The genesis of One Piece
While a first-year junior high school student, Eiichiro Oda began sketching out ideas for a pirate-themed manga in a notebook, in pencil.
What came out of these ideas was called Romance Dawn.
Romance Dawn is composed of to two stories, written by Eiichiro Oda, before One Piece, but set in a similar world.
Now, I said that Romance Dawn has two stories, but it's actually two versions of the story. We'll call them Version 1, and Version 2. And the are not sequential, they are not related. They are actually different attempts at achieving something. That's why they are versions. They are prototypes.
And there is a third version. A third attempt. And that one is the actually first episode of One Piece. So what is One Piece? Well, One Piece is the third attempt, and the final one.
And I think it's interesting to understand what changed from one version to another, because it seems important. There was something lacking, or maybe something in excess. Whatever is was, it was important enough for him to change it.
Now, in all the versions there are different characters. In fact, all characters change. No one is present in all the version. Except Luffy. Out of the characters in the storyline, only Luffy appears in all three versions. So we know that he is very central to the way in which Oda wanted to communicate his message.
Version 1โ
This was published on August 4, 1996.
Now, in Romance Dawn Version 1, Luffy was actually cooler: he's smarter, more charismatic and generally victorious. This was changed quite a bit in One Piece. In One Piece, as you may know, he's very... dumb? No, that's not right. But he's definitely not intellectual, not the kind of smart that we normally regard as smart. And I have to admit that his stupidity is very obvious, and funny, sometimes. And it does get him intro trouble.
So that's one difference. That's something that did not make the cut. For some reason, Luffy could not be so charismatic and intelligent. This was not right, and he corrected it. And this is very interesting. This seems counter intuitive, right?
There is another diferente that, to me, is very significant. In Version 1, Luffy presents himself not as a pirate, but a candidate for one. So he is not a pirate, but a project for a pirate.
In the final version of One Piece this is very, very different. He does present himself as a pirate, looking for a crew, in order to become the King of Pirates. So not only is he a pirate, but his project is to become the king of all of them. This is quite a change โ way more ambitious, so much so that it sounds insane. But that is his project.
Meanwhile, in Version 1, he says that he wants to become a pirate. And in fact, he says that he's going to become a Peace Main pirate. Now, what the hell is a Peace Main?
In Version 1, Luffy explains that there are two different kinds of pirates in the world: the ones that go around indiscriminately plundering, who are called Morgania, while others go on lots of adventures just for the sake of it, who are called Peace Main. He wants to recruit Peace Main crew members, to form a Peace Main band, and he's troubled because the world is full of Morgania types. But he ends up finding two other Peace Main-type nakama who join him.
Now, this is interesting: in One Piece there are zero references to the hole Peace Main versus Morgania thing. And as you can see, this is one of the main factors of the plot in Version 1. This is the kind of thing that is difficult to remove from a story, because it's already there and it makes sense. But this did not make the cut. At all. This was not right, and he corrected it.
Version 2โ
The second version was published on the 23 of September of 1996. So it's only one month after the first version. So it's fair to assume that he was writing them in parallel, and doing some sort of A/B testing.
The beginning of the story changes completely. In version 1, the first time we see Luffy is after he defeated some evil pirates and saved his village.
Here, however, he appears in a small boat, at sea, taking a nap. So it's a more humble entrance. And he's not really charismatic, in fact he says some inappropriate or dumb stuff. There is a scene where everyone is amazing of Luffy's stupidity - which is a recurring theme across One Piece. So this was right. Did was correct, and did make the cut.
He also corrected something else. Now Luffy does present himself as a pirate. Remember how in Version 1 he was a candidate, that wanted to be a pirate? That was not right: now he does consider himself a pirate.
But still, he's looking for Peace Main people to form his crew. And again: Luffy explains that Peace Main it's a kind of pirate. Peace Main are the good pirates, while the bad pirates are a Morgania.
So this element is still quite central to the story. Maybe more than before, because there is a new element that informs it: Luffy says that he wants to be a Peace Main pirate because his grandfather was a Peace Main pirate. Literally, he wants to be a pirate because of his grandpa. In a flashback, we see Luffy's grandfather urging the boy to set out to sea when he becomes a man to be a pirate.
Now, this is a big change compared with the next version, with the actual One Piece. In the final story, not only his grandpa is not a pirate, he is actually the very oposite: he's a marine, a high-ranking marine, who's job is capturing pirates. And this is very tough on him, as they end up in opposite sides, even when they love and care for each other.
It's a very big difference. Why did he correct this? Well, in Version 2 he sort of inherited the will to become a pirate, while in One Piece he is supposed to become a Marine, but choses to become a pirate, which is the oposite.
Version 3: One Pieceโ
It was published on July of 1997. So that's 9 months after publishing Version 2.
What was Eiichiro Oda thinking?โ
We know that Eiichiro Oda began sketching out ideas for this story in high school.
So he was born on January 1 of 1975.
And Version 1 was published on 1996.
So he was 21 years old when Version 1 was published.
