Japan’s Most Surprising 2025 Anime Officially Surpasses One Piece, Marking a New #1 Era

Japan’s Most Surprising 2025 Anime Officially Surpasses One Piece Monkey D. Luffy looking surprised in One Piece anime By  Gokul Chettiyar Published 9 minutes ago Gokul is an Anime Writer for ScreenRant. He started writing in December 2020 and contributed as a Writer and Editorial Head at OtakuKart. He later joined Sportskeeda as an Anime Writer and represented the team at several national events, racking up a few exclusives over time. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

One Piece is without doubt one of the biggest anime franchises to ever exist. In fact, one can argue that, despite the manga being nearly three decades old, the Eiichiro Oda series might be the best manga Shōnen has to offer. However, the same does not apply to its anime adaptation.

One Piece anime, similar to its manga, is very popular and over the years has gotten renewed art and animation styles. However, as far as the story is concerned, it has fallen behind its modern competitors, primarily due to its slow pacing. These days, global fans prefer fast-paced stories with high-quality animation. As such, even Toei Animation has revised One Piece's production schedule to help the anime keep up.

However, evidently, Japanese fans do not feel the same way. In a shocking turn of events, despite anime like One Piece being valid contenders, it was the slice-of-life anime Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines that was voted the Best Work of 2025 at the Newtype Anime Awards.

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines Wins Best Work Award Ahead of One Piece

Anna Yanami as seen in Makeine Too Many Losing Heroines

Back in October 2025, the Newtype Anime Awards revealed its winners. While global fans were expecting anime like One Piece or Solo Leveling to take the win for the Best Work Award, the award went to A-1 Pictures' slice-of-life series Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines.

For fans who are unaware, the Newtype Anime Awards winners are determined solely through a popularity vote in Japan devoid of any judges selecting the nominees. As such, when fans picked their favorite work released between July 2024 and 2025, Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines emerged victorious.

In fact, as per rankings announced by Newtype Anime Awards, One Piece wasn't even one of the 10 most popular anime in Japan within the timeframe. This clearly depicts how much the tastes of fans in Japan vary compared to the West.

Why Did One Piece Lose to Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines?

Monkey D. Luffy as seen in One Piece anime

As much as fans globally prefer Shōnen over slice-of-life anime, that isn't the case domestically. Japanese fans love how slice-of-life anime offer a relaxing story, compared to Shōnen that often feature high-intensity action. As such, Japanese fans were bound to pick Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines anime over something like One Piece.

That said, One Piece's slip in popularity isn't just because of its genre, but also its production problems. While One Piece is a long-running anime, releasing episodes weekly, it often faces pacing problems and hiatuses, disrupting fans' viewing experience.

As such, the very release schedule that should have worked in favor of the anime's popularity has been working against it. The good thing is, Toei Animation has finally addressed this problem and is set to follow a 26-episode a year format for One Piece starting next year. Therefore, while the Eiichiro Oda series slipped in the rankings this year, it should stand a better chance at such fan-voted award ceremonies in the future.

168 9.2/10

One Piece

10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed TV-14 Comedy Action Adventure Anime Fantasy Release Date October 20, 1999 Network Fuji TV Directors Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou Writers Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda Franchise(s) One Piece 9 Images One-Piece-Episode-1136-Straw-Hats-FlashbackOne-Piece-Episode-1136-Bonney-PirateOne-Piece-Episode-1131-Revolutionary-ArmyOne-Piece-Sanji-Nosebleed-DeathOne-Piece-Opening-28-Vegapunk-SpeechOne-Piece-Episode-1142-Luffy-Kizaru-SaturnOne-Piece-Episode-1141-CaribouOne-Piece-Opening-28-Zoro-LucciLuffy getting ready to fight Babanuki in One Piece episode #947.Close

Cast

See All

• Mayumi Tanaka Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
• Kazuya Nakai Roronoa Zoro (voice)

Genres Comedy, Action, Adventure, Anime, Fantasy Powered by Expand Collapse 8.8/10

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!

10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed Animation Comedy Romance Release Date 2024 - 2024 Network Tokyo MX, BS11, Tochigi TV, Chukyo TV, KYT

Cast

See All

• Shuichiro Umeda Kazuhiko Nukumizu
• Hikaru Tono Anna Yanami

Genres Animation, Comedy, Romance Creator(s) Takibi Amamori Powered by Expand Collapse

• Anime
• One Piece
• One Piece

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