Warning: This article contains spoilers from the One Piece manga! Now that the Giants have reunited with Luffy, One Piece’s anime is closer to its highly anticipated finale of the Egghead Incident Arc than ever. The crew will next travel to the fabled land of the Giants, known as Elbaf, and explore the beautiful island filled with centuries of history. The Final Saga has been unraveling more mysteries than ever, and the Elbaf Arc is going to shock everyone with the introduction of new characters and the thrilling backstory. For the past few years, the anime has been surprising everyone with visually striking animation, which only got better in the Egghead Incident Arc. Despite being a weekly anime, Toei Animation has delivered some of the most beautifully animated sequences of all time.
One Piece’s anime has been on a weekly schedule since 1999, with way fewer fillers compared to other long-running shows, such as Naruto and Bleach. While the anime had a major role in popularizing the franchise, it’s far from perfect, and this fact is even more evident after 26 years. The anime has long since begun to adapt only one chapter per episode, which severely impacts the pacing. Fans often complain about the pacing but somehow overlook that the major issue is the studio not adapting the cover stories, which are canon material and often include crucial information about the story.
One Piece’s Cover Story Has Always Been an Intriguing Part of the Manga
Image Courtesy of Toei Animation
The cover stories are directly connected to the main plot of the manga, which Eiichiro Oda, the series’ creator, introduced as a means to expand the story while focusing on characters who don’t have major roles. The cover stories are canon side stories that run parallel to the main story and set up future plot points without deviating from the current plot. Since One Piece has dozens of side characters, giving updates on their whereabouts can often lead to unnecessary distractions from the main events in an arc, which is why cover stories come in handy. Over the years, One Piece has introduced several cover stories, following Buggy, Enel, Caesar, Yamato, and many more characters, all of which include some intriguing information.
For example, Enel’s story introduces us to the ancient and advanced civilization that once existed on the moon. The civilization has been lost over the centuries, but the automata, a group of small robots, continue to defend their home from the Space Pirates. The cover story confirms that life exists in space, and this information will most likely be useful in the Final Saga. Additionally, many anime-only fans may not know that Bon Clay, one of the most beloved characters in the show, survived after sacrificing himself for Luffy in the Impel Down Arc. The information was revealed in Chapter 666 of the manga, where we see him dancing in front of his followers, wearing his swan outfit instead of the uniform meant for the prisoners in Impel Down.
He is now the new queen of Newkama Land in Impel Down, Level 5.5, a secret sanctuary and paradise located between the frozen corridors of Level 5. Yamato’s cover story revealed a shocking plot twist in Chapter 1158 when it was revealed that one of the graves of Wano’s heroes belongs to Kozuki Moria, who has the same name as Gecko Moria. Thriller Bark already revealed the connection between Moria and Wano, and it seems there’s more to it than meets the eye. Unfortunately, the anime will skip this information as well, along with the plethora of exciting plot points that have been lost over the years.
One Piece’s Anime Needs to Adapt Cover Stories As Fillers
Image Courtesy of Toei Animation
Most fans prefer to watch the anime instead of the manga, which is all the more reason why these cover stories deserve the studio’s attention. The manga has over 20 collective cover stories so far, out of which the anime only adapted Buggy’s adventures, the first cover story, and never looked back. For quite a few years, One Piece’s anime hasn’t been focusing on filler episodes, so whenever the anime needs a break, it releases recap episodes every few weeks, but no one actually cares about them.
These recaps have become even more frequent in the Egghead Incident Arc, and they often air right before a crucial episode. Due to the slow pacing of the anime, Toei often pads out the episodes with original content or expands the manga scenes that aren’t often appreciated by fans. Manga readers know how much Sanji has suffered from this pacing issue, and this is only one example. Since Toei will have to keep adapting one chapter per episode if it wants to maintain a weekly schedule, the pacing issue can’t be fixed, but the cover stories are another matter entirely.
Instead of releasing regular recaps, the studio can benefit more from the cover stories that fans will actually want to see. The anime will move on to the Elbaf Arc in a few months, which is a perfect opportunity to solve this issue, but so far, there’s no telling if the studio has any plans to release filler episodes to serve as a gap between the Egghead Incident and Elbaf arcs.
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