88% of One Piece Readers Are Adults

by dtshyk
Feb 9, 2011 5:56 AM | 141 Comments

Japan's national broadcasting organization NHK featured the popularity of manga One Piece in its news program "Today's Close-up". According to the report, 88% of the readers are adults and 13% are older than fifty years old.

Chart: Demographics of One Piece Readers

The program concluded that the relationship of mutual trust among the characters attracts the grown-ups, who have been exhausted with the economic recession.

Source: Screenshot of the program

20 of 141 Comments Recent Comments

wetpantsu said:

myth720 said:
I want to watch & read it but the length intimidates me >_>

I started the anime not more than a year ago, and I'm halfway to catching up. Trust me, you won't regret watching and/or reading it.

I was intimidated too, until after much pressure from a friend of mine to check it out and I was running out of stuff to read at my local library back in early '09.

....Flew through all 55-ish volumes that where out at the time in the time span of 4-5 months. 8D

Ever sense I've caught up, I've been following the weekly releases since.

Feb 19, 2011 4:43 AM by SailorCardKnight

Also, who cares that 88% of One Piece readers are adults, is this meant to validate anything???....NO

It mean OP >>> Naruto + Bleach and that people who think otherwise have poor taste and their opinion doesn't matter because they're noobs.

Feb 18, 2011 9:15 AM by SuperSaiyen

You would have to be really addicted to continue pursuing an anime/manga for more than a decade, otherwise it must have sucked or become uninteresting. It's not because One Piece is a long-running series that garnered it viewers/readers a lot older from the target audience. I'd say it's its raw awesomeness.

myth720 said:
I want to watch & read it but the length intimidates me >_>

I started the anime not more than a year ago, and I'm halfway to catching up. Trust me, you won't regret watching and/or reading it.

Feb 18, 2011 7:28 AM by Jujika

ringoo4 said:

SailorCardKnight said:
It may seem silly that so many adults are reading a series thats known to be "childish", but hey, my mom still watches and enjoys cartoons and animated films intended for kids, and shes over 40.

I did admit that One Piece is undeniably shonen, but it definitely isn't childish as I read along. Underlying themes and dramas are sometimes very dark and just overwhelmingly well constructed to just put it into the American cartoon category.

Thats why I put "childish" in quotes, as I was quoting the common, majority view of the series by those who aren't familiar with OP. =P

I'm fully aware of the mature adult themes of the series.

Feb 18, 2011 7:08 AM by SailorCardKnight

Hopefully ODA will finish it before all use guys go bald and the ladies start to sag >.<

Feb 14, 2011 5:56 PM by Angra-Mainyu

Feb 14, 2011 5:09 AM by ringoo4

That's not a very hard statistic to believe, maybe because I'm a contributor of that
88%. There are three words that can described One Piece; awesome, awesome, and amazing. One Piece FTW!!

Feb 13, 2011 7:42 AM by MyNameSucks

FOE-tan said:
So, since One Piece started over 10 years ago, most of these adults would have been children when it started. someone who started reading it when they were 13 would be about 26-27 now.

This.

Then again I didn't start OP when I was already way past that age. I was like 19 then, and I'm 21 now.

It may seem silly that so many adults are reading a series thats known to be "childish", but hey, my mom still watches and enjoys cartoons and animated films intended for kids, and shes over 40.

Feb 13, 2011 5:02 AM by SailorCardKnight

Maybe I can finally get some of my hater friends to watch it with me now.

Feb 12, 2011 12:55 AM by Racaholic

i'm one of those 43%! XD

anyway.. one piece has been running since 1997 (manga) / 1999 (anime).. so that's nearly 12-14 years.. the story and characters has many hooked unto it since then :)

Feb 11, 2011 11:10 PM by reinwald

well at first they were sticking by becuz they thought it would finish it soon and they didnt want to drop it fo no reson.....an than they realized their all adults.

Feb 11, 2011 9:56 PM by supermegasonic

This news is not surprising at all. As one person here mentioned, most readers were in their teens when they first started and have continued to read to this day; I've seen people in my college in their 30-40s reading One Piece.

However, there is more reasoning than the age. Think about the number of chapters One Piece has, over 600 at present. Unlike Detective Conan, the One Piece story is sequential and continual, thus people would need a lot of time to catch up, and considering everyday Japanese (not talking about otakus, but those that read manga occasionally) don't have much time due to their personal lives and school, this goal isn't very realistic.

Feb 11, 2011 9:09 PM by alchemist11

I'll take One Piece over Naruto (Anime at least) any day. But I am just round episode 165. `86 here and I just started this maybe two years ago.. same for anime with the exception of Dragonball Z about 7 years ago during highschool if i do my math right.

Feb 11, 2011 8:24 PM by ApolloFC

ShaunG said:
Not surprising, every person who've kept reading one piece from the start in his teenage days, is now 12 years older...

Feb 11, 2011 8:01 PM by krazy925

Nidhoeggr said:

wakka9ca said:
This makes sense. It explains why OP always tops the sales. The buying power of adults >>> buying power of children and teenagers

I beg to differ. It's Japan we are talking about, the culture of reading comics/manga is entirely different and is certainly not a good object for over-simplifications. There are also statistics of Top 10 Manga through various age groups showing that all kinds of manga can be popular. Blaming it on the demographic alone is biased reasoning.

But you cannot deny that it may have been a contributing factor.

Did I ever say that it was the only factor? Nitpicking on other people's comment is good but when you start to think everyone else is an idiot and you are the only smart one.... it won't get you far in a discussion.... Not everyone is as stupid and simple-minded as you think...

Feb 11, 2011 6:15 PM by wakka9ca

InfiniteRhapsody said:
wow xD
well im 18 XD, but i didnt expect that only 13% are youngsters XDDDD
looooooooooool

It says that 13% are OLDER than 50 years old. Geez. That surprised me.

Feb 11, 2011 1:55 PM by hartschaotica

alexcampos said:
I rarely talk about One Piece, but....

Like everyone has been saying, if you have a manga that has been running for 13+ years, yeah eventually people grow up.

Also, who cares that 88% of One Piece readers are adults, is this meant to validate anything???....NO

Every manga/anime has different taste to different people, not every kid will like shounen and not every adult will like Seinen.

This means that even adults can't be bored with this manga.

Over 13 years and the popularity is growing which means the manga still kicks ass, and is interested enough (record after record)
Ofc it does not mean it's a Seinin, it's Just the only ongoin shounen that doesn't disappoint at the moment...

Feb 11, 2011 6:42 AM by smokes

El Oh El

^
That's what I felt reading through this thread.

I'm One Piece fan (since I'm Korean), but its genre will ALWAYS be SHONEN, but never SEINEN. However, it doesn't mean it cannot appeal to adult more. Simple as that.

Beside, one piece is more of Japan's 'national manga' right next to dragon ball and Fist to star. Nothing can beat those three anyway. Even though Naruto is more popular in western kiddo fanbase, major buying power and critics will always be strictly inside Japan community.

Feb 11, 2011 5:23 AM by ringoo4

Haha wow, I've always thought a majority of the readers were kids. Guess I wrong P:

Feb 11, 2011 4:30 AM by horcrvx

Nidhoeggr said:
And as usual, a good discussion gets ruined by idiots who think that biased reasoning somehow equals facts.

Thanks Metroid, smokes, echoshadow, etc.
You are everything that is wrong with anime communities.

meh... Some people like Star Wars, some people like Star Trek.
all it is, is a new Dragon Ball Z for a new generation.

Feb 11, 2011 2:54 AM by echoshadow

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