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As we’ve said before, the release schedule of One Piece is a thing of wonder. For the past 25 years, the anime has been a fixture on Japanese television, rarely skipping more than a few weeks at a time. Occasionally, a filler episode will air when they struggle to replace a voice actor, but lengthy breaks between episodes are not generally the norm. Which is why fans were caught off-guard when Toei announced that the One Piece anime would be going on an uncharacteristically long hiatus before finishing off the Egghead Island arc.

Starting on October 20, 2024, the One Piece anime will be on hiatus until April 2025. That’s a gap of at least five months and probably closer to six between new episodes, which is longer than the hiatus the series took during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (nine weeks) or when Toei got hacked in 2023 (five weeks). Even if the anime came back in the first week of April, it would have been on break for 24 weeks total.

The reason given by Toei for the long break is to improve animation quality, but the big thing that we expect to be improved by One Piece’s hiatus is the pacing of the anime. Fans have gotten used to each episode covering about half a chapter of the manga, which makes for a frustratingly slow pace. It was the first thing that Netflix’s live-action show sought to change and the biggest improvement they made to the series. The break will definitely allow the animation team to spend more time and hopefully make their workload more manageable, which is a good thing.

One Piece fans won’t have to go without completely, though. Instead of a new episode, the One Piece Fan Letter special will air on October 20, marking 25 years since the first episode of the anime aired. After that, Toei will be releasing a remastered version of the Fishman Island arc. The new version of this arc will have updated animation and its filler cut, making it much closer to the original manga. This is exciting because this arc was particularly bad for stilted animation and long flashbacks that killed any tension in the show.

The good news, though, is that there is currently no word of Eiichiro Oda taking a similarly long break from the One Piece manga, so the anime will have more of a buffer before it risks catching up with the source material. What isn’t clear at this time is if this marks a permanent shift in how One Piece airs. It feels unlikely that, after 25 years, One Piece will actually shift to a seasonal schedule like most of the anime industry. More likely, they’ll continue airing weekly when the series returns in April 2025, but we have to wait and see.

THE ONE PIECE IS REAL...ly important to Popverse! That's why we've put together the key articles to keep your fandom of the manga-turned-anime-turned-live-action-show alive:

• How to watch One Piece One Piece in chronological and release order (All 1,100+ episodes plus the movies!)
• When the next episode of One Piece is coming
• The One Piece English cast shared the life lessons they've learned playing the Straw Hats for nearly 20 years
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect hero for the dark times ahead
• Every difference between the live-action One Piece and the original manga
• One Piece Gear 5 Form: Everything we know about Luffy's latest transformation
• Wondering what ethnicity and nationality the One Piece pirates are? Here is what Oda himself has to say
• Ranking the One Piece anime's arcs, from best to worst
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• The English cast of One Piece explain what they love about Eiichiro Oda's storytelling - "He's a genius!"