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The One Piece manga began 25 years ago, way back in 1997.
There are 103 volumes and over 1,000 chapters so far, but the story is still far from over. 📚
It follows the epic adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, who explores the ocean with his crew of pirates, the Straw Hat Crew, in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as "One Piece" in order to become the next Pirate King. 🏴☠️️👑
One Piece is so popular around the world that it has a Guinness World Records title for the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author, with 416,566,000 copies printed to date.
Here are some more fun facts which you probably didn't know.
As we’ve just mentioned, One Piece began 25 years ago, way before you were born!
However, the author, Eiichiro Oda, said in the past that he originally planned to finish the story in 2002, after just five years.
He even has the ending already planned out, but he has delayed it for many years as he continued to create epic characters, battles and adventures. 😄
If you’re familiar with the Straw Hat Crew, you’ll know their chef by the name of "Black Leg" Sanji. 👨🍳
But that wasn’t his original name. When he was created, Sanji was originally called Naruto!
However, Eiichiro Oda decided to change the name after he learned about the newly-created series Naruto, featuring the main character Naruto Uzumaki.
Naruto was published in 1997, the same year as One Piece.
Roronoa Zoro will be familiar to you as the first person to join Luffy’s crew. He’s one of the two swordsmen of the Straw Hat Crew and acts as Luffy’s trusty second-in-command. ⚔️
However, he was originally planned to be one of the bad guys!
Eiichiro Oda revealed that Zoro was going to be the bodyguard of Buggy the Star Clown, captain of the Buggy Pirates. 🤡
Buggy is known to be one of Luffy’s main rivals and enemies, although they have temporarily joined forces at times to help each other.
Can you imagine how different One Piece would be without Zoro as part of the Straw Hat Crew?
Charlotte Katakuri is one of the commanders of the evil Big Mom Pirates. He has been involved in many battles, which is probably where he got his cheek scars, right?
Well, not exactly.
At the age of two, Katakuri ate a doughnut and fell in love with the sweet treat. One year later, aged three, he ate so many doughnuts at once that his cheeks literally tore open. 😲
This is where Katakuri’s scar comes from. Even after this accident, Katakuri continued to eat doughnuts every single day. 😋
At the age of five, he received his Devil Fruit, which allowed him to transform any part of his body into a stretchy paste, which meant he could stuff as many doughnuts into his mouth as he wanted!
In the One Piece anime, Monkey D. Garp, Luffy’s grandfather, said he once tried to break Katakuri's record for consuming doughnuts by eating 842 doughnuts without sleeping or taking a break. 🍩🍩🍩
However, he eventually fell asleep and didn’t manage to break the record. 😴
Perhaps he could attempt the record for the most jam doughnuts eaten in three minutes? The current record is 10, achieved by Leah Shutkever (UK) in 2020.
In 1996, while working as an artist’s assistant, Eiichiro Oda created two manga stories named Romance Dawn. They featured One Piece’s protagonist, Luffy, trying to become the King of the Pirates.
These stories became the first chapter of the One Piece manga one year later, and that’s how the story of the Straw Hat Crew began!