It's the end of a long-standing era for ongoing anime, with Toei Animation announcing a revised release plan for the beloved series, which has run continuously for more than 25 years and featured numerous filler arcs. Starting in the new year, once the current storyline wraps up, the animated series will take a three-month hiatus until April, when the next major arc begins.
New Release Strategy
Going forward, the series will release two seasons every annually for a maximum of 26 episodes. The studio explains this will help the anime to “dive even deeper into the heart of the universe — including more material, tempo, and pacing of the source material.” Yet, producers end by promising “thrilling developments” during the hiatus period, which means additional related projects, such as the upcoming live-action adaptation, scheduled to debut in the interim.
Previous Hiatus Benefits
The series anime previously took a half-year pause that began in late 2024 and concluded in April 2025. The intermission was for the production team to enhance the visuals and let the manga to build a lead to avoid a rushed adaptation and repetitive summaries. The anime greatly benefited from this break, and it has been able to supply fans with countless action sequences, high-quality animation, and less filler than previously.
Adopting Modern Trends
While a few summary installments sprouted up during this season, the positive effects of this new production schedule far surpass the odd pause in the story. This also gives the manga, which is currently in the thick of the latest arc, to gain more ground on the anime. According to the news, this may lead to a single installment of the anime adapting a single manga chapter, with some instead covering more material or additional to compensate for scheduling.
This concludes of a generation for Japanese animation, as the epic saga is the last big series to abandon the traditional method of production, which focused on being on air for almost the entire year. It's the reason why classics such as Naruto, and of course One Piece have so many side stories, and the standard of the art can change drastically between installments and the following. Nowadays, anime production is structured in seasons, with a couple at most coming out each annually, allowing for better quality and more faithfulness to the source material.
