One Piece: Elbaph Arc Will DRASTICALLY Change the Anime
The One Piece anime is changing for the better as we get a preview of their current staff.
On January 22, 2026, one source from Japan brings up how One Piece Elbaph Arc is going to get a lot of changes for anime.
Animation will improve further from its already amazing quality.
Old Toei habits will be discarded, such as the stretching of episodes to confirm to the one chapter per episode norm that will still be followed in Elbaph and there will no flashy Haki shots.
This is already seen with the retirement of One Piece and Dragon Ball sound designer Hidenori Arai after 30 years in the industry.
He is replaced by Naofumi Jinbo, with Ryuuta Nakahara (a sound effects assistant for the One Piece special, Heart of Gold) on Sound Effects.
On April 4, we have the full staff list for the current Season 2 of One Piece
Main Staff:
Series Director: Yasunori Koyama, Wataru Matsumi
Series Composition: Shouji Yonemura, Tomohiro Nakayama
Character Design: Midori Matsuda
Sub Character Design: Zhiguang Liu
Chief Animator Director: Keiichi Ichikawa, Midori Matsuda, Yongce Tu
Art Director: Midori Tanaka, Moeka Amemiya
Art Design: Guowei Huang
Art Setting: Ryuuji Yoshiike
Colour Design: Teppei Hotta
Director of Photography: Tsuyoshi Ishizu
Sound Design: Naofumi Jinbo (Bisei) – NEW
Sound Effects: Ryuuta Nakahara (Swara Pro) – NEW
Music: Kouhei Tanaka, Shiro Hamaguchi
Production Desk: Ayaka Shiraishi, Koutarou Yamamoto
Animation Production: Toei Animation
Ever since late-Dressrosa (around 2016), Koyama has been present as an episode director and his presence was best seen in Wano through avant-garde episode direction, especially iconic episodes like 994 (Kiku vs Kanjuro), 1075 (Kaido vs Gear 5 Luffy with Wano’s oppression explored as a creative flashback) and 1122 (Garp vs Kuzan), but he gained the heights of fame with the Kuma flashback, Episode 1136.
Midori Tanaka has been working as the art director for One Piece since Wano meanwhile Moeka Amemiya worked as Assistant Art Director for the second half of Egghead Part 2 (2025) and is now promoted as Art Director.
This means there is a new direction for background art for the anime.
However, the same cannot be said for character designs as although they have adapted through three major design shifts (Wano to Egghead to Elbaph), Midori Matsuda is still in charge and also retains the role of Chief Animation Director.
Beginning in Episode 1033 (Luffy falling off Onigashima), Tu Yongce has been a chief animation director and he is famous for his incredible animated cuts as far back as Whole Cake Island.
Keiichi Ichikawa is one of the oldest remaining members of the One Piece staff, having been a key animator since Punk Hazard (2013) and a Chief Animation Director since Whole Cake Island (2017)
Episode 1156 Staff:
Storyboard/Episode Director: Wataru Matsumi
Animator Director: Shin Kashiwaguma, Hiroto Saitou, Masayuki Satou, Midori Matsuda
Key Animators: Shin Kashiwaguma, Hiroto Saitou, Neru Takuyama, Manabu Imura, Zhiguang Liu, Niii, Fuuma Tashiro (WIT Studio), Takumi Ishikawa, Arisa Sekino, Luca Terella, TARABAN, Anthony Nguyen, Kanae Hamada, Fuyuko Iwata, Chaso, Haruhito Usui, Shiitake Robinson, Kenta Nakata, Kazuki Kikuchi, Nozomi Kitaoka, dino, Rachel Chen, Lonionjon, Kouhei Mikoshi, Chiharu Akakura, Hanao Iida, Masayuki Satou
22 2nd Key Animators
Eyecatch:
Storyboard/Episode Director: Sakura Yoshikawa
Animator Director: Masayuki Satou
Key Animators: Moeka Araki
Wataru Matsumi will be directing the first episode of the new One Piece anime season and he is quite new to the role, even more than the previous lineup of series directors that included Koyama for the Egghead era.
Notably, the first episode will not have any opening or ending theme, meaning that it will be a full 22-minute episode adapting Chapter 1126: “Settling the Score”, with page 4 of this manga chapter already adapted.
That means 16 pages will be stretched into this episode or parts of the next chapter or a different chapter will be adapted.
Some fans worry this will have the normalized terrible pacing they wanted Toei to avoid.
This means the opening and ending themes will be revealed next week.
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