The Straw Hats' summer break is just about over. One Piece returns this Sunday, July 12th, when episode 1169 opens the Elbaf arc's second cour on Crunchyroll at 10:15 a.m. ET, simulcast with the Japanese broadcast. Netflix picks it up the following Saturday, July 18th, and stays a week behind from there.
The episode's title sets the table: "The Legend Lurking in Elbaph - The Identity of the Mountain-Eater." Toei's teasers point at the mystery of the Mountain-Eater and the imprisoned prince Loki, picking up right where the first cour's ancient-scriptures cliffhanger left off.
If your Sundays have felt empty, here's the refresher. Cour one wrapped on June 28th with episode 1168 after a 13-episode run, and last weekend's timeslot went to One Piece: Heroines, the Nami-centric special that hits Netflix this Saturday.
It looks like the stop-and-start rhythm is the new normal. Toei announced a new production schedule in late 2025: two cours per year, roughly 26 episodes annually, ending the continuous weekly broadcast the anime had kept up since 1999. That's nearly 27 years without a scheduled season break! The plan kicked in with a hiatus at the start of this year before the Elbaf arc launched on April 5th.
The payoff is pacing. Producer Ryuta Koike said the change lets episodes "more closely reflect the manga's content, rhythm, and pacing": recap episodes are gone, and the show now moves at roughly one manga chapter per episode. Anyone who lived through the anime's infamous stretched-out years knows how big a deal that is.
Cour two runs 13 episodes straight through, numbers 1169 to 1181, with no breaks. Japan wraps in early October, and Netflix finishes the run on October 10th.
Quick where-to-watch rundown for the US: Crunchyroll carries the same-day subtitled simulcast every Sunday morning, while Netflix drops each episode the following Saturday. Mark the calendar accordingly, because with no recap episodes in the new format, every week counts.
Story-wise, we're deep in the Final Saga. The anime followed Egghead with the giants' island of Elbaf, a place fans waited decades to visit properly, and cour one closed on the Harley, the ancient text tied to some of the series' oldest mysteries. Expect the lore to get heavier from here. It's a good time to be a One Piece fan all around, with the Netflix live-action show's third season freshly wrapped on filming, too.
Will you be watching live on Sunday morning? Which Elbaf mystery do you most want answered this cour?
Sound off in the comments below!
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