Over the past seven years, dragon ball reigned as Toei Animation's most profitable anime franchise. However, the company's latest fiscal report indicates that One piece officially dethroned its iconic competitor.

An X (formerly Twitter) user known as Schaewn Frost (or @Schaewn) recently shared Toei Animation's total earnings from April 2023 to March 2024. According to the report, One piece raised over 22.2 billion yen (about US$142,120,026). On the other hand, dragon ball earned only about 19 billion yen (about US$121,634,200), marking the end of the franchise's seven-year winning streak. Although DragonBall is certainly maintaining an audience, this data confirms that One piece continues to expand its already massive audience, making the latest series an even more formidable opponent for current and future competitors.

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Toei Animation's Dragon Ball Anime Loses Its Top Spot for the First Time in 7 Years

One piece has also achieved notable success with companies like Bandai Namco Entertainment, which oversees the franchise's gaming division. According to the company's 2024 fiscal report, One piece earned over 112.1 billion yen (equivalent to US$721,893,733 at the time) in media sales, setting a new milestone of 100 billion yen for the series. In contrast, dragon ball won 140.6 billion yen, allowing him to win One piece while losing the previous first place to Mobile Suit Gundam, which has grossed over 145.7 billion yen in total sales. Before 2024, dragon ball maintained a six-year winning streak as Bandai Namco Entertainment's most profitable franchise.

Dragon Ball's defeat is still seen as a great victory by many

For Toei, there is no denying this. One piece came out on top. However, some fans feel the report only reinforces dragon ballsupremacy within the anime fandom. This is mainly due to the fact that dragon balllast great anime series, Dragon Ball Supercompleted in 2018, while the One piece anime still has new episodes coming out weekly. Despite this, dragon ball lost by only a margin of 3 billion yen – a fact that many BD fans called attention to it in the comments section. “(One piece) facing a series that is completely inactive in every aspect and can only manage a 3 billion yen difference when it has everything going for it… again, this is even more impressive for dragon ball”, wrote one user.

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One Piece is seen as much better marketing than Dragon Ball, especially internationally.

Notably, there is some controversy within the Toei Animation community over how the company treats its two shonen titans. Some fans have argued that Toei dedicates most of its international marketing efforts to One piece while devoting a comparatively scant amount of advertising to dragon ballparticularly in the West. BD Online fans have pointed this out in relation to Toei Animation's upcoming anime series Dragon Ball Daima, which only received a few international trailers to tide the community over until its fall 2024 debut. Last month, a user X expressed his concerns about this on a public website dragon ball thread. “I know it’s still more than 5 months away, but I don’t want this to be another Super hero situation where they don't show anything until a month before launch,” they wrote.

THE dragon ball The manga is available in English from VIZ Media. The respective anime adaptations of the series, including dragon ball, DragonZ Ball, dragon ball gt and Dragon Ball Super, are available to stream on Hulu and Crunchyroll. The One piece The manga is also available in English from VIZ Media, while Toei Animation's long-running manga One piece The anime is currently available on Hulu, Netflix, and Crunchyroll.

• 

  dragon ball

  Dragon Ball tells the story of a young warrior named Son Goku, a peculiar young boy with a tail who embarks on a quest to become stronger and learn about the Dragon Balls, when, once gathered all 7, he can grant any wish of choice.

  Created by

  Akira Toriyama

  First TV show

  Dragon Ball (1986)

  First episode air date

  April 26, 1989

  Cast

  Sean Schemmel, Laura Bailey, Brian Drummond, Christopher Sabat, Scott McNeil

• 

  One piece

  Created by Eiichiro Oda, the One Piece franchise explores the adventures of pirate Luffy D. Monkey and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates. Since the manga debuted in 1997, One Piece has been adapted into an ongoing anime series that has spawned several feature films. Most recently, it was adapted into a live-action series by Netflix.

  Created by

  Eiichiro Oda

  First TV show

  One Piece (1999)

  Last TV show

  Netflix's One Piece

  First episode air date

  October 20, 1999

  Cast

  Mayumi Tanaka, Kazuya Nakai, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Christopher Sabat, Kerry Williams, Kappei Yamaguchi, Sonny Strait, Hiroaki Hirata, Eric Valette, Ikue Ootani

Source: Toei Animation, X (formerly Twitter)