The One Piece remake might not even need 300 episodes to finish the entire story

With 2023 being the year of One Piece, according to fans and Crunchyroll, 2024 has been smooth sailing for the series as the Egghead arc is winning fans' hearts. However, the pacing might be an issue for fans who prefer 'quick-watch' episodes, unlike the moderately-paced episodes typical of the series.

For this purpose, a remake was announced, which excited the series' fandom and the other anime fandom who were not ready to commit to this series due to its 1000+ episodes. According to fans, this remake will adapt the series with much faster pacing than usual.

This remake series might be done with less than half the episode count of the original series, which could be a source of attraction for fans who cannot commit themselves to a series with too many episodes.

Disclaimer: This article may contain the writer's opinions.

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Exploring the possible episode count of the One Piece remake

On December 17, 2024, the official One Piece YouTube channel announced that Wit Studio would be animating a remake series of the popular Shounen series One Piece. The remake will be titled THE ONE PIECE and will be a web series.

As no information was announced other than this, fans started speculating about the episode count for this remake. As episode count is one of the major things that forbids most anime fandoms from starting this series, fans speculate that this remake will greatly reduce the episode count.

Luffy as seen in the anime (Image via Toei Animation)

The current pacing of the anime series is 0.5-1 chapter per episode, which fans consider moderately deliberate. But this helps the studio not catch up to the source material, which is also at the Egghead arc at the moment.

So, if the One Piece remake adapts the series with the usual pacing as a seasonal anime series (3-4 chapters per episode), the episode count would be 250-350 until the current episodes. This could please not only One Piece fans but also fans from other anime fandoms who don't want to commit themselves to 1000+ episodes of the current series.

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The picture no one is looking at

On October 8, 2021, according to the Japanese industry-focused website Gamebiz, Wit Studio had gone into debt of ~500 million yen, which resulted in its parent company (I.G. Port) taking over its financial administration.

According to fans, this was the reason why Wit Studio transferred to doing 'original' TV anime series rather than adapting sources like manga and light novels, as the former could have been more economical for them.

Although the One Piece remake will be sponsored by Netflix, adapting such a diverse manga series into a compact series could be hard, considering weekly episodes are released. This series might solve some problems of the original series, but it might also come with problems of its own, as speculated by fans.

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Final thoughts

Announcement posters for Isekai Suicide Squad (left) and Moonrise (right) (Image via Wit Studio)

The remake series will be released on the series' 25th anniversary, which will be around October 2024. Besides this, Wit Studio has two other series (Isekai Suicide Squad and Moonrise) airing this year, 2024.

This might be their try to re-enter the animation industry as one of the big names. However, with their upcoming schedule being so rushed—adapting three of the most anticipated series in a single year—the work schedule of this studio's animators could become unhealthy.