'One Piece' Creator Shows Off New Nami Sketch For 2018

One Piece certainly had a great 2017 as it ended the year as the top selling anime franchise in [...]

By Nick Valdez

One Piece certainly had a great 2017 as it ended the year as the top selling anime franchise in Japan, and the top selling manga series for the tenth year in a row. As it sets up to have an potentially even greater 2018, the creator has sent off the year in a classy way.

Series creator Eiichiro Oda has uploaded an end of the year art piece featuring Nami in a far more detailed look than she has even got in the series. It's colorful, seductive, and a great look at Nami for her fans.

As for how the author himself feels about the series' current popularity, the creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, responded gracefully and humorously to finding out about his ranking in manga sales with "I love being number one. I won't forget the feeling of gratitude. I'll make every effort to make One Piece the best manga in terms of both records and people's memory!! Thank you so much!!"

Fans of Nami in particular have also seen some major updates for the character as the original design for her character was recently uncovered, and fans of her current design were treated to a huge bit of fan service in one of the anime series' most recent broadcasts.

Eiichiro Oda also revealed some upcoming news for One Piece's future at Jump Festa 2018. Not only will the manga see Wano sooner rather than later, the next villain of the series is "one of the legends which lurks in the One Piece world. The greatest enemy ever for Straw Hats will hinder their way...Can you believe Marineford Summit War will look 'cute' compared to that?"

The new live-action One Piece series also got some new information as it was revealed that the series will portray the Straw Hats' adventures from the very beginning, and will take place in the East Blue.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with 430 million copies sold worldwide.

One Piece is currently in the middle of the "Whole Cake Island" arc and is now streaming on Crunchyroll and FunimationNOW.

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