Does One Piece need more remastered arcs? Explored

Over the years, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece story has won the hearts of millions of fans around the world, and the anime adaptation of the namesake pirate-themed tale has achieved the same overwhelming success. This makes the franchise a staple of modern pop culture, especially as its popularity has lasted for nearly three decades now.

The One Piece anime recently went on a six-month hiatus, which is expected to last until April 2025. Despite the tight schedule, Toei Animation has been delivering movie-quality episodes every week for the past few years, making the Wano Arc and the first part of the Egghead Arc a mesmerizing visual experience.

The hiatus will allow the studio to work at a slower pace, adapting the Egghead Arc’s climax with the same quality standards that fans have come to expect.

During the six-month break, Toei will keep fans engaged with a revamped version of the Fish-Man Island Saga.

Admittedly, this unexpected decision emphasizes the importance of modernizing the franchise’s older arcs.

The Fish-Man Island Saga anime remake could be the first of many in One Piece

A smart decision to keep quality at a high level

Monkey D. Luffy in the Fish-Man Island Saga anime remake (Image via Toei Animation)

The gap between anime episodes and manga chapters must always remain large enough to ensure that the anime adaptation doesn’t get too close to the source material, but the situation has become rather complicated as One Piece author Eiichiro Oda has been taking more and more breaks.

This, of course, caused the manga’s pace to slow down considerably.

In light of this, the six-month hiatus was a difficult but necessary decision to allow Toei Animation to adapt the hectic, fast-paced second part of the Egghead Arc without ruining the rhythm of the narration with unnecessary elongations.

The break also marks the beginning of the broadcast of One Piece Log – Fish-Man Island Saga, the remastered version of the Straw Hat crew’s first adventure after the two-year time skip training.

This project offers fans the opportunity to relive the emotions of the Straw Hats' underwater journey in a completely new guise, while also allowing Toei Animation to try an interesting experiment.

Roronoa Zoro in the Fish-Man Island Saga anime remake (Image via Toei Animation)

The re-edition aims to please the viewers by offering them a renewed experience, characterized by improved visuals and a shortened pacing. While the decade-old original adaptation of Fish-Man Island Saga consisted of 58 episodes, the revamped version will condense the same story into 21 episodes.

At the time of this article’s writing, the first two episodes have already aired, with the third episode being set to be broadcast on November 17, 2024.

One Piece Log – Fish-Man Island Saga will also benefit from completely redesigned cuts, as each scene will be remastered with the same art style and shading used in the recent arcs.

Essentially, this project seems to be Toei Animation’s official take on the many fan-made projects to remove filler scenes and unnecessary extensions from the One Piece anime.

In addition to the improved pacing, the studio introduced some graphic enhancements, which is something fans can only appreciate. The interesting thing is that the same method could be used in the future.

Toei should go the same route with Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island

With the enhanced graphics, the old scenes gleam in new splendor (Image via Toei Animation)

Given that Oda is heavily involved in Netflix’s season 2 of One Piece’s live-action adaptation, the number of breaks in the manga can only increase.

Needless to say, this would force Toei Animation to deliberately slow down the anime in order not to reach or even outpace the manga. However, fans often complain about the anime’s sluggishness.

With this in mind, the studio might repeat the approach used with One Piece Log – Fish-Man Island Saga, using the same strategy of taking a prolonged break from releasing new episodes in order to work more accurately on their adaptation.

In the meantime, so as not to leave fans empty-handed, Toei can remaster an older arc and air it weekly until the new one resumes, just like they did with Fish-Man Island Saga.

This will allow the One Piece anime to adapt the original source material with the highest possible quality.

As for the re-editions, they will bring more depth to the previous stories, which have left many viewers disappointed due to their discouraging slowness.

Remastering the old arcs allows to deal with the manga's decelerated pacing (Image via Toei Animation)

With fewer episodes and yet higher quality compared to the old adaptations, these arcs will become more accessible to first-time viewers. Likewise, they will shine in a whole new light for long-time fans, offering them a familiar but much more enjoyable story.

The new technologies allow an updated experience that suits the needs of both new and old fans.

The sheer number of episodes has always been considered an obstacle for those wanting to start following the adventures of the Straw Hat Pirates, but the remastered sagas may overcome this problem, making the anime much easier to watch for everyone.

For example, the arcs set in Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island have often been criticized for their unbearable pacing and poor animation. It would be a good option for Toei Animation to remaster them while taking the time to work on, say, the Elbaf Arc.

These projects would only add to the success of the franchise, projecting it into the future to expand the fanbase and keep it alive for years to come.

After all, this what drove Eiichiro Oda to get deeply involved in the live-action adaptation of the series, working closely with Netflix to create a show that would epitomize the unique blend of adventure, epicness, humor, and mystery that One Piece is.