This Week in Japan: One Piece Takes the Rest of the Year Off

Two stories, a weekend, and a short desk. One Piece is done for the year at episode 1180. Ufotable put a date on the Witch on the Holy Night film and brought the original supercell singer back for it. And the fall season starts tomorrow with a 1998 RPG. No inventory link this week. Nothing connected.

One Piece, finished for 2026 at episode 1180

Episode 1180 aired September 27 and that is the last One Piece of the year. The anime comes back in 2027, date unannounced, still in the Elbaph arc. This is the second scheduled break in a row: it took most of a half year off from late 2024, came back in April 2025, and this spring it came back April 5 after three months out.

So the show that defined the weekly-forever model now runs in cours with gaps, like everything else. It took 1,180 episodes to get there. Is that a decline? By most accounts the episodes since the first break look better than anything the show put out in the 900s, so no. It is Toei admitting the weekly-forever model was the thing hurting the show. The weekly-forever model was the show's whole identity. Both of those are true. Real.

Witch on the Holy Night, November 20, with the first supercell lineup

Ufotable's film of Mahoutsukai no Yoru opens in Japan November 20. Masaru Takeuchi directs, Kinoko Nasu's 2012 Type-Moon visual novel is the source, Crunchyroll and Sony bring it to North America January 29, 2027, subbed and dubbed. The theme is Yoru to Ao by supercell, written and composed by ryo, sung by Nagi Yanagi.

That last line is the story. Nagi was the voice on the first supercell album in 2009 and left in 2011, so ryo and nagi on one track again is the lineup that made the group's name, back for a Nasu adaptation seventeen years after that album. A theme song reunion is the kind of thing a committee does when it knows exactly who is buying the ticket. Cool.

The weekend

Suikoden: The Anime premieres October 3 with a one hour first episode, Konami's own studio adapting Suikoden II from 1998. Black Clover Season 2 is back the same day. Steel Ball Run is on its second Friday episode on Netflix. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, Trigger, ten episodes, new cast, standalone, lands October 20. Mushoku Tensei got a second cour for Season 3 confirmed after episode 14 and will keep winning the weekly poll until it does not. That is the fall. Pick two.

On the desk

No update on the rewatch this week, so the question from last week stands: which arc, and whether Hunter x Hunter or JJK is winning. One related thing passed through: Junko Takeuchi, the 1999 Gon and the voice of Naruto, did an interview at Anime NYC this week. The Gon on the desk is Megumi Han's, the 2011 one. Different Gon, same Togashi, same hiatus. Next week.