one piece facts
10-Fans of the anime One Piece are well aware that this story is far from over. Beginning back in 1997, each manga volume takes viewers on new epic adventures with the Straw Hat Crew. Employing epic battles, rich character development, and ever-changing locations, author Eiichiro Oda has created an addictive series for fans all around the world. In fact, the manga has been so successful that it has become the best-selling manga of all time.

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Oda for “most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author” in 2014. At the time of the recognition, One Piece had sold 320,866,000 units between December 1997 to December 2014. To date, manga sales now exceed over 416 million copies worldwide.
9-Many comic book and manga artists started their careers because of their passion for drawing and storytelling. Though their careers may not start in their preferred field, they eventually find their way to the occupation that they love. For author Eiichiro Oda, however, being a manga artist was his only choice in life.

According to an interview in the One Piece Blue: Grand Data File, Oda claimed to have wanted to become a manga artist at the age of 4 to avoid having to get a “real job”. That’s what we call excellent life goals!

Sticking to his dream, Oda developed his skills over the years and created various series in his late teens. His first series, Wanted!, garnered several awards and placed second in the semi-annual Tezuka Award for manga. Following this recognition, Oda landed his first job at Weekly Shōnen Jump
8-Growing up, Oda found inspiration in many of his childhood cartoons and manga. Among his favorites was Vicky the Viking, a 1970s animated television series that piqued his interest in pirate stories. However, in terms of manga, Oda was a big fan of author Akira Toriyama and his work including Dr. Slump and the hugely popular series Dragon Ball.

Often cited as an influence for many well-known manga writers including Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and Bleach creator Tite Kubo, Toriyama’s Dragon Ball character Goku became an inspiration for Oda as well. Since debuting One Piece back in 1997, Oda became good friends with his idol Toriyama and even collaborated on projects together. The 2007 manga Cross Epoch became the first crossover for One Piece and portrayed the characters from its world combined with the Dragon Ball universe.
7-As Oda continued to work at Weekly Shōnen Jump, he began to further develop his skills as a manga artist. He worked as an assistant on Suizan Police Gang, Jungle King Tar-chan, and Mizu no Tomodachi Kappaman. He was also noted as a big influence while working on Rurouni Kenshin with artist Nobuhiro Watsuki.

After working on such noted projects and artists, Oda finally created the “Romance Dawn” one-shot story series. A storyline that Oda originally worked on in junior high school, the 1996 series depicted the character Monkey D. Luffy as the lead, with his signature straw hat and boisterous personality.

When Oda fully developed and published One Piece in 1997, he kept the name “Romance Dawn” an homage to the story’s roots. It serves as the title for the first chapter of the series and the first manga volume. “Romance Dawn” is also a running theme in the anime as well.
6-As with any developing story, certain plot elements and character changes take place in its early stages. In the case of One Piece, several characters are drawn in styles that greatly contrast their final looks. For example, the cute character of Tony Tony Chopper was originally drawn with a more realistic reindeer appearance and carrying a sword!

Comicbook.com reported that in an interview with Shōnen Jump, Oda revealed: “If I designed him as I initially planned, he would be covered by other characters (people couldn’t see his uniqueness), so eventually I made him smaller and cuter.”

Other characters with varied origins included a more mechanized Nami wielding a huge battle ax and “Pirate Hunter” Roronoa Zoro as a bodyguard for the Buggy Pirates. However, one of his character plans had to be changed due to an upcoming competing manga…
5-After the release of “Romance Dawn”, Oda worked to fully develop the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew. While he did retain some elements of the original story, Oda also developed new characters.

One such character was the cook known as “Black Leg” Sanji – well, that is what he was eventually named. When he was created, Sanji was actually called Naruto. However, Oda’s rival, Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, had just developed his series of the same name and published it in 1997. Having heard of its development, Oda decided to change his character’s name to avoid confusion.

Even with this alleged “rivalry”, the two artists greatly respected one another. When Kishimoto published his final Naruto volume, he included the Straw Hat Pirates’ symbol on Naruto’s headband on Hokage Rock in the “Chapter 700” artwork. As a response and final goodbye, Oda added tons of Naruto references in the cover of “Chapter 766” of One Piece.

These references included the symbols for Konohagakure, the Uzumaki clan. Luffy was eating ramen – Naruto’s favorite – with a (very heavily hinted) Naruto figure. His final message to his rival: “Both my friend and rival, thank you for 15 years of heartfelt serialization!! Kishimoto-san, Otsukaresama!!”