After more than twenty years, One Piece remains one of the hottest series out there. The shonen was started long ago under the careful watch of creator Eiichiro Oda, and fans continue to praise the artist with each chapter they write. With the series having been around for so long, fans are constantly afraid its end is near, and those fears made a comeback earlier this year.
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Just, don’t be too scared yet. During a recent chat with an editor on One Piece, Takuma Naito made it clear no one should ever take Oda at face value when he’s talking about the series’ ending.
Recently, Naito made an appearance at the Tokyo Game Show to promote the series’ upcoming game. As the former editor of the One Piece manga, the current media editor was asked to comment on Oda’s recent interview where he said he hopes to end One Piece within five years. It was there Naito laughed off the report, saying there was far, far to much left to do for such a deadline.
According to translator Eten, Naito told the audience he was surprised everyone took Oda at his word.
“I thought to myself, ‘Why did everyone believe that? There’s no way,’” the editor said.
“It’s not that we want to drag anything. The stories ahead are just that dense, we still have so much to do, to finish all of them in 5 years…”
“Right now, we’re at around Act 2 of [the] Wano Country arc, which means from here on we’re getting closer to the core [of the series], and this arc is very important for that reason,” the editor finished.
With the series’ latest chapter moving the Wano Country arc right along, pacing seems to be no issue for One Piece. As Naito puts it, there is just so much more left of Oda’s story to go that a 5-year deadline is all but impossible. So if you were feeling a bit anxious about Oda’s comment, breath easier. The Straw Hat crew isn’t about to sail off into the sunset anytime soon.
Does this new report have you feeling a bit better…? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!
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.
