News

One Piece Anime's Egghead Arc Resumes Next April

A teaser video for Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga and its anime adaptation is confirming on Sunday that the anime will resume the ongoing Egghead arc next April. The announcement followed the television broadcast screening of the Monsters: 103 Mercies Dragon Damnation anime and the One Piece Film Red anime on Sunday evening.

Update: The live-streamed "One Piece News #1" special confirmed that the television anime is changing what will air in its regular Sunday timeslot until the end of March 2025 to "recharge." The Jump Festa 2025 event will announce more details on December 22, including the anime's new timeslot starting in April.

The One Piece Fan Letter special will instead air next Sunday, followed by a special edited version of the Fish-Man Island arc starting on October 27. The abridged 21-episode "One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga" will feature reshot scenes with retouched art, detailing, color shading, lighting, and special effects, as well as a Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

Secret "special guests" under the name Mugiwara no Ichimi (Straw Hat Pirates) will sing a new version of the "We Go!" opening theme song (sung by just Hiroshi Kitadani before) for the special edited version. BE:FIRST, a boy band whose members are all self-professed huge fans of One Piece, is contributing the ending theme song "Sailing."

One Piece Base, a smartphone app with a manga viewer and other content from the entire franchise, is launching on Sunday within Japan, and is slated for release outside Japan in 2025. Fans who scan bar codes from select One Piece merchandise into the web version of the app will receive points for unlocking chapters to read. The app's Nigaoe Maker (Portrait Maker) service will turn fans' facial photographs into art in the style of Oda.

Earlier on Sunday, the official English YouTube channel for the franchise streamed a new promotional video for the One Piece Fan Letter special that will air on October 20. The special will be based on Tomohito Ōsaki's One Piece novel Mugiwara Stories (Straw Hat Stories) short story collection, and celebrates the 25th anniversary of the anime.

One Piece Film Red, the 15th and latest film in the franchise, opened in August 2022. Between then and the film's last day of encore screenings in November 2023, it earned a total of 20.33 billion yen (about US$137 million) in Japan. The film is the sixth highest-earning film of all time in Japan (unadjusted for inflation), and is the #4 highest-earning anime film in Japan.

The movie has become the franchise's highest-selling and highest-earning film installment, in terms of both the number of tickets sold and yen earned at the box office. The film topped Japan's box office for 2022 in terms of yen earned and tickets sold.

The second live-action season of One Piece is currently in development, as is The One Piece remake anime at Wit Studio for Netflix.

Update 2: More information added from Toei Animation's press release and Comic Natalie. Crunchyroll confirmed in a press release on Sunday that it will stream both One Piece Fan Letter and One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga.

Source: One Piece Film Red airing