Luffy won. Zoro finished second. Law stayed fifth and Robin stayed sixth. If you compare only those anchors, the second ONE PIECE World Top 100 poll looks almost unchanged from the first.

It was not. Between the official global results published in 2021 and 2026, Mihawk moved from 30th to ninth, Crocodile entered the top ten, Katakuri fell from 14th to 31st, and four names entered the top 20. The winner is the least interesting part of the five-year comparison.

Luffy and Zoro remain first and second; Sanji and Nami swap third and fourth; Mihawk rises from thirtieth to ninth.
The stable top disguises a large change underneath it. Rank movement is descriptive, not proof that popularity itself rose or fell. Chart: ABYSS CURRENT · official WT100 final rankings

There is one rule for reading every number below: rank movement is not a direct measurement of popularity gained or lost. The candidate pool, voting period and available voting channels changed. The tables are comparable as election results, not as a controlled experiment.

WT100 2021

Web + postcard

  • 4 Jan–28 Feb 2021
  • Web voting and postcard voting
  • More than 1,000 eligible characters
  • First worldwide character poll

WT100 2026

4 vote channels

  • 4 Mar–11 Jun 2026
  • Campaign web, ONE PIECE BASE, postcards and spot voting
  • 1,567 eligible characters at final announcement
  • Postcards carried 10 points each

The official global Top 20

Rank 2021 2026 Change
1 Luffy Luffy —
2 Zoro Zoro —
3 Nami Sanji Sanji +1
4 Sanji Nami Nami −1
5 Law Law —
6 Robin Robin —
7 Boa Hancock Ace Ace +2
8 Carrot Shanks Shanks +4
9 Ace Mihawk Mihawk +21
10 Sabo Crocodile Crocodile +7
11 Yamato Corazon Corazon +2
12 Shanks Boa Hancock Hancock −5
13 Corazon Chopper Chopper +3
14 Katakuri Sabo Sabo −4
15 Usopp Uta New / ineligible in 2021
16 Chopper Carrot Carrot −8
17 Crocodile Rocks D. Xebec New to Top 20
18 Jinbe Yamato Yamato −7
19 Marco Usopp Usopp −4
20 Doflamingo Loki New to Top 20

The table's most stable block is the top six. The same six characters occupy it in both polls; only Sanji and Nami swap third and fourth. Everything below Robin is much more fluid.

Largest rank climbs and drops between the 2021 and 2026 WT100 results.
Largest movements among the 2021 Top 30 and the 2026 Top 31. The two elections did not use identical voting systems. Chart: ABYSS CURRENT · official WT100 final rankings

The largest moves

Mihawk is the standout climb: 30th to ninth. That is 21 places, and it puts him immediately behind Shanks in the global final. Crocodile rises seven places, from 17th to tenth. The two are now linked in the story through Cross Guild, but the poll does not reveal why anyone voted. It is fair to note the publishing context; it is not fair to claim Cross Guild caused the result.

Shanks moves from 12th to eighth, and Chopper from 16th to 13th. Ace rises from ninth to seventh and Corazon from 13th to 11th. Those are real rank changes without a dramatic reordering of the top tier.

On the other side, Katakuri moves from 14th to 31st, the largest fall among the 2021 Top 20. Jinbe goes from 18th to 30th. Carrot moves from eighth to 16th; Yamato from 11th to 18th; Marco from 19th to 26th. “Fall” describes table position only. It does not establish that any of them lost fans.

Four new names in the Top 20

Mihawk, Uta, Rocks D. Xebec and Loki are new to the global top twenty in 2026.
Four names entered the Top 20. Only Uta was not eligible in 2021; 'new' here means new to this tier. Chart: ABYSS CURRENT · official WT100 final rankings

Uta is the only literal newcomer. She debuted after the 2021 poll and enters the second global table at 15th. Mihawk was already 30th in 2021; his ninth place is a promotion into the tier, not a debut.

Rocks D. Xebec and Loki are different again. Both names existed in the manga before 2021, but neither had the volume of on-page material available by the 2026 vote. Rocks enters at 17th after the story greatly expanded his history. Loki enters at 20th during Elbaf, where he has become an active character rather than a distant name. That context makes their arrival legible. It still does not prove a cause.

The four characters displaced from the 2021 Top 20 are Katakuri, Jinbe, Marco and Doflamingo. All remain in the 2026 Top 31, so this is turnover near a threshold, not disappearance.

  1. 2021Wano-era ballotYamato, Carrot and Wano-linked attention shape the upper table; Uta does not yet exist.
  2. 2022–2025Film Red, Cross Guild, EggheadUta debuts; Mihawk and Crocodile return through Cross Guild; the manga advances toward its endgame.
  3. 2026Elbaf-era ballotLoki and Rocks have much more published material, while the candidate pool and voting channels have expanded.

The Straw Hats barely moved at the top

Straw Hats — 2021

  • Luffy 1 · Zoro 2 · Nami 3 · Sanji 4
  • Robin 6 · Usopp 15 · Chopper 16
  • Jinbe 18 · Brook 26 · Franky 28

Straw Hats — 2026

  • Luffy 1 · Zoro 2 · Sanji 3 · Nami 4
  • Robin 6 · Chopper 13 · Usopp 19
  • Brook 27 · Franky 29 · Jinbe 30

The crew's first six positions are remarkably durable. Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Robin remain in exactly the same top-six group, with one swap. Chopper improves three places. The movement comes lower down: Usopp drops four, while Jinbe falls 12 places and now sits behind Brook and Franky.

That stability is useful because it gives the comparison a control group of sorts. The ballot gained hundreds of eligible names and several new ways to vote, yet the five most prominent Straw Hats plus Robin still occupied six of the first six positions. Whatever the new system amplified, it did not dislodge the crew from the centre of the global result. The meaningful turnover happened around them.

Even there, the warning holds. A 2026 voter could cast through the campaign website and the ONE PIECE BASE app, use spot voting in Japan, and submit a postcard vote worth ten points. The second campaign also ran for more than three months, versus under two months in 2021. A highly organised voting base could interact with those channels differently from a casual one.

What five years really changed

The strongest conclusion is narrower than “fans changed their minds.” The franchise changed the menu voters were choosing from. Uta arrived. Cross Guild made Mihawk and Crocodile an active unit. The manga supplied Rocks and Loki with substantially more story. Wano-era figures that dominated attention in 2021 faced a different publishing moment in 2026.

At the same time, the centre held. Luffy and Zoro are still first and second. Law and Robin are still fifth and sixth. Sanji and Nami moved one place each. Five years of new chapters altered the supporting cast of the Top 20 far more than its core.

For the 2026 result broken down geographically, see the final winners across all eight regions. For how unstable the race looked while voting was open, see our weekly regional analysis. Together they show why one global ranking is a result, not a complete map of the audience.

Method note

The 2026 ranks come from the official WT100 final-ranking site. The 2021 Top 20 was announced by the official ONE PIECE channels and is preserved as a complete ranking in ONE PIECE magazine Vol.13. We use common English names and compare ordinal rank, not raw votes, because the two systems and campaign lengths differ.

This is an Evergreen / Data article. Its FACT is the pair of published rankings and their documented rules. Our interpretation is limited to what the movement can safely show: who occupied each tier, not why each voter put them there.