One Piece will likely be breaking its nearly three-decade-long custom of airing an anime episode weekly each Sunday, as newest bulletins by Toei Animation and producer Ryuta Koike have confirmed that the collection will change into a seasonal anime beginning in 2026.
In keeping with the announcement made by Koike in a information livestream, One Piece will considerably cut back its annual episode output, shifting to a two break up cours technique, with a most of 26 episodes airing per 12 months beginning in 2026.
Toei Animation defined that the brand new schedule is a deliberate transfer to enhance the variation’s high quality. The studio said the change will permit future episodes to “incorporate extra content material, tempo, and pacing of the manga.”
This transformation will start after the conclusion of the present Egghead arc, which is about to complete in 2025. Following the arc’s completion, the anime will take a three-month manufacturing hiatus from January to March 2026. The collection will then return in April 2026 with the extremely anticipated Elbaf arc, which is able to air in two cours, or quarters of a 12 months.
In the course of the livestream, the manufacturing crew additionally unveiled a brand new visible for the upcoming Elbaf arc.
For years, the One Piece anime has been criticized for its notoriously sluggish pacing. To keep away from catching as much as Eiichiro Oda’s ongoing manga, the anime typically tailored lower than one full chapter per episode, leading to drawn-out scenes, extended response pictures, and prolonged recaps. Whereas the animation high quality has seen a major enhance in latest arcs like Wano and Egghead, the pacing has remained a significant level of competition for viewers.
This new seasonal construction for One Piece additionally displays the evolving views throughout the anime business, because the success of latest variations like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer has prompted many studios and manufacturing committees to rethink their methods.
One Piece will not be the primary fashionable anime to bear this transition as one among its fellow “Huge Three” counterparts, Bleach, produced by Studio Pierrot, additionally adopted an analogous path.
Bleach anime initially ran as a weekly collection from 2004 to 2012 earlier than going into limbo. When the collection ultimately returned in 2022 with Bleach: Thousand-Yr Blood Struggle, it did so in a seasonal, high-budget format. This transformation was met with widespread acclaim from followers.
Studio Pierrot has since established a brand new division, Pierrot Movies, devoted to producing higher-quality seasonal anime, signaling a significant shift within the business away from the year-round weekly format.
Supply: X, Livestream
