One Piece (Manga)

One Piece (ワンピース) is an epic pirate adventure manga written and drawn by Eiichiro Oda, created in August 1997. The manga is known to employs an colorful and creative motifs that was taken from classic mythology, political climax, musical aspects, mixed with pirate lore and shonen formula.

History
Eiichiro Oda was inspired by Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump at a young age. As a child he was inspired by Vikings and he aspired to become a manga artist. Later he created Pandaman for Yudetamago's Kinnikuman. In 1992, Oda at the age of 17, submitted the manga called Wanted. This got him notice to join the staff at the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, where he became an assistant under several established manga writers including Shinobu Kaitani, Masaya Tokuhiro and finally Nobuhiro Watsuki.

Oda had interest in making a pirate manga both from his obsession with vikings as a youth and inspired by various pirate events including the discovery of the pirate ship of Edward Teach (known by his pirate name of Blackbeard). He wrote two seperate one-shots in the mid-1990s, both of which were called "Romance Dawn". The stories introduced Monkey D. Luffy, a straw-hat wearing boy who set out to sea to become a legendary pirate. Several concepts of the eventual serialization appeared in these stories, including Luffy's inspiration for being a pirate and a mysterious power he gained from eating a special fruit that turned his body into rubber. (a prototype for the Devil Fruit)

In Aug. 1997 Oda took many of his "Romance Dawn" ideas and started using them in a weekly serial under the title "One Piece". It was first serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, the weekly shonen magazine owned by Shueisha. The series quickly caught on and became popular from the initial chapters on, establishing itself as one of the premiere manga series in the magazine.

Originally, Oda wanted his series to run for 5 years (meaning One Piece could have ended in 2002) But he went longer then expected and has no idea how many more years his story will be.

Story
One Piece is the story of a boy named Monkey D. Luffy who was inspired by Red-Haired Shanks, a pirate. At the start of the series, 22 years from the present timeline, 1500 AOS an Pirate name Gol D. Roger, known as the Pirate King was executed, but before dying, he told the crowd of the location of his famous treasure, "One Piece". His death sparked the Golden Age of Pirates as countless pirates sets out to look for his treasure. Luffy becomes one as well, desiring to be the next Pirate King and sets out to gather crewmates and begin his adventures.

One Piece has since spanned across more than a simple pirating tale. Through the years of its serialization, One Piece has taken vastly differing directions in its storyline, at time wavering off the initial focus of the pursuit of becoming Pirate King.

One Piece is known for its complex storyline, bizarre characters, battle mixtures, character development, many plot twists, comedic tones as well as emotional drama, and unique sub-plots.

Related pages

 * Etymology
 * Chapters
 * Eiichiro Oda
 * Colorwalks and Colorspreads
 * SBS
 * One Piece Omake
 * Name Variants
 * Trivia Pages
 * Interviews
 * One Piece Databooks
 * Story Arcs