Frieren anime continues to outperform One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 in Japan

On Saturday, December 9, 2023, the Japanese Animation TV official rankings for the week of November 27 to December 3 were released. The rankings included highly acclaimed shows such as Frieren anime, One Piece, and Detective Conan. Surprisingly, Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 did not rank within the top 10 most-watched animes on Japanese TV.

Despite being on a roll with its recent episodes and given its popularity both domestically and worldwide, the exclusion of Jujutsu Kaisen from this list was due to some shocking competition, presumably scoring less than Animated O-saru no George's (Curious George) rating of 2.0.

According to the statistics provided by Video Research, the Frieren anime continued to outrank One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen. Despite ranking slightly above the former, the gap between the Frieren anime and Jujutsu Kaisen was substantial.

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Frieren anime continues to outperform One Piece while Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 fails to eclipse a 2.0 rating

According to the Japanese Animation TV statistics, the Frieren anime clocked in at a 3.7 rating while One Piece's Egghead Island Arc scored a moderate 3.2. However, Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 missed out on the top 10 most-watched animes list entirely. The bottom two in the latest ratings include Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure with a rating of 2.8 and Animated O-saru no George (Curious George) with a rating of 2.0.

These were consequently followed by One Piece, Crayon Shin-chan, Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Doraemon, Chibi Maruko-chan, Detective Conan, and Sazae-san. Ratings for the following week are currently unavailable at the time of this article's writing.

The statistics provided by Japanese Animation TV are an estimation of the percentage of the population watching a specific show. A survey of households in Japan's Kanto region is used to collect the data, which is then extrapolated to be used as a representation of the nation's interests.

In other words, it can be inferred from the data that almost twice the number of people were more interested and tuned in for the Frieren anime over Jujutsu Kaisen season 2.

This was extremely surprising given the recent controversy surrounding Jujutsu Kaisen's production schedule. One must note, however, that these statistics do not include people who may have watched either anime later in the week.

Another interesting fact to consider is that despite the end of One Piece's Wano Arc in episode 1085 and the story now having entered its final saga, the anime's performance has remained moderate, with shows like Frieren and Sazae-san outranking it.

A reasonable explanation behind Frieren anime ranking above One Piece may simply be because the latter premiered first on the block with episode 13 of the anime being highly anticipated among fans.