One Piece is an awesome anime. It really has the perfect formula – pirates, action, comedy, great voice acting and design, excellent writing. It’s no wonder the series has 930+ episodes (and counting!).
But can you watch One Piece on Netflix?
Well, you can, but there are some annoying restrictions – you can only watch it in a few countries. To find out which ones, you can use StreamCatcher by ProPrivacy. It’s an online service that tells you where Netflix titles are available.
Right now, it seems that One Piece is only available on the following Netflix regional libraries:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Greece
- Italy
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Poland
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Sweden
- Turkey
- The US
What’s more, only Japan has all seasons.
Why, though?
We’ll tell you everything you need to know in this quick article. And don’t worry – we’ll also tell you how to unblock all seasons of One Piece.
Why Can’t You Watch One Piece on Netflix in Your Country?
You can thank geo-blocks for that. It’s due to them that Netflix can intercept and redirect your traffic to your country’s content library (which doesn’t have One Piece).
How does Netflix know to associate your connection with your country?
It’s simple – the site checks your IP address when you connect to it. Your IP tells Netflix everything it needs to know: what country and city you are from.
Why Does Netflix Geo-Block One Piece?
It’s legally forced to do that. The company signed licensing agreements with the copyright holder which give it the right to stream the show only in the countries mentioned above.
Why did Netflix only buy licensing rights for those regions, though?
It’s hard to say. We couldn’t find any online sources answering this question, so we can only make assumptions. As far as we can tell, Netflix didn’t get global rights due to one of these reasons:
- They just weren’t for sale.
- Other streaming sites or TV networks already bought them for other countries.
- Data mining showed that buying global rights wouldn’t be a smart investment since only people in specific countries were interested in the anime. Pretty shocking, we know, but what can you do? Everyone has their own taste in entertainment. And since Netflix spends a lot of licensed content, they can’t ignore that.
How to Unblock One Piece on Netflix – Just Use a VPN!
Waiting for Netflix to acquire licensing rights for your country doesn’t seem like a viable solution. Who knows when that will happen? If it will ever happen at all.
So what can you do instead?
Use a VPN! In our opinion, this is the best way to unblock One Piece on Netflix. It’s easy to use, efficient, and only takes a few minutes at most to unblock the show for you.
Now sure what a VPN is?
No problem – just think of it as an online tool you subscribe to and use to hide your geo-location from Netflix (and other websites). The VPN makes that possible by stopping Netflix from seeing your IP address. Without that information, the site can’t geo-block your access anymore.
What does Netflix see instead of your IP, though?
The VPN’s IP address – namely, the IP of the server you’re using. So if you’re connecting to a US server, Netflix will see a US IP address.
How to Unblock One Piece with a VPN
The whole process is very user-friendly, and won’t take you more than a few minutes. Just follow these five steps:
- Step 1 – Subscribe to a VPN service. According to our tests, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN work excellently with Netflix.
- Step 2 – Download the appropriate VPN app for your device from the provider’s site.
- Step 3 – Install the VPN app.
- Step 4 – Run the app, and use it to connect to a server. Make sure the server is in a country where One Piece is available. We recommend using a Japanese server since that country has all the One Piece
- Step 5 – Head to Netflix, log into your account, look up One Piece, and start binging it as much as you want!
If you’re wondering why the location of the VPN server doesn’t show up (the city), it’s because we edited it out. We did that to make sure someone from Netflix doesn’t end up on this article somehow, and sees which VPN server can unblock their site. If that were to happen, Netflix would have an easier time blocking ExpressVPN.
You can find Netflix Alternatives Here.
Will VPNs Prevent Bandwidth Throttling?
Yes. Since VPNs encrypt your traffic end-to-end, your ISP can’t spy on it anymore. They won’t be able to analyze your data packets to see that you’re using Netflix. Also, they hide the fact that you’re communicating with Netflix’s IP address. Your ISP will only see you’re connecting to a random IP (the VPN’s IP).
Without that data, they can’t selectively throttle your Netflix speeds.
Can You Unblock One Piece with a Free VPN?
No. At least our tests show that you can’t. If you try it, you’ll just keep seeing the Netflix proxy error.
Why?
Because free VPNs don’t have the resources to keep refreshing their IPs. So Netflix detects and blacklists them very often.
Can You Unblock One Piece with Tor?
Not really. When we tried using Tor with Netflix, we were able to log in. But if we would try watching a video, Netflix would redirect us to this FAQ page. Even if we installed the Silverlight plugins as the support article said, we still ended up on that page.
Who knows, maybe that’s Netflix’s way of blocking Tor. This isn’t hard to do, by the way, given that the IPs of Tor exit nodes are public.
The Bottom Line
One Piece is on Netflix, but you can only watch it in a few countries. To bypass the geo-blocks, you have to use a VPN (ideally a Japanese VPN server to get all seasons). At least that’s what worked well for us.
What about you, though? Were you able to unblock this show (or any other Netflix title) with a VPN, or did you use a different unblocking method? Please let us know in the comments below.
