One Piece

First volume of One Piece, released in Japan
 

One Piece (ワンピース, Wan Pīsu) is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, that has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 4, 1997. The individual chapters are being published in tankōbon volumes by Shueisha, with the first released on December 24, 1997, and the 60th volume released as of November 2010. In 2010, Shueisha announced that they sold over 200 million volumes of One Piece manga so far; volume 60 set a new record for the highest initial print run of any book in Japan in history with 3.4 million copies, being also the first book to sell over two million copies in its opening week on Japan's Oricon book rankings. One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year-old boy who gains elastic abilities after inadvertently eating a mystical fruit, and his diverse crew of pirates, named the Straw Hats. Luffy explores the ocean in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as the One Piece and to become the next Pirate King. On his journey, Luffy battles a wide variety of villains and makes several friends.
The series has been adapted into an original video animation (OVA) produced by Production I.G in 1998, and an anime series produced by Toei Animation, which premiered in Japan in 1999. Since then, the still ongoing series has aired more than four hundred episodes. Additionally, Toei has developed ten animated feature films, an OVA, and five television specials. Several companies have developed various types of merchandising such as a trading card game, and a large number of video games.
The manga series was licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media, in the United Kingdom by Gollancz Manga, and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. The anime series was licensed by Funimation Entertainment for an English language release worldwide, although the series has been dubbed previously by 4Kids Entertainment. Since its release, One Piece has become one of the most popular manga series of its time in both Japan and North America. It enjoys a high readership, with over 200 million volumes of the series sold by 2010. Reviewers have praised the art, characterization, and humor of the story.

Plot

The series begins with a boy named Monkey D. Luffy, inspired by his childhood hero "Red-Haired" Shanks, going on a journey to find the One Piece. Along the way, he organizes and leads a crew named the Straw Hat Pirates. The crew consists of a swordsman named Roronoa Zoro; navigator Nami; the sharpshooter Usopp; the chef Sanji; the doctor Tony Tony Chopper; the archaeologist Nico Robin; the shipwright Franky; and a musician named Brook.
During the course of the story, the crew faces other pirate crews and diverse villians such as Baroque Works, Eneru, the Seven Warlords of the Sea and the Marines. The marines are the subordinates of the World Government, who seek justice by ending the Golden Age of Pirates. Many background story elements involve the delicate balance of power between the World Government and the world's most powerful pirate crews, especially the Four Emperors, the four most powerful pirates in the world.

Setting

The fictional world of One Piece is covered by two vast oceans, which are divided by a massive mountain range called the Red Line. The Grand Line, a sea that runs perpendicular to the Red Line, further divides them into four seas: North Blue, East Blue, West Blue and South Blue. Surrounding the Grand Line are two regions called Calm Belts, which experience almost no wind and ocean currents and are breeding ground for the huge sea creatures called Sea Kings (renamed "Neptunians" in the English manga). Because of this, the Calm Belts are very effective barriers for those trying to enter the Grand Line. While navy ships, using sea stone to mask their presence, can simply pass through, most have to use the canal system of Reverse Mountain, a mountain at the first intersection of the Grand Line and the Red Line. Sea water from each of the four seas runs up that mountain and merges at the top to flow down a fifth canal and into the first half of the Grand Line. The second half of the Grand Line, beyond the second intersection with the Red Line, is also known as the New World.

The currents and weather on the Grand Line's open sea are extremely unpredictable, while as in the vicinity of islands the climate is stable. What makes it even harder to navigate is the fact that normal compasses do not work there. A special compass called a Log Pose must be used. The Log Pose works by locking on to one island's magnetic field and then locking on to another island's magnetic field. The time for it to set depends on the island. This process can be bypassed by obtaining an Eternal Pose, a Log Pose variation that is permanently set to a specific island and never changes.
The world of One Piece is filled with anachronisms, like the transponder snails, snail-like animals that can be attached to electric equipment and function as rotary phones, fax machines, surveillance cameras, and similar devices. Dials, the shells of certain sky-dwelling animals, can be used to store wind, sound, images, heat, and the like and have various applications. A Devil Fruit (renamed "Cursed Fruit" in the edited dub) is a type of fruit which when eaten confers a power on the eater. There are three categories of Devil Fruit. Zoan fruits allow the user to fully and partially transform into a specific animal. Logia fruits give control over and allow the user "to change their living body structure into the powers of nature". Paramecia is a catch-all category for fruits that give the user superhuman abilities. They are said to be incarnations of the Sea Devil himself and as a result, Devil Fruit users cannot swim in sea water as 'they are hated by the sea'. When even partially submerged in sea water, they lose all of their strength and coordination, although some abilities remain, such as Luffy still being able to stretch after being totally submerged. "Moving" water, such as rain or waves, does not have this effect.

Production

One Piece started as three one-shot stories entitled Romance Dawn—which would later be used as the title for One Piece's first chapter and volume. The two one-shots featured the character of Luffy, and included elements that would later appear in the main series. The first of these short stories was published in August 1996 in a special issue of Shōnen Jump and later in One Piece Red. The second was published in the 41st issue of Shōnen Jump in 1996 and reprinted 1998 in Oda's short story collection, Wanted!.
Oda originally planned One Piece to last five years, and he had already planned out the ending, but he found himself enjoying the story too much to end it in that amount of time and now has no idea how long it will take to reach that point. Nevertheless, the author states, as of July 2007, that the ending will still be the one he had decided on from the beginning and he is committed to seeing it through to the end, no matter how many years it takes.
When creating a Devil Fruit, Oda thinks of something that would fulfill a human desire; he added that he does not see why he would draw a Devil Fruit unless the fruit's appearance would entice one to eat it. The names of many special attacks and other concepts in the manga consist of a form of punning, in which phrases written in kanji are paired with an idiosyncratic reading. The names of Luffy, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, and Franky's techniques are often mixed with other languages, and the names of a number of Zoro's sword techniques are designed as jokes; for example, some of them look fearsome when read by sight but sound like kinds of food when read aloud. Eisaku Inoue, the animation director, has said that the creators did not use these kanji readings in the anime since they "might have cut down the laughs by about half." Nevertheless, Konosuke Uda, the director, said that he believes that the creators "made the anime pretty close to the manga."
Oda was "sensitive" about how it would be translated. The English version of the One Piece manga in many instances uses one onomatopoeia for multiple onomatopoeia used in the Japanese version. For instance, "saaa" (the sound of light rain, close to a mist) and "zaaa" (the sound of pouring rain) are both translated as "fshhhhhhh."

Media

Written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece has been serialized in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump starting on August 4, 1997. The chapters have been published into tankōbon volumes by Shueisha since December 24, 1997. As of November 2010^[update], the series spans over 600 chapters and 60 tankōbon volumes.
The One Piece series was licensed for an English language release by Viz Media publishes its English-language adaptation of the series, chapterwise in the manga anthology Shonen Jump, since the magazine's launch in November 2002, and in bound volumes since June 2003. As of March 3, 2010 (2010 -03-03)^[update], 38 English-language volumes have been published. However, Viz Media released a statement in July 2009 confirming the release of five volumes per month in North America during the first half of 2010, greatly increasing that number. In the United Kingdom, the volumes were published by Gollancz Manga, starting March 2006, until Viz Media replaced it after the fourteenth volume. In Australia and New Zealand, the English volumes have been distributed by Madman Entertainment since November 10, 2008.