it – and there's nothing wrong with that.