Now, as you can see, Eichiiro Oda did not wasted his time. He knew what he wanted to be and he became it. And it's really not easy to succeed in this specific literary format. Because you must be able to do two things that are extremely difficult and competitive: draw and write. So Van Gogh or Dali only did one, just as Hemingway or Shakespeare did one of them. And even if you are good at both, you must be able to combine them. So in manga you must be good enough at both so that it's compelling visually and narratively. But also the visuals and the narrative must somehow transmit the same feeling, that combined go beyond the literary and the artistic itself.
Well, Eichiiro Oda won his first award as a manga creator (so artist plus writer) at age 17, for his story called Wanted!.
And we know that back then he was already working in One Piece, because some of his drawings were done while he was in high school. And the story in Wanted had little to do with One Piece. You may find some elements, but the weight of the story is totally diferent.
At the age of 19, he began working as an assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki on a story called Rurouni Kenshin. This was a well established writer, who was only 5 years older than him, but mentored him. And in fact, Watsuki credits Oda for helping create the character Honjล Kamatari, who appears in Rurouni Kenshin. So he was creatively useful even as a teenage intern.
This manga, Rurouni Kenshin, was first published in April 1994. So that's two years before Version 1.
Before going any further, maybe it's worth mentioning how impressive this is. Eichiiro Oda found his calling, to tell stories and create art, at a very young age, and then pursued this relentlessly. He worked and worked, and presented his work to contests, and he got a job working for someone else, someone from whom he could learn. And he did this until he became successful, and then he kept doing it until he became extremely successful, and he keeps doing it today. And that in and of itself is very impressive to me.
Rurouni Kenshinโ
I think that is relevant to know what Rurouni Kenshin is about, because I feel like Eichiiro Oda's stories were lighter, maybe slightly ironical, a bit tongue in cheek. And this changed after some point. And I think that it had to do with Rurouni Kenshin.
So this story, Rurouni Kenshin, is very different from One Piece in many aspects. It's based in medieval Japan, and it's supposed to be sort of historical. But the depth of the theme is very significant, and I think it helped Oda to understand why the most personally difficult topics are also the most helpful to write about.
Kenshin is a hero that wants to atone for all the people he killed while he was an assassin, or a soldier really, during a war period. And the way he atones, is by aiding innocent people, by wielding a non-lethal sword.
So as you can see, this is a theme that is not superficial at all. This is tough, and it's very real, very sincere. It's not rainbows and butterflies, at all. And it's not light. It's not easy to face. Is a testimony to the horrors and the evil that rests inside each of us, and the tough work that we can do to correct things โ and explore how that can be accomplished.
So this hero did terrible things. He, the hero, the best person possible, was malevolent and sanguinary. So obviously it's showing that you and I have the same evil inside, potentially, because we are not better than the hero. You know? Even the hero can be a monster, and you should know that and watch out. And now this hero repents, and voluntarily wields a sword that does not cut, that cannot kill, and he is disciplined enough to keep using this sword. He could obviously use a real sword and kill you, but he won't. And he is constantly challenged about this by different rivals, as he risks his life, but stays true and disciplined about his resolve.
I know that One Piece is not about this. I'm not saying that they are the same. This Rurouni Kenshin story is about responsibility. The main theme is responsibility. And that is not the case in One Piece. I'd say that the main theme in One Piece is freedom. But that's not my point. My point is that there are ways in which you can address a theme, and there is a way of addressing it that cuts deeper, that speaks more to us, and that is also harder to write. And that mode of approaching life is what I find in One Piece. And I do think that working in Rurouni Kenshin helped him understand that - although he surely knew this to some level, like we all do.
Eichiiro Oda's Worksโ
- Wanted! 1992
- God's Present for the Future (็ฅใใๆชๆฅใฎใใฌใผใณใ) 1993
- Ikki Yakล (ไธ้ฌผๅค่ก) 1993
- Monsters (1994)
- Romance Dawn (first version, 1996)
- Romance Dawn (second version, 1996)
- One Piece (1997 โ ongoing)
Monstersโ
Released in October 30, 1994
Why did he change the things he changed?โ
Why make him stupid?โ
A very archetypical figure is the wise fool.
The wise fool, or the wisdom of the fool, is a form of literary paradox in which through a narrative a character recognized as a fool comes to be seen as a beholder of wisdom.[2] A recognizable trope found in stories and artworks from antiquity to the twenty-first century, the wisdom of the fool often captures what Intellectualism fails to illuminate of a thing's meaning or significance; thus, the wise fool is often associated with the wisdom found through blind faith, reckless desire, hopeless romance, and wild abandon, but also tradition without understanding, and folk wisdom.
The wise fool really is a testament to the natural wisdom, the automatic wisdom; the things your body knows without your brain understanding.
Shanksโ
Aside from the obvious references to Erik the Red, famous Viking pirate, Red-Haired Shanks bears a curious correlation to the Greek war deity Tyr. In the ancient myth, Tyr willingly offers his arm to a ferocious wolf as an act of charity that is prophesized to bring balance to the realms.
Similarly, Shanks offered his arm to save series protagonist Luffy, who himself is also heavily implied to be the catalyst that could restructure the world following the impending war for the titular One Piece.