Eiichiro Oda

Eiichiro Oda (尾田 栄一郎, born January 1, 1975) is the creative mind behind the famous Shōnen Manga series, One Piece, which has been ongoing for over a thousand chapters. Oda is well-known for his unique art style and his eccentric and imaginative character designs.

Oda's father, an oil painter, was the one who introduced him to drawing at a young age. During middle school, he was inspired by the manga Captain Tsubasa and started playing soccer. In his second year of middle school, he began to draw manga and was influenced by Vicky the Viking, which piqued his interest in writing pirate stories. He then quit the soccer club during his last year of high school and pursued manga.

In high school, Oda won the Tezuka Award from Shonen Jump with his first published work, Wanted! (1998). He briefly attended Kyushu Tokai University but dropped out after one year to become an assistant to several manga artists, including Shinobu Kaitani, Masaya Tokuhiro, and Nobuhiro Watsuki. In 1996, he wrote Romance Dawn, which led to the creation of One Piece.

One Piece was released in 1997 and became a massive success in Shonen Jump. It has sold over 440 million copies as of 2018, and the animated adaptation, which premiered in 1999, has aired almost 1000 episodes as of 2021. Oda has also expressed plans to develop an American Live-Action Adaptation of One Piece.

In 2004, Oda married actress Chiaki Inaba after dating for two years and has two children. The birth of his daughter caused him great anxiety and inspired him to create supporting character Portgas D. Ace's backstory with Gol D. Roger, the King of the Pirates.

Despite being in the industry for half his life, Oda is still an avid manga fan, especially of Dragon Ball. His playful approach to his work has garnered a large following, and he often takes short breaks due to research or health issues, as he doesn't sleep much. However, these breaks typically last only a week.

Facts About Eiichiro Oda

• Eiichiro Oda only sleeps three hours a night and often works for more than 15 hours per day when he is working.
• By 2015, more than 300,000,000 copies of One Piece had been published worldwide, and the number now exceeds 450 million.
• Eiichiro Oda is inspired by Akira Toryama, the creator of Dragon Ball.
• During periods of focused work, Eiichiro Oda rarely takes a day off. He spends Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday planning the story, dialogue, and layout, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday drawing and inking the panels, and Sunday coloring them.
• Eiichiro Oda played soccer at school, inspired by the Captain Tsubasa manga.
• One Piece was adapted into an anime series in 1999, and the 1000th One Piece episode was released in 2021 by Toei Animation.
• Eiichiro Oda used to do oil painting as a hobby and uses Copic markers and watercolor paints to color his pages.
• In 2004, Eiichiro Oda married Chiaki Inaba, an actress, and they have two daughters.
• When he was hospitalized in 2013 due to a tonsil infection, Eiichiro Oda was seen working on the latest One Piece panels from his hospital bed.
• Eiichiro Oda is a big fan of the rapper Eminem, and it is speculated that the One Piece character Enel is based on the hip-hop artist.
• Some of Eiichiro Oda's favorite movies are Seven Samurai, Young Guns, Reservoir Dogs, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. His favorite directors are Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton, and Baz Luhrmann.
• Eiichiro Oda likes listening to the soul music of Brook Benton and also likes the music of Bryan Adams.
• Eiichiro Oda has had the nickname Odacchi since he was a child.
• Eiichiro Oda's favorite real-life pirate is Edward Teach, more commonly known as Blackbeard.
• Eiichiro Oda is a fan of the Dragon Quest video game role-playing series.