The BBC have today announced that they have acquired the UK rights to over 1000 episodes of the English dubbed version of ONE PIECE.
The series will begin streaming on its BBC iPlayer service from 1st September 2024 with 206 episodes, which cover the East Blue, Alabasta and Skypiea arcs, being added. The remaining 879 episodes will be added throughout the remainder of the year, with the expectation that all 1085 episodes will be available on the BBC iPlayer service by the end of the year. This means that BBC iPlayer in the UK will offer every English dubbed episode of ONE PIECE from East Blue to the Land of Wano.
Synopsis: Monkey D. Luffy is a boy with big dreams. This daring rubber-man refuses to let anyone or anything stand in the way of his quest to become king of all pirates. With a course charted for the treacherous waters of the Grand Line, Luffy strikes out in search of a crew – and a boat. Along the way he’ll do battle with scallywag clowns, fishy foes, and an entire fleet of marines eager to see him walk the plank. The stakes are high, but with each adventure, Luffy adds a new friend to his gang of Straw Hat Pirates! Like his hero Gold Roger, this is one captain who’ll never drop anchor until he’s claimed the greatest treasure on Earth – the Legendary One Piece!
The addition of English dubbed episodes of ONE PIECE to BBC iPlayer comes as a welcome surprise, as previously the only way to watch English dubbed episodes of the series was to purchase the DVD (and now Blu-Ray) releases from Crunchyroll. The series is available to stream on Crunchyroll in the UK (with new episodes from Egghead arc also available on Netflix UK), but these episodes are only presented in Japanese with English subtitles.
Fiona Campbell, Controller of Youth Audiences, iPlayer and BBC Three, also shares her excitement of being able to bring the ONE PIECE franchise to a wider audience within the UK:
“It’s a really exciting move to bring the One Piece franchise to UK audiences in the coming months. With its captivating storytelling, rich characters and global fanbase, One Piece has become a cultural phenomenon and we’re so excited to see how the fanbase will enjoy this huge canon of episodes available in English only on iPlayer.”
As described by the BBC; One Piece is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation, based on Eiichiro Oda’s manga series of the same name, which is the No.1 manga in the world with over 500 million copies sold and over 100 volumes published. One Piece has been on screens internationally since October 1999 and celebrated over 1000 episodes. The long-running anime series is IMDB’s highest-rating TV show of 2024 so far, securing the top spot with an impressive 9.0/10 user rating.
It is unclear if the BBC are planning to broadcast the series on TV, as they could easily broadcast 2 episodes a night for over 2 years on BBC Three before running out of episodes, but for the time being the ONE PIECE adventure will set sail on BBC iPlayer with 206 episodes being added on 1st September 2024. with the remaining episodes being added by the end of the year.
