On July 18, 2024, IMDb posted the 10 series of 2024 with the highest average viewer rating on their platform. IMDb is, by virtue of the name itself (“internet movie database”), a tool covering all media—and therefore one you would expect to reflect mainstream tastes.
So you’d expect the top-rated series to be something like Shōgun, which got nominated for a recording-breaking number of Emmys. Or maybe a show like The Bear or House of the Dragon, which get tons of coverage in mainstream entertainment outlets. But the top-rated show of 2024 (so far) on IMDb is none of those.
Granted, this poll isn’t a popularity contest. It’s a poll about how highly viewers review the series they’re watching. It essentially means that more people watching One Piece right now have a ridiculously high opinion of it than people who are watching the dragon show.
But still. STILL! Seeing One Piece rank above the buzziest mainstream American shows on a platform that is not at all associated with anime is absolutely wild. And it’s a huge sign of how far the anime has come.
One Piece’s big shift to a must-watch
This very year, Toei Animation’s One Piece anime is celebrating its 25th anniversary, but such high praise of the anime is a very recent phenomenon.
For a long time as a One Piece fan, you’d hear manga readers complain about the anime. The most common complaints were that the animation wasn’t good and the pacing was too slow. These two complaints are why Wit Studio say they’re remaking the series. But if you ask me, someone who started the series in 2019, there’s a deep charm to Toei’s early One Piece. It’s cute and cozy.
Regardless, when One Piece’s Wano arc started in 2019, it was like Toei Animation flicked a switch. All of a sudden, the animation was drop-dead gorgeous, by any standard. What’s more, Toei went back to a tradition One Piece hadn’t explored since the 2000s: letting individual animators have distinct voices on their sequences for the show. You can often tell when the key animator has changed, and that’s a good thing. The results are among the most visually stunning sequences in modern anime.
One Piece‘s absurd level of quality, especially for a weekly series, did not go unnoticed. Anime fans crowned it Best Continuing Series at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in both 2023 and 2024.
While Wano kicked up the anime’s production value significantly, one issue still remained: pacing. In Wano’s particular case, the pacing issue largely comes from the source material. Still, there were plenty of episodes in the four-year arc where I’d turn to my partner, shrug, and say, “Nothing really happened in that one.” (I say this with immense love.)
Why One Piece is ranking so high right now
Thanks to immaculate planning, January 2024 coincided with the first new One Piece arc in years: Egghead, which also marks the first arc in the series’ final saga. The new opening, by director Megumi Ishitani, is not just the best One Piece has ever had, but arguably one of the best anime openings ever made. The first episode of Egghead is one of the best in the whole series.
And most importantly, it’s kept up the animation quality and experimentation while (again, by the nature of the source material) the pacing has accelerated.
Egghead moves fast. Mangaka Eiichiro Oda has arguably been moving too fast, likely knowing that Toei is there to add a couple breaths to the action as he sprints ahead. The results have been mutually beneficial. The anime is flourishing, adding just enough that fights are extended satisfactorily, new humor beats work excellently, and emotional sequences hit harder. Meanwhile, the manga basically has me screaming every week.
It’s truly incredible and beautiful to be able to say that, just ahead of its 25th anniversary, One Piece is truly the best it’s ever been. It also helps that One Piece is culturally ascendent in the West, both because of the rise in mainstream popularity of anime in general and because of Netflix’s highly successful live-action adaptation.
So damn straight One Piece fans are thrilled with their series. As we absolutely should be. Take that, dragon show.
Published: Jul 19, 2024 03:15 pm