It's the end of a long-standing era for long-running series, with Toei Animation revealing a new production schedule for the beloved series, which has run continuously for over a quarter-century and included dozens of filler arcs. Commencing in January, once the Egghead Island arc wraps up, the anime will take a three-month hiatus until spring, when the next major arc begins.
New Release Strategy
From now on, the series will release a pair of cours every annually for a cap of 26 episodes. The studio states this will help the anime to “explore further into the core of the universe — including more material, rhythm, and timing of the original manga.” Yet, producers end by promising “thrilling developments” during the series' break, which means more related projects, such as Netflix's live-action season 2, scheduled to debut in the interim.
Previous Hiatus Benefits
The series anime had a half-year break that started in October 2024 and concluded in April 2025. The hiatus was for the production team to enhance the visuals and allow the comic to build a lead to prevent a rushed adaptation and lengthy recap episodes. The show greatly benefited from this break, and it has managed to deliver fans with numerous fight scenes, superior graphics, and reduced non-canon content than previously.
Embracing Seasonal Format
While some recap episodes appeared during the recent run, the benefits of this new production schedule greatly outweigh the occasional interruption in the story. This also gives the original work, which is presently in the middle of the latest arc, to gain more ground on the adaptation. Per the announcement, this may lead to a single installment of the series adapting a single manga chapter, with others alternatively covering more material or additional to make up for scheduling.
It's the end of a generation for anime, as the epic saga is the last big series to abandon the old-school way of production, which focused on being on air for most of the calendar. It's the reason why classics such as Naruto, and of course One Piece have so many filler arcs, and the standard of the art can change drastically between one episode and the following. Nowadays, anime production is structured in cours, with a couple at most coming out each year, enabling improved visuals and greater accuracy to the source material.