One Piece Reaches Record Breaking New Sales Milestone

One Piece first began in the late 1990s and has since become one of the biggest anime franchises in the world. Throughout the decades, Eiichiro Oda has remained writing and drawing the adventures of Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates. With the end of the series now in sight, the Shonen story has not just broken yet another world record when it comes to the number of copies it has in circulation, but has given Oda a distinguished achievement to boot.   

One Piece recently brought the War For Wano Arc to a close in the pages of its manga, seeing Luffy and company managing to overtake Kaido and his Beast Pirates to usher in a new era of peace for the isolated nation. Eiichiro Oda, following the conclusion of this arc, took a month-long hiatus to prepare for the Final Arc of the series, a story that will finally bring to a close the journey of the Straw Hat Pirates after decades of sailing the Grand Line. The latest chapters hint at Red-Haired Shanks returning to the life of Luffy, following Momonosuke and the warriors of Wano striking a serious blow against the military and their representative, Admiral Ryokugyu. Needless to say, Oda is clearly setting the stage to end the series with a bang.

The Official Twitter Account for One Piece dropped the bombshell that the manga currently has over five hundred million copies in circulation around the world, with this statistic helping Eiichiro Oda break a “Guinness World Record” via “The Comic Book Series with the Most Copies Published by a Single Author”:

-Breaking-
#ONEPIECE has reached #500millionCopies in print worldwide!

moreover! The Guinness World Record "the Comic Book Series with the Most Copies Published by a Single Author", certified in 2015, has been renewed and Oda-sensei has been awarded a new official certificate!

— ONE PIECE スタッフ【公式】/ Official (@Eiichiro_Staff) August 4, 2022

One Piece has already had a big year, but it’s only looking to expand its reign in 2022 thanks in part to the arrival of the fifteenth film in the franchise, One Piece: Red. Set to bring back Red-Haired Shanks in an adventure that features his daughter Uta, the television series is helping prepare for the arrival of the movie via upcoming episodes that will take a break from Wano and instead focus on the early relationship between Luffy and the daughter of his former mentor. 

What do you think of this massive achievement for One Piece and Eiichiro Oda? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Grand Line.