Eiichiro Oda

Eiichiro Oda (尾田栄一郎, Oda Eiichirō), born January 1, 1975 in Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan, is a Japanese manga artist, best known as the creator of the manga and anime "One Piece".

This wiki not only covers up One Piece, but will cover up Oda's nearly 20 years of his career.

Early Life
As a child, Oda was inspired by Vikings and aspired to become a manga artist. As a child, he submitted a character named Pandaman for Yudetamago's classic wrestling manga Kinnikuman. Pandaman was not only used in a chapter of the manga but would later return as a recurring cameo character in Oda's own works, he is known to add Easter Eggs in his manga for fans to spot, including Doskoi Panda. He was inspired by Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. When he was young, he liked to play soccer at school, he was nicknamed Odacchi by his friends. He would later voice Odacchi in Dream Soccer King! short that was added in the third One Piece movie "Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals"



Assistant Years(1992-1997)
In 1992, Oda at age 17 began his manga career starting as an assistant to 3 different mangakas for a weekly shonen manga magazine called Shonen Jump. On the same year he submitted his first work called Wanted! which he won a second place at Tezuka Award. At first he worked with Masaya Tokuhiro on Jungle King Ta-Chan in 1992. In 1994, he briefly worked with Shinobu Kaitani with Suizan Police Gang before going back to Tokuhiro. At the same year he left college as a freshman. After Jungle King finished it's run in 1995, he and Tokuhiro went on to create Mizu No Tomodachi Kappaman, it ran from 1995 to 1996. at the same year he moved on to work with Nobuhiro Watsuki on Rurouni Kenshin in 1996 during this time Oda met Hiroyuki Takei. Oda drew scenes in that manga with his own art style.

During 1993 and 1994, he created other works such as God's Gift for the Future (1993), Itsuki Yakou (1994) and Monsters (1994), the latter of which he would later mix with One Piece.

In late 1996, while still working with Watsuki, he created 2 one shots for the upcoming manga artist showcase called Romance Dawn V.1 and Romance Dawn V.2 which will become the first chapter of One Piece. In 1997, he later quit working with Noburio to begin working on One Piece, he did many early One Piece sketches that will appear in Colorwalk 1. He planned out the early stage of One Piece (Chapter 1-8) of the series before he officially started it. However, he made many changes, such as changing Boogie to Buggy, changing Zoro from being his henchman to being a wandering swordsman, and changing Morgan's appearance (he was originally suppose to look like a Sumo but Oda's editors wanted him to change it which he did). Later Nobuhiro Watsuki would pay a tribute to Oda by drawing a Straw Hat Pirate's jolly roger in one of chapter in his work Rurouni Kenshin as a picture in a Bomb used by Gein one of Enishi Yukishiro subordinate

One Piece(1997-)
Finally in August, 1997, he created his signature work, One Piece. Having been inspired by pirates, he made One Piece a pirate series.

In 1998, Oda did designs for the One Piece OVA, he was happy to see One Piece getting animated. In 1999, Toei Animation adopted One Piece, the staffs would often meet up with Oda to discuss how to handle the series.

In 2002, he met Chiaki Inaba who plays as Nami during the Shonen Jump Fiesta, the two went along and in 2005, they got married. In April 2006, Oda unexpectly fell ill and One Piece was not released that week, however he recovered and resumed One Piece the next week. Because of his recent illness, Oda felt the fans needed to catch up so he created Grand Line Times.

In 2007, at the JUMP Fiesta 2008 in the absence of Shūichi Ikeda when the voice actors acted out the Mugiwara High School short. He wore a hot pink wig for the part and explained he would only do this because One Piece was in its tenth year.

Later that year, he teamed up with Akira Toriyama to create a Dragon Ball/One Piece crossover called Cross Epoch.

He was also involved in writing and directing One Piece movie 10.

In 2009, One Piece became the most read series, surpassing Dragon Ball.

Future
Oda stated in one of his interview that he wanted to create a robot manga after he finish, later he stated that after he finishes One Piece, he would take the same path Toriyama did: create short-story mangas.

Assistant credit

 * Suizan Police Gang with Shinobu Kaitani(1994)
 * Jungle King Ta-chan with Masaya Tokuhiro(1992-1995)
 * Mizu no Tomodachi Kappaman with Masaya Tokuhiro (1995-1996)
 * Rurouni Kenshin with Nobuhiro Watsuki (1996-1997)

Works

 * Wanted!(1992)
 * God's Gift for the Future(1993)
 * Ikki Yako(1994)
 * Monsters(1994)
 * Romance Dawn V.1(1996)
 * Romance Dawn V.2(1996)
 * One Piece(1997)

Writer

 * Wrote the story for the movie One Piece: Strong World

Cameo

 * Voice of Odacchi in Soccer King Dream
 * Played as Shanks in the 2008 Jump Fiesta

Trivia

 * When Eiichiro Oda was the assistant of Nobuhiro Watsuki, his colleague was Hiroyuki Takei. Therefore, Oda has a strong respect in Takei.
 * Oda is a fan of rapper Eminem, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton
 * Oda's 3 favorite movies are Seven Samurai, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Young Guns.
 * Oda's favorite real pirate is Blackbeard (Edward Teach).
 * According to Oda in an interview for Shonen Jump, his favorite villain in One Piece is Buggy the Clown (he joked that he literally threw him together). Oda has also claimed if he could eat any of the Devil Fruits, he would eat the Bara Bara no Mi.
 * Oda is a fan of Mexican food.
 * Oda was seen on the verge of tears (but he held them up) after the Straw Hats' VAs asked the audience to say "Odacchi, itsumo arigatou" in a Jump Fiesta event. He then asked did they plan that just now. Mayumi Tanaka (Luffy's VA) and Kappei Yamaguchi (Usopp's VA) responded that they planned that just now, when Oda was still blindfolded after a certain game they played.
 * On that same day, Oda was wearing a fish head on his head, known as his other trademark (other than Pandaman).
 * Strangely, in a recent Japanese Fan Poll, Eiichiro Oda is currently ranked the 31st Most Popular Character in One Piece, despite the fact that he has never included himself in any issue of the manga (except the SBS).
 * Oda's name often appears on the spine of books in the anime.
 * Oda's art-style has gradually changed over the course of One Piece. Some characters have slightly younger and cuter appearances(such as Chopper's hybrid form) while other characters look somewhat older and more mature(most of the earlier Straw Hats) although less than a year has passed in the storyline.
 * He agreed to a SBS question requesting that Eiichiro Oda's birthday be on January (ichi = 1) 6th (rou = 6).