One Piece: The Anime Has Officially Changed It’s Time Slot, Effectively Changing The Series Forever
Xena Parker 
It has been six months since the One Piece anime went into hiatus. This was confirmed by the studio Toei Animation, to be a way to improve the overall quality of the show. If you have been a long time One Piece anime fan, you know what was plaguing the series. From inconsistent animation, to down horrendous pacing, the anime has seen it all. This is exactly why the staff at Toei decided to go on an extended break to change this occurrences. On April 6th, 2025, the One Piece anime returned with many changes to it that fans have congratulated the series on. These are the changes that have been made:
The Time Slot Changes
The One Piece anime used to air at 9:30 am JST every Sunday of the year. This was not ideal for the anime since the constraints the airing time had on it was significant. In the morning times of TV showing, things like Blood, Gore and even Nudity are strictly forbidden. This leads to heavy censorship of shows that air around the morning to afternoon hours. On the other hand shows that air in the Evening to Night time, have leeway to show the previous mentioned categories. The One Piece anime has certainly changed face from the happy go lucky show it once was. There are more darker tones after the time-skip since the crew is getting older, and the enemies are much bolder. It was announced that the One Piece Anime will have its time-slot changed from 9:30 am every Sunday, to 11:15 pm every Sunday. This is clearly a win for One Piece since the censorship leeway will be much higher, and with how the second half of Egghead seems to look like, this was there best choice so far.
Overall Animation Quality
The One Piece anime has seen its fair share of bad animation. From the infamous Dressrossa arc, to most of the pre-time skip the animation was luck luster at best. This all started changing when the anime reached Wano, by far the best arc in the series first aired. The animation quality shifted gears, gunning on the new trend of beautifully animated shows, but this was not enough. With the anime being on a Weekly basis, the quality wasn’t at 100% every time. There were some episodes which had stella animation, while others clearly not getting the same attention. There wasn’t enough time for the staff to fully animate the episodes the wanted to, rather they gave priority to the high stakes episodes like ROOFPIECE which clearly needed stella animation. But all this may change in the near future. The six months that they had been given has clearly shown fruit with how the two episodes last week were looking. The overall art style hasn’t changed for Egghead, but rather the quality has stayed consistent. Seeing as this is just the start since the hiatus, it may be early to say, but the quality may just stay the same.
The Pacing Issues Have Been Fixed?
This is the most controversial topic surrounding the One Piece’s anime return from the Hiatus. The pacing of the One Piece anime has been just bad. This is the main reason the anime has over 1000 episodes. Its not because of filler, the episodes are piling up due to the pacing techniques that Toei Animation use to keep the anime afloat. The most recent anime episode 1124, covers a total of one chapter corresponding to chapter 1090 of the manga. This means there is a measly 55 chapters separating the anime from the manga, which is at chapter 1145 as of this article. This is not good, since the pacing cannot be fixed by the number of chapters left. If they do what current anime pacing in the industry looks like, adapting 2 to 5 chapters per episode, the anime will catch up to the manga and nobody wants that. Toei Animation seems to have tackled this issue by adding anime original scenes that do not just fill up the time, but compliment the manga. In addition to this, the studio has added an Opening, Mid-card and Ending to every episode to fill the run time. This may not seem like a lot, but it does help with the pacing, making the episodes fell more watchable. They also have the option of adapting the Cover Stories of the manga, and with how long the current one is, they can do more with that.
This is everything that the One Piece anime is hoping to fix so that the future of the series may be bright. If the current One Piece anime is too much for you, you may read the manga or wait for the Wit Studios adaptation of the series. The One Piece will be a better paced rendition of the anime and will not have any of the discussed issues in this article. The future of One Piece looks bright and only the Fandom can keep it alive, so keep up the good work.
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