One Piece anime undergoes massive change in 2026

For years, the anime adaptation of One Piece was relegated to oblivion because of pacing problems. Because the anime didn’t want to catch up with the manga, episodes would drag out storylines and barely progress before you saw the “to be continued” screen appear. Now things have changed, but to keep this quality high, One Piece is making fewer episodes per year in the future.

As announced yesterday alongside our first look at an animated frame of the Elbaph arc, One Piece will deliver 26 episodes per year starting in 2026. This is to allow fans “enjoy a chapter of the original work in one episode of the anime.” It also probably gives animators a bit of a break between delivering quality animations, rather than lowering the quality of the series in general.

Of course, this is a bit of a double-edged sword.One Piece Fans are used to having a lot of content, and so 26 episodes a year may not seem like a lot, but it’s still more than many anime fans get with more traditional, seasonal releases.