'One Piece' Creator Getting Major Hometown Award

The creator of One Piece should be used to getting accolades by this point. Eiichiro Oda has [...]

By Megan Peters

The creator of One Piece should be used to getting accolades by this point. Eiichiro Oda has worked on One Piece for more than 20 years at this point, and the best-selling series has gained a massive following in that time. Now, Oda is preparing to add another award to his trophy case, but this one is a bit more personal than those that came before it.

After all, this impending award is coming straight from Oda's hometown.

This week, the artist's hometown of Kumamoto confirmed it would be giving its Prefecture Honor Award to Oda on April 15. Governor Ikuo Kabashima said the city was happy to award Oda for his hard work and devotion to Kumamoto especially in the aftermath of Japan's deadly tsunamis in 2016.

"One Piece gives us the courage to step forward tomorrow," Kabashima said (via Sandman).

According to reports, Oda will not be able to accept the award in person, but the editor of Weekly Shonen Jump will appear on his behalf. Oda wishes he could attend the ceremony, but he admits he's too busy with One Piece right now.

Of course, fans can see why Oda is preoccupied with his manga. Recently, One Piece released its 900th chapter, and the thrilling update saw the Straw Hat crew come into great danger. Big Mom managed to get her hands on Sanji's wedding cake, and its taste was so divine that she broke out into song. The buffet also gave her crew the impetus to push out the Sun Pirates and Germa 66 one after the other. The chapter ended with the Thousand Sunny seemingly obliterated by canon fire, but readers are not ready to put the ship down for the count just yet. Monkey D. Luffy always has a back-up plan, and he won't let his beloved ship sink so easily.

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.

Are you happy to hear about Oda's impending honor? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!

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