Eiichiro Oda

About

Eiichiro Oda (Japanese: 尾田 栄一郎, Hepburn: Oda Eiichirō; born January 1, 1975) is a Japanese manga artist and the creator of the series One Piece, the best-selling manga in history and the best-selling comic series printed in volume. With more than 600 million tankōbon copies of One Piece in circulation worldwide, Oda is one of the best-selling fiction authors. The series’ popularity resulted in Oda being named one of the artists who changed the history of manga.

Eiichiro Oda was born on January 1, 1975, in Kumamoto, Japan. At the age of four he resolved to become a manga artist in order to avoid having to get a “real job”. His biggest influence was Akira Toriyama and his series Dragon Ball. He recalls that his interest in pirates was probably sparked by the popular TV animation series titled Vicky the Viking.

At the age of 17, Oda submitted his work Wanted! and won several awards, including second place in the coveted Tezuka Award. That got him into a job at the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine, where he originally worked as assistant manga artist/assistant to Shinobu Kaitani’s series Suizan Police Gang before moving to Masaya Tokuhiro on Jungle King Tar-chan…