In one of the biggest anime news stories of this past week, beloved long-running anime series One Piece has returned from a months-long hiatus. With the debut of episodes 1123 and 1124 on Crunchyroll this past weekend, One Piece is once again airing new episodes weekly. Late 2024 was marked by both the One Piece anime and original manga series going on and off hiatus and by the manga's creator Eiichiro Oda dealing with ongoing health issues. However, as of this writing, both the anime and manga are now back to a regular schedule of new releases.
Notably, the long hiatus of the One Piece anime allowed the production of the English dub to catch up with original Japanese version of the series. By the end of the hiatus, every episode of One Piece produced up to that point was available in both English and Japanese. This milestone was noted by the series's ADR director Emily Fajardo in a social media post:
Of course, now that new Japanese episodes of One Piece are once again streaming, the original Japanese version will remain slightly further than the English dub. At the current pace and barring any unforeseen major disruptions to the production of either version, the gap between the Japanese and English versions of One Piece will likely be significantly smaller than it has been in the past.
How to watch One Piece and get caught up
Crunchyroll marked the return of One Piece with the release of two episodes on April 5, 2025. As has been consistent with the Crunchyroll release schedule for the series, this is a same-day simulcast with the original Japanese release. In addition to the first two episodes of the second part of the Egghead Island arc, an 80-minute recap of the first part of the arc was released as a standalone special episode not considered a new numbered episode.
Similar to the special recap of the Egghead Island arc is One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga, a recut version of the Fishman Island arc, the first storyline of the second half of the series, separated from the first half by a two-year timeskip. The recut version of the arc was produced both to fill the gaps in the schedule created by the hiatus of new episodes and to improve the flow of a story arc that was infamous in the fanbase for its poor pacing. The 21-episode One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga runs about half as long as the original version of the Fishman Island arc.
Under normal circumstances, new episodes of One Piece stream on Crunchyroll before they appear on any other service. This occurs on Saturday, the same day the episode debuts in Japan. In the event of delays, Crunchyroll is generally pretty good at updating fans. Every episode of One Piece up to the end of the first part of Egghead Island arc when the anime went on hiatus is also streaming on Netflix. Netflix's release schedule is now several episodes behind Crunchyroll's, though the Netflix listing does now have a "New Season Coming Soon" notice.
Additionally, the One Piece manga, which has concluded the Egghead Island arc and moved onto the next storyline, is available digitally online to readers around the world. On the Manga Plus app and website from publisher Shueisha, One Piece is available in English, Spanish, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese, Indonesian, French, German, and Vietnamese. New chapters go live on Sundays, with the schedule alternating between every week and every two weeks. As of this writing, the next chapter is slated to go live on April 20. The One Piece manga is also released digitally via international, English-language publisher Viz Media's Shonen Jump app and website. Viz Media also sells the volumes of the One Piece manga as physical books.
As always, we'll have recap of the week's major anime news a little later. Until then, the Bam Smack Pow team is here to bring you everything you need to know about the worlds of Marvel, DC and comics in general!