With the beginning of Vegapunk’s broadcast and the showdown against the Five Elders well underway, One PieceS ‘ Egghead Arc is setting the stage for yet another epic climax. Although it’s impossible to imagine the Straw Hats escaping Egghead at the moment, it won’t be too long until the Egghead Arc comes to a close, and, as such, the anime has already set its sights on the next arc, Elbaph.
Toei Animation’s official X handle recently shared a new poster for One Piece’s Elbaph Arc, which is set to take off from April 2026. The poster features a birds-eye view of Luffy in his brand-new Elbaph-themed outfit walking through a snowy landscape between two massive Giant footprints. That said, along with the new look at Elbaph, Toei also revealed that the anime will be going on hiatus from January 2025 to April 2026.
One Piece Drops New Anime Look Ahead of 2026 Schedule Change
According to this new production schedule, One Piece’s anime will drop 26 episodes a year, split into two courses, essentially adopting a seasonal schedule, which is a first in anime’s broadcast history. The update about this new schedule was initially shared during a recent news live stream on One Piece’s official YouTube channel.
This live stream additionally revealed that cour two of the Egghead Arc, which took off in April 2025, will run for a total of 38 episodes, which includes five recap episodes until December 2025. After this, much like last year, the anime will go on hiatus until April 2026.
While the hiatus may be frustrating for fans used to tuning into One Piece every week for the last two decades, the reason for the change in schedule is arguably quite genius and could solve many of the fans’ biggest complaints about the anime over the years.
One Piece’s New Seasonal Schedule Could Be a Blessing in Disguise
In the news live stream, Ryuta Koike, One Piece’s anime producer, and Hiroyuki Nakano, the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jumpexplained that the reason for this change was so One Piece’s anime could be a one-for-one adaptation of the manga from here on out.
A graph shared during the stream revealed that over the years, One Piece’s anime has had more episodes than chapters, adapting the story in a given volume. This essentially means that the anime has often been covering less than a full chapter per episode, although this is hardly news to fans who have been complaining about the anime’s pacing for years.
The number of chapters per volume are displayed in red, and the number of episodes adapted based on the story content per volume is in blue.
Koike and Nakano explain that this discrepancy has mostly been due to “broadcast schedules and creative direction,” and this makes sense as the Egghead Arc has been able to step up its animation and creative direction even more since returning from hiatus, with every episode being nothing but stunning.
As such, every episode from here on out aims to be a one-for-one adaptation of the manga chapter it is adapting. This means fans can not only expect One Piece’s anime to finally fix its infamous pacing issues but also a stream of high-quality episodes.
Nor for what to watch during the hiatus, One Piece is sure to keep fans occupied in one way or another, be it in the form of another remaster like the Fishman Island Saga or adaptations of novels like One Piece: Heroines and One Piece Fan Letter.
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