No More Excuses, It’s Time to Watch One Piece

With One Piece getting ready to kick off a new schedule in 2026 and beyond, there are really no more excuses to keep anime fans from checking out the show. One Piece premiered in Japan 26 years ago, and has been steadily releasing new episodes on a weekly basis ever since. It’s meant that as of this time, there are 1100 plus episodes of the anime and that might seem like a massive hill for any potential fan to climb. It’s always been seen as this huge endeavor that not many people are willing to commit their time to in order to catch up.

It’s just felt like this ordeal for many because anime fans feel like there would be no way they would ever truly catch up to the show. One Piece would continuing airing new episodes each week, and it would feel like you’re just chipping away on that mountain of content. But with One Piece announcing that it’s going to be moving to a new seasonal release schedule in 2026 and beyond, there’s no better time to jump into it. You will have plenty of time to catch up with it all.

You Can Finally Catch Up to One Piece

One Piece has announced that after it wraps up the Egghead arc later this year, it will be taking a few months off before returning for the start of the Elbaph Arc in April 2026. The anime team has revealed that they will only release 26 new episodes of the anime next year, and every year from now on. This new seasonal schedule also means that the anime is going to take quite a while longer to cover everything from Eiichiro Oda’s original manga, but there’s a silver lining in that change as now it’s the perfect opportunity to catch up with it all.

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If you have yet to watch any One Piece, you will have at least until April 2026 to truly catch up with everything. And if you don’t want to speed through the series to meet that mark, at least there’s only going to be 26 episodes a year with multiple month breaks in between. There’s less of a ticking clock to undergo in order to take on the “challenge” of watching One Piece‘s anime, and you can really take as much time as you need to watch through the episodes.

Why You Should Catch Up With One Piece

As for why you should catch up with One Piece, there’s truly no other anime like it. It’s shift to seasonal is such a big deal because it’s the final Shonen Jump property that was still releasing episodes weekly after 20 years. It’s a huge franchise with tons of memorable moments that are far too numerous to include in a piece like this. But at the same time, it’s also not that big of an ordeal to take on. Especially if you come to love the show, then watching its episodes won’t feel like a “chore.”

If you go even further and trim the episodes of their openings, endings, next episode previews, and previous episode recaps, each One Piece episode is only about like 15-18 minutes at the most. If you dedicate an hour or so of your day to watching each of the episodes (at the least), you’ll really be caught up with it all by the time the new episodes roll around next year. And if you’re more severe with how you do it, you can even trim out its original anime material not seen in the manga.

Just watch through up to the Arlong Park arc at first. If you make it to this place in One Piece and still somehow don’t want to see more, then it won’t be necessary to. It’s earliest episodes are streaming with Netflix, Crunchyroll and more, so it’s time to catch up with it all. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!