One Piece is a manga written and drawn by Eiichiro Oda and pre-published since July 22, 1997 and is still being published in the Japanese pre-publication magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. It tells the story of Luffy, an elastic young man who dreams of becoming the king of the pirates. In a world where piracy is in its golden age, we follow Luffy and his crew on their adventure from island to island. Through the story, the author deals with many themes such as slavery, pollution, famine etc.. The manga, although seemingly rather childish, deals with rather mature and important themes that can be found in our world. The characters are colorful and all have an interesting development. The world created by Eiichiro Oda is impressively coherent and remains credible in its universe despite the surreal things that happen there.
This coherence is not due to chance since the author, having planned his story from the beginning, takes great pleasure in leaving clues about the next part of the story that fans look for each week, chapter after chapter. This practice is called foreshadowing, and also plunges the reader, like Luffy, into a treasure hunt to try to anticipate the next part of the story. The author is also inspired by real people or places to give even more coherence to his work. For example, Blackbeard, a pirate who really existed, is present in the story. Many places are inspired by real countries: the country of Wa is inspired by Japan, Alabasta is inspired by Egypt, Dressrosa by Spain ... Also, the names in the story of Blackbeard: “Marshal D. Teach” and Whitebeard: “Edward Newgate”, refer to the real name of Blackbeard in our world: Edward Teach.
The manga has had an animated adaptation since October 1999. It spans over 1,000 episodes and, like the manga, is still ongoing. In addition to adapting the manga story, there have been 15 original animated films, the latest of which was released in France in August 2022.
