The One Piece Anime IS OFFICIALLY SEASONAL
As the Egghead Arc wrapping up this year, the One Piece anime will be changing its release format.
On October 28, 2025, during the One Piece News Broadcast 3, it was announced that starting in 2026, the One Piece anime will officially transition to a seasonal schedule, with 26 episodes per year instead of a weekly format.
This will be split into two production parts or cours like any regular anime nowadays.
This means that One Piece will no longer be broadcast every single week and will be on break in-between anime seasons.
Throughout Egghead Part 2, there have been multiple breaks and recap episodes, released as a way to prevent relying on outsourced episodes and to give their staff breaks.
As we anticipated previously, the anime will be on break from January to March of 2026 so that, according to the staff, Toei Animation can recharge.
After this break, much like Egghead Part 2, One Piece will return by April 2026.
The Elbaph Arc will begin on April 2026, with the preview: “A BIG ADVENTURE WILL START~ Elbaph arc”
Along with this is a key visual featuring Luffy’s Elbaph attire walking to the snow with massive footprints, hinting at his first meeting with Loki.
This means the Elbaph Arc will have 26 episodes for the entirety of 2026, starting from most likely April 5, 2026 until September 27, 2025, with likely no breaks in-between as a result of a seasonal schedule.
If a split-cour is confirmed, this will go from April 5, 2026 to June 28, 2025 for the Spring 2026 Season, take a break for the Summer 2026 Season and return for the Fall 2026 Season with October 4, 2026 to December 27, 2025.
To note, the pacing of the anime is 1:1 with the manga, with Egghead Arc having 67 manga chapters and the anime expecitng to have 68 episodes in total.
The Elbaph Arc is also noted to follow a similar scheme of one chapter adapted per episode, with the arc currently having 39 chapters and counting.
As Elbaph starts on Chapter 1126: “Settling the Score”, this would likely mean that by the end of the 2026 run, One Piece will have reached Chapter 1151: “I Get the Idea!!!” or Chapter 1152: “A Horrible Day”, the start of the Rocks flashback.
When split into 13 episodes, the first cour will end on Chapter 1138: “The Harley”, which is considered the highlight chapter of early 2025.
Source: Twitter
MAJOR NEWS 🚨🚨🚨
starting from 2026, OnePiece anime will switch to releasing 26 episodes per year only. pic.twitter.com/nff9ObzOM9
— Pew (@pewpiece) October 28, 2025
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