🔗 Share this article One Piece Ends a 27-Year Tradition in 2026 It's the end of an iconic period for ongoing anime, with the production studio announcing a revised release plan for One Piece, which has been airing for more than 25 years and featured dozens of non-canon storylines. Starting in the new year, after the Egghead Island arc wraps up, the anime will take a quarterly hiatus until spring, when the Elbaph arc kicks off. New Release Strategy From now on, One Piece will produce a pair of cours every annually for a cap of two dozen installments. The studio explains this will help the anime to “dive even deeper into the heart of the universe — including more material, rhythm, and timing of the source material.” However, producers conclude by hinting at “exciting surprises” during the series' break, which means more related projects, such as the upcoming live-action adaptation, scheduled to debut in the interim. Learning from Past Breaks The series anime had a six-month pause that began in late 2024 and ended in April 2025. The hiatus was for the production team to enhance the visuals and let the comic to build a lead to prevent a faster anime pace and lengthy recap episodes. The anime greatly benefited from this break, and it has been able to supply fans with numerous fight scenes, superior graphics, and reduced non-canon content than ever before. Embracing Seasonal Format Although some recap episodes sprouted up during the recent run, the benefits of this new production schedule far surpass the odd pause in the action. This also gives the manga, which is presently in the thick of the Elbaph arc, to gain more ground on the anime. According to the announcement, this may lead to a single installment of the series adapting a single manga chapter, with some instead handling more material or more to make up for scheduling. This concludes of a generation for anime, as the epic saga is the last big series to abandon the traditional method of production, which prioritized being on air for most of the calendar. It's the reason why classics such as Naruto, and naturally One Piece have numerous filler arcs, and the quality of the art can vary widely between installments and the next. Nowadays, anime production is organized in seasons, with a couple at most releasing each year, enabling improved visuals and greater accuracy to the original work.