This marks the conclusion of a long-standing era for ongoing anime, with the production studio announcing a revised release plan for the beloved series, which has run continuously for over a quarter-century and included dozens of non-canon storylines. Starting in the new year, once the Egghead Island arc wraps up, the animated series will go on a three-month hiatus until April, when the next major arc begins.
Updated Production Plan
From now on, the series will release two seasons every annually for a cap of two dozen installments. The studio explains this will enable the anime to “dive even deeper into the core of the universe — including more material, rhythm, and timing of the source material.” Yet, producers end by promising “exciting surprises” during the series' break, which suggests more related projects, such as Netflix's live-action season 2, scheduled to debut in the interim.
Previous Hiatus Benefits
The series anime previously took a six-month pause that started in late 2024 and ended in early 2025. The hiatus was for the animators to enhance the animation quality and let the comic to build a lead to prevent a faster anime pace and repetitive summaries. The show greatly benefited from this respite, and it has been able to deliver viewers with numerous fight scenes, high-quality animation, and reduced non-canon content than previously.
Embracing Seasonal Format
While a few summary installments sprouted up during this season, the benefits of this updated approach greatly outweigh the odd pause in the action. This also gives the manga, which is currently in the middle of the Elbaph arc, to gain more ground on the anime. According to the announcement, this may lead to a single installment of the series adapting a single manga chapter, with some instead handling one and a half chapters or additional to make up for time.
It's the end of a generation for anime, as the epic saga is the last big series to ditch the old-school way of production, which prioritized being on air for most of the calendar. This explains why classics such as Naruto, and naturally One Piece have numerous side stories, and the standard of the art can change drastically between one episode and the following. Nowadays, anime production is organized in seasons, with a couple at most coming out each year, allowing for better quality and more faithfulness to the original work.
