Life Of Eiichiro Oda: The Creator of One Piece

The hit manga series called One Piece by Eiichiro Oda began in 1997 and has sold over 500 million copies to date. To understand its success, we’ll have to take a deeper look at its creator, Eiichiro Oda’s life.

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Let's take a closer look at "Who is Eiichiro Oda".

Who Is Eiichiro Oda?

Eiichiro Oda born on January 1, 1975, is a Japanese manga artist and the creator of the series One Piece. One Piece is the best-selling manga series ever published in a volume. Making Oda one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.

Early Life of Eiichiro Oda

Oda began his journey at the age of four when he resolved to become a manga artist to avoid getting a "real job". As a child, Oda read many different manga, “The Monster Kid” being the first he recalls.

According to Manish Prabhakar Singh (Research Scholar); The word "manga" is formed from two kanji characters, literally translating to "restrained images." Katsushika Hokusai, a renowned ukiyo-e artist, is credited with being the first to use the term "manga" with his publication "Hokusai Manga."

Jump started serializing Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball when Oda was in fifth grade. Oda was captivated from the first chapter onward and would be influenced by Toriyama's narrative style and artwork for years to come.

Although Oda’s career didn’t begin till the year 1992 when he was just a 17-year-old in high school. During this period, Oda took an interest in Shueisha's prestigious Tezuka Awards.

He spent 4 months constructing his first full-length manga titled Wanted! He was proud of his work but worried that his parents and teachers would disapprove. So he submitted it under the pen name Tsuki Himizu Kikondo.

Oda won the 44th Tezuka Award for his one-shot manga Wanted! and earned a whopping ¥500,000 prize for his work thus attracting the attention of professionals from the industry.

As a result, he was offered a job at Shonen Jump and over a period of time became the assistant to three mangakas:

• Shinobu Kaitani (Liar Game)
• Masaya Tokuhiro (Jungle King Tar-chan)
• Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin)

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How Did Oda Come Up with One Piece?

In 1996, towards the end of his tenure as an assistant at Shonen Jump, Oda released two one-shots titled Romance Dawn. They were drafts of a story he had about pirates since high school.

After Oda approached Shonen Jump with the first one shot, the concept was approved for further development and was published in the Shonen Jump Summer Special.

Upon release, Romance Dawn was a hit and a second one-shot would soon be released following the first one.

You might be wondering why we are telling you this.

Many manga series get their start as stand-alone one-shot chapters meant to tell a single story and it wasn’t any different for Eiichiro Oda and One Piece. Romance Dawn’s main character was none other than Monkey D. Luffy.

In 1997, A year after Romance Dawn. A series by Eiichiro Oda would be approved for weekly serialization and the world would know it as “One Piece”.

Shueisha’s weekly manga got One Piece the exposure it required and helped Oda achieve his dream.

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How Much Is Eiichiro Oda’s Net Worth?

According to a 2016 article, Baka Furi, a Japanese TV show, said Oda seems to make about 3.1 billion yen a year (via Kotaku).

In USD, that figure translates to $26 million. All of Oda's earnings come through royalties, licensing, merchandise, and more.

Many net worth calculations put Eiichiro Oda in the $200 million range. Some estimates climb as high as $230 million. This makes Eiichiro Oda the wealthiest mangaka in history.

Eiichiro Oda’s Lifestyle and Personality

According to both him and his editors, Oda is an ardent worker and perfectionist. By his own estimation, he sleeps only three-four hours per day during a typical work week.

During his time at Shonen Jump, Oda was noted to be impatient and blunt for an aspiring mangaka.

He’d argue with senior mangaka and editors on topics as major as story approval and as minor as workplace music.

This was reduced through indulgence from the senior mangaka and discipline from the editors.

When interacting with fans in SBS columns, He assumes a laid-back personality. He often makes jokes, especially those involving puns and self-deprecating humor. He also allows his fans to address him by his grade-school nickname "Odacchi".

Oda dislikes having his pictures taken and asks his face to be hidden during interviews. Leaving only a handful of his pictures available online.

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Eiichiro Oda’s Awards

Eiichiro Oda has received several awards and titles. Here’s a list of some of his awards: -

• Second half of 1992: second place Tezuka Award for Wanted!
• 2005: Sondermann Award in the International Manga category for One Piece]
• 2012: Received Grand Prize at 41st Japan Cartoonists Association Award for One Piece
• 2015: Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author" with 320,866,000 copies printed worldwide up until December 2014.
• 2019: Most Searched Author at The Yahoo! Japan Search Awards
• 2022: Special Lifetime Achievement Award at Napoli Comicon 2022 in Italy.
• 2022: Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author" with 516,566,000 copies printed worldwide up until July 2022.

How is Eiichiro Oda’s Family Life?

Not much is known about Oda's parents, his mother was a typical homemaker. Whereas his father Seiichiro Oda was a salary man who oil painted as a hobby. Oda has at least one sibling, an older sister, whom he has mentioned in his SBS columns.

Eiichiro Oda's wife is Chiaki Inaba. She is a former cosplayer, model, and race queen. She was active as a model and an actress from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.

At Jump Festa 2002, Inaba was cosplaying as Nami (A character from One Piece). It was there that she ran into Oda, and the two hit it off. They dated for a couple of years and got married in 2004.

Oda and Inaba have had two daughters after their marriage in late 2004. They welcomed their first daughter born in mid-2006 and a second daughter who was born in 2009. Virtually nothing else is known about either.

What next for Eiichiro Oda?

According to a video posted by the Official One Piece Staff Twitter account

Oda took to the all-new AI technology ChatGPT to write a chapter for his manga One Piece.

Oda told the AI, “I can’t think of what to do with next week’s One Piece, so can you come up with a story for me? I’d like a very funny one.”

ChatGPT proposed a storyline for One Piece which involved the Straw Hat Pirates facing a new enemy called the "King of Shadows”.

As the name suggests the antagonist can control shadows and he had kidnapped the straw-hat crew’s beloved Dr. Chopper.

Oda replied to ChatGPT’s suggested storyline saying, “Sorry, this is boring, please come up with more interesting ideas.”

After which, ChatGPT crafted a storyline about the Straw Hats helping an alien, fighting an evil witch, and restoring the star of the alien’s home planet.

Oda seemed to like the storyline a lot and replied saying, “Thank you! That’s exactly what I’ll do!”

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FAQs for Eiichiro Oda- The Creator of One Piece

1) Who is the owner of One Piece?

Ans: Eiichiro Oda is the creator of One Piece.

2) How close is One Piece to ending?

Ans: Oda’s most recent predictions suggested One Piece could potentially conclude in either 2024 or 2025.

3) How old was Oda when he started One Piece?

Ans: Eiichiro Oda was 17 years old when he started making Mangas and 22 years old when he made One Piece.

4) How many copies has One Piece sold?

Ans: One Piece has sold over 500 million copies as of 2023.