One Piece Author Oda Reveals Why His Manga Officially Failed

This article may contain spoilers from the One Piece manga.

One Piece is one of the best anime and manga series out there, and over the years, it’s only solidified its position at the very top. It has also become one of the most successful fictional series ever. One Piece started all the way back in 1997, and since then, it has been a constant in the lives of manga fans who read this story week in and week out. Oda has created a story that has kept fans hooked for decades, but One Piece almost never happened.

Eiichiro Oda struggled to get published initially. He faced many failures after his one-shot Monster was released. However, with hard work and a lot of dedication, One Piece was Oda’s success after many failures.

Oda Struggled to Get Published After Monster

Oda Was Able To Publish One Piece Through Hard Work and Dedication

Today, everybody has heard of One Piece, which has become the most sold manga worldwide, by far. No other series comes close to One Piece in that regard, so it’s shocking for so many fans to learn that Oda, the creator, was struggling to get published. Oda always wanted to be a mangaka, but it wasn’t easy.

One of Oda’s first works was a one-shot known as Monsters. It was published in 1994, but after that, he struggled. He was facing failure after failure with Weekly Shonen Jump not wanting to publish his works. His time finally came when he was given the opportunity to publish Romance Dawn, the blueprint of One Piece, in Shonen Jump in 1996.

With Romance Dawn performing so well and ranking third in the reader survey, Shonen Jump would finally give him a chance and allow him to publish his very own long-running manga.

“While I was enjoying my sparkling, fun life as an assistant, my own manga kept getting rejected. After Monsters was published in a special issue (1994 Autumn Special), it was nothing but a string of failures. Pushed to the limit, I finally unleashed my secret weapon: a pirate manga, and drew Romance Dawn (Ver. 1). Two years later, it was published in another special issue (1996 Summer Special) and ranked third in the reader survey. There were even three active professional mangaka in the contest, so being third meant I had surpassed at least one pro—a major victory. It gave me confidence, and I believe that recognition is what paved the way for my chance to be published in the main section of Jump.” — Eiichiro Oda

One Piece came out one year after Romance Dawn and was finally released in 1997, as many fans know. But even getting it there after Romance Dawn’s success wasn’t easy. Oda reveals that One Piece was rejected a few times during serialization meetings. Had Oda not been persistent, One Piece might have never seen the light of day or been very different and never become the huge hit it is.

“I realized that opportunities really can come out of nowhere, and you must have a firm conviction to absolutely seize that moment. From there, I began coming up with the serialization name One Piece. Even though it was rejected a few times during the serialization meetings, finally, one year later, the serialization of One Piece began.”

One Piece Has Carried Weekly Shonen Jump

Shonen Jump Would Be in Trouble Without One Piece

Luffy awakens his Devil Fruit and unlocks Gear 5 - One Piece

One Piece has become the main pillar of Weekly Shonen Jump. No other series has gotten the numbers it has, but even aside from that, One Piece has been supporting the magazine through good and bad days alike. Most big series have started and ended, but One Piece is still here.

Series like Naruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, and My Hero Academia ending would have hit the magazine far harder had One Piece not been there as a familiar face for readers to come back to every week, and for that, Jump must be grateful.

Release Date: October 20, 1999
Network: Fuji TV
Directors: Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
Writers: Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda