MangaZine Jun, 10. 2014 | Page 14

The Greatest Minds:

Eiichiro Oda

Today, we will give you some information about one of the greatest Mangakas of our time, and my hero….Eiichiro Oda!!!!!

Mr. Oda is world renown for his best selling Manga One Piece which has broken many records around the world and is one of the most popular Manga in the world. One Piece has been his most successful work, but he had quite a lot of experience with other Mangas and anime. Eiichiro Oda had already set his mind on being a Mangaka from the age of four. He wanted to avoid getting a ‘real job’ so he turned to his passion. He was greatly influenced into making this decision

by Akira Toriyama, the Mangaka of Dragon Ball. Eiichiro Oda was always captivated by pirates and says he might have been influenced by the children’s show Vicky the Viking. Eiichiro Oda made his debut at the age of 17 by assisting 3 different Mangas for weekly Shonen Jump magazine. He also submitted one of his one shot Mangas called Wanted. This won several awards and placed second for the esteemed Tezuka Award. He worked with Masaya Tokuhiro on ‘Jungle king Ta-Chan’ and ‘Mizu no Tomodachi Kappaman’. He later worked with Nobuhiro Watsuki on ‘Rurouni Kenshin’. Eiichiro created two one shots called Romance Dawn Version 1 and Version 2. These later gave the base for the first story arc in One Piece. In 1997, he quit working with Nobuhiro to start working on One Piece. In 1999 Toei Animation adopted One Piece. The first episode was released October 20, 1999. In 2002, Eiichiro Oda met Chiaki Inaba, the voice actress for name. They got married in 2004. In 2007, Eiichiro Oda teamed up with Akira Toriyama and created a crossover with One Piece and Dragon Ball characters called Cross Epoch. Eiichiro Oda