In an intriguing development, popular YouTuber iShowSpeed has told his fanbase that he has been given permission to stream every episode of anime series One Piece on his channel. In a video released earlier this week, he said that the offer came after a meeting with the producer of the iconic 1000+ episode show.
In the video, iShowSpeed, who is a One Piece fan, said: “I met the producer of One Piece…Guess what the producer of One Piece said? She said she will…whitelist my channel for me to stream all the One Piece episodes.”
OnePiece episodes can already be viewed via SPT-owned streaming platform CrunchyRoll, so it is not clear if the owners of the One Piece IP are looking to carve out a separate YouTube or AVOD—style window. But if the partnership moves beyond conversational stage, it could pave the way for a new paradigm, whereby content originally created for traditional media starts to appear on influencer-owned channels.
Such a model leaves various questions unanswered – for example revenue share, scheduling and editorial context. iShowSpeed acknowledged as much when he said: “I haven’t really thought about what I’m going to do with (the episodes).”
One possibility might be for the two partners to organise a One Piece marathon – giving iShowSpeed a limited time window to show the episodes. Given that the YouTuber has 33.4m subscribers it would be a great shop window for the show. If this were to work, it could usher in a new era of influencer-owned media platforms being used to promote shows and films for third parties.
One Piece started life as a manga series before being turned into a long-running anime series by Toei Animation. In addition to a vast library of episodes, there are animated feature films and television specials. In 2023, Netflix released a live action adaptation.
