One Piece‘s newest volume has hit shelves in Japan, and it features an interview with series creator Eiichiro Oda in which he talks about some of the details about the series’ currently running Wano arc.
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One thing fans have noticed is the downsizing of some of the heroine’s busts, and when Oda was asked about it he mentioned that it’s due to the women of the arc wearing kimonos, and he adjusted the silhouettes after receiving letters from fans.
In the interview (translated by calmdownrelax on Reddit), Oda was asked, “The women you draw almost always have a large bust. When they’re in Wano, they all wear kimonos and I’ve noticed that their busts get hidden away. I’m curious. Is it really okay even if Japanese women don’t have big busts?”
Oda revealed that he had adjusted the chests in the Wano arc due to criticism from fans and professionals who wear kimonos, “Before, when I didn’t know much about kimonos, I drew chests with their normal emphasis. However, I received a lot of letters from fans who were kimono pros telling me women with large busts would purposefully find ways to hide them to emphasize the beauty of their silhouette as well as teaching me tips on how they do this.”
Taking this critique to heart, Oda decided to highlight the silhouettes of his heroines more rather than giving them the particularly large chests he usually does. But he’s still got his flavorful, fan-service spirit, “Well in the end, the way anybody wears their clothes is up to them but I was convinced that the beauty of kimono lies in the silhouette, so that’s what I’ve been emphasizing in my drawing! If they took them off, it would be incredible!”
Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and 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 over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.
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