Tokyo – December 28, 2025 – After 26 years, the era of weekly One Piece episodes is coming to an end. The long-running anime series will transition to a seasonal format beginning in 2026, marking a notable shift for the beloved franchise and the anime landscape.
Piece Sets Sail on a Seasonal Course
The iconic anime will move from weekly releases to seasons, offering fans fewer episodes but potentially higher quality animation.
- The final weekly episode will air on December 28, 2025.
- Starting in April 2026, One Piece will release episodes in seasons, with 26 episodes annually split into two parts.
- The change is driven by evolving audience preferences and the need to balance anime production with the ongoing manga.
- A new live-action season is set to premiere on Netflix in March 2026.
For over two and a half decades, fans have eagerly anticipated new adventures with Monkey D. Luffy and the straw Hat Pirates almost every week. Outside of brief pauses, including a period between October 2024 and April 2025, the series has consistently delivered new content since it’s debut in 1999. But that consistent flow is about to change.
What prompted this change for one of anime’s most enduring series? The move to a seasonal format reflects a broader shift in the anime industry,prioritizing quality over quantity. While weekly releases were once the norm, mirroring the manga publication schedule, audiences now increasingly value well-produced, focused seasons.
The first seasonal release is slated for April 2026, promising to adapt the highly anticipated Elbaph arc from Eiichiro Oda’s manga. This won’t be the only One Piece content arriving in 2026. Netflix is preparing to launch the second season of its live-action adaptation in March,and oda and his team are also working on an anime remake that will revisit and condense earlier storylines,though a release date for that project remains unconfirmed.
Why the Shift to Seasons?
For decades, One Piece defied the trend, continuing to release episodes weekly as other major anime series adopted seasonal formats. However, the landscape has changed. Creator Eiichiro Oda, at 50 years old, has seen his manga output evolve, sometimes requiring the anime to fill gaps with filler content to avoid overtaking the source material.
The seasonal approach, in theory, will alleviate this
