Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ Will Be Back Before the Anime Is Next Year

There’s good news and bad news for One Piece fans next year: the good news is that the second season of Netflix’s live-action take on Eiichiro Oda’s seminal manga has finally gotten a release date. The bad news, which is really more less-good news, is that the epic-length anime adaptation is going to be taking a break as it reapproaches its schedule to better keep pace.

Today both Netflix and Toei announced big news for their respective adaptations. The first, from Netflix, confirmed that season 2 of the live-action adaptation has finally set a March 10, 2026 release date. The news was announced with the reveal of another new location that the season, subtitled Into the Grand Line, will see the Straw Hats visit: the snowy lands of Drum.

In the manga, Drum Island was a snowy land known for being the home of some of the best doctors on the Grand Line (including upcoming Straw Hats arrival, Tony Tony Chopper), and the former home of the Drum Kingdom. By the time the crew is visiting Drum in the story, the island is seeing the attempted return of its former king, Wapol, who fled the island after it was invaded by pirates, abandoning his people.

Behold, the great medical land of Drum!

The wait is over, Nakama!! ONE PIECE: Into the Grand Line sets sail March 10, 2026! pic.twitter.com/4pMBePR3DI

— ONE PIECE(ワンピース) Netflix (@onepiecenetflix) October 28, 2025

But while we know when the Netflix show is back, one thing that will come into uncertainty is when the long-running One Piece anime will return. During a special live broadcast today, series producer Ryūta Koike announced a sweeping production rescheduling for the anime, which will be heralded by a production hiatus beginning in January, after the show has wrapped up its current 21st season.

The reason for the three-month hiatus, which will conclude some time in April 2026, is to reshuffle One Piece‘s production schedule. From 2026 onwards, One Piece will broadcast yearly in a two-cour format, airing 26 episodes a year in total. The format change means fewer episodes (One Piece typically airs over 30 episodes a year), but Koike framed the decision as necessary to keep advancing and evolving the anime while maintaining a similar pace with the still-ongoing manga.

While prior seasons have adapted the manga at a rough rate of 4-5 volumes’ worth of content every 12 episodes, a press statement provided by Toei says that the new episodic structure will mean episodes “incorporate more content, tempo, and pacing of the manga while continuing to leverage the unique storytelling that is only possible with animation.â€

Suffice to say, there is still going to be plenty of One Piece to enjoy next year—just perhaps not quite in the order fans might have been expecting.

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