One Piece is one of the most popular anime ever made, amassing hundreds of millions of fans and viewers over the last 25 years. Despite having well over 1000 episodes available, the series is surprisingly accessible, with almost the entire series available entirely for free on Crunchyroll. Unfortunately, that's set to change soon.

Three years after buying Crunchyroll for over $1 billion, Sony plans to capitalize on its purchase (and piss off countless anime fans) by shutting free users out of one of its most popular series. The company said that starting soon,

Crunchyroll has announced that hundreds of One Piece episodes are leaving the free ad-supported tier. The anime streaming platform made the announcement in early December, confirming that by the end of the month,

Crunchyroll announced on Monday that it will soon require a Premium Membership for users to view the majority of episodes for the One Piece anime. The shift to subscription-only will occur in three phases.

Crunchyroll is gearing up to move hundreds of One Piece episodes from its free, ad-supported tier to its paid premium tier, IGN can exclusively reveal — but it won't happen all at once, and it also won't be every episode.