Many One Piece fans are wondering how many seasons the live-action Netflix adaptation will get, particularly after news from creator Eiichiro Oda on how long he hopes the show will be. Actor Mackenyu, who plays swordsman Roronoa Zoro in the live-action series, revealed in March that the Oda “wants us to take the live-action to” and that there’s “a specific arc he wants us to go up to.” This has reignited discussions on which arc the manga artist is talking about, for a series many One Piece fans believe won’t last long enough anyway to adapt the manga in its entirety. That said, the show should at least reach one story arc before it’s inevitably cancelled.
Realistically, the live-action One Piece should get at least five seasons
As much as One Piece fans hope that the live-action series covers as much content as possible from the original manga and anime, the more realistic outlook is that it will last for five or six seasons, long enough that it reaches the fan-favorite Enies Lobby arc.
Even with the global success that the first season of the show has achieved, with Netflix choosing to announce the production of Season 3 more than several months before the second season was scheduled to release in March 2026, the longevity of the series has been questioned from its conception.
Many of the actors playing the crew of the Straw Hat Pirates, like Nami (Emily Rudd), Sanji (Taz Skylar), Roronoa Zoro (Mackenyu), and Usopp (Jacob Romero Gibson), are in their late 20s or early 30s in 2026. Given that it has taken more than two years for Netflix to release Season 2 after the series debut and the general pacing of the show, which has each season cover about 8 volumes of the manga (or roughly 40 to 50 episodes of the anime), these actors would be in their 40s or 50s if the show ever reached the Marineford arc (by maybe Season 9 or 10) at the end of the Summit War Saga. And that’s just the halfway point in the original series.
So even if the live-action One Piece is raking in the dough for Netflix right now (and has become a suitable replacement for Stranger Things), there will come a point when it’s not feasible for it to continue any longer. Well, at least when it comes to the original cast. It’s possible that some actors could be replaced in later seasons or that the show hires a different cast altogether at some point. However, viewership numbers for any show naturally declines over time, and Netflix is a network known for cancelling shows based on brutal data-driven viewership stats and tends to lean away from having to pay expensive long-term contracts (and One Piece has a lot of characters).
This isn’t to say that the producers for the live-action series aren’t ambitious. In an 2025 interview with Otaku Kartproducers Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements says the team hopes the series will last for as long as 12 seasons to cover as much content from the original source as possible. Clements believes that it would be easy for the show to produce at least six seasons.
That would be long enough for the Netflix’s One Piece to reach the Enies Lobby arc, which has the Straw Hats fighting against the World Government’s CP9 agency and offers a satisfying storyline for Miss All Sunday (who is introduced in Season 2). If we take the pacing of the series so far, Season 3 will likely cover the Arabasta arc while Season 4 will go over the Sky Island Saga. This would give enough time for Seasons 5 and 6 to cover the Water 7 saga, which includes the arcs Long Ring Long Land, Water 7, and Enies Lobby.
Any additional content after that point would be a considered a bonus. That said, if fans are able to stick with the series, we’ll hopefully see it cover the Thriller Bark, Impel Down, and Marineford arcs to complete the first half of the manga. Worse case scenario, if the show is cancelled, Netflix could release One Piece movies to finish it or another network could step in to fill in the gaps.
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