One Piece’s Anime Has a Major Problem No One Talks About (& It’s Not the Pacing)

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Please be aware that this article contains spoilers from the One Piece manga. With Luffy reconnecting with the Giants, the One Piece anime is rapidly approaching the climax of the Egghead Incident Arc. The story will soon take the crew to Elbaf, the legendary land of the Giants – a stunning island steeped in centuries of history. The Final Saga has been full of surprises, and the upcoming Elbaf Arc promises to be even more shocking, introducing new characters and revealing exciting backstory details. The anime has consistently impressed viewers with its beautiful animation over the past few years, and the Egghead Incident Arc has taken it to a new level, delivering some truly remarkable animated sequences despite being a weekly series.

I’ve been watching the One Piece anime since it started way back in 1999, and it’s always been released weekly. What’s really impressive is how few filler episodes it has compared to other long-running series like Naruto and Bleach. While the anime definitely helped make One Piece popular, after 26 years, its flaws are becoming more obvious. A big problem right now is that they only seem to adapt one chapter of the manga per episode, which really slows things down. A lot of fans complain about the pacing, but I think the real issue is that the studio isn’t including the cover stories – those short stories are actually part of the official storyline and often contain important details you need to understand what’s going on.

One Piece’s Cover Story Has Always Been an Intriguing Part of the Manga

The cover stories in One Piece are short, self-contained tales that connect directly to the main storyline. Series creator Eiichiro Oda uses them to develop characters who aren’t central to the main plot and to hint at future events. These stories run alongside the main action without interrupting it, and they’re considered official parts of the One Piece world. With so many characters in the series, these cover stories are a helpful way to provide updates on what they’re up to without taking focus away from the current arc. Over time, they’ve followed characters like Buggy, Enel, Caesar, and Yamato, often revealing interesting details about the world and its inhabitants.

The story of Enel reveals a long-lost, highly advanced civilization that once thrived on the moon. Though the civilization is gone, its robotic defenders, known as automata, still fight off Space Pirates. This discovery confirms the existence of life in space, a detail that will likely be important later in the series. Also, fans who only watch the anime might not realize that Bon Clay, a fan-favorite character, actually survived his sacrifice for Luffy during the Impel Down arc. This was shown in chapter 666 of the manga, where he’s seen happily dancing in his swan costume instead of a prisoner’s uniform.

Yamato has become the ruler of Newkama Land, a hidden paradise within Impel Down’s Level 5.5, located between the icy halls of Level 5. A recent reveal in chapter 1158 showed a surprising connection to Wano’s history: one of the hero’s graves belongs to Kozuki Moria, sharing a name with the character Gecko Moria. This builds on the link between Moria and Wano first hinted at in the Thriller Bark arc, suggesting a deeper story. Sadly, the anime adaptation will skip over these details, adding to the many important plot points it has already left out.

One Piece’s Anime Needs to Adapt Cover Stories As Fillers

Most viewers enjoy watching the anime version of One Piece more than reading the manga, making the manga’s side stories a great opportunity for the animation studio. The manga currently features over 20 of these side stories, but the anime has only adapted the first one, featuring Buggy. Recently, the anime has avoided using filler content, instead opting for recap episodes when it needs a break, though these aren’t very popular with fans.

The anime frequently uses recap episodes, especially before important ones. Because the anime is moving slowly, Toei Animation adds extra, original content or stretches out scenes from the manga, which many fans don’t enjoy. This slow pacing has been a long-standing problem, particularly noticeable with Sanji’s storyline. As long as Toei continues to adapt only one chapter of the manga per episode to keep a weekly release schedule, the pacing will likely remain an issue. However, they have more control over the shorter ‘cover stories’ and could potentially improve those.

Rather than posting typical summaries, the animation studio could attract more viewers with engaging content that fans are eager to watch. With the anime moving into the Elbaf Arc in a few months, now is the ideal time to address this, but it’s currently unclear whether the studio intends to create any filler episodes to bridge the gap between the Egghead Incident and the start of the Elbaf Arc.

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2025-10-26 01:10