Eiichiro Oda, born in 1975, is the creator of One Piece, the best-selling manga in history. By March 2026 the series had more than 600 million copies in circulation worldwide.
Eiichiro Oda was born on 1 January 1975 in Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture. By his own account he decided at age four to become a manga artist so he would not have to get a real job. His biggest influence was Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball, while his fascination with pirates was sparked by the animated series Vicky the Viking.
At 17, Oda submitted a work called Wanted! and won several honors, including second place in the prestigious Tezuka Award. That recognition led him to Weekly Shonen Jump, where he worked as an assistant, including a stint at age 19 assisting Nobuhiro Watsuki on Rurouni Kenshin. He sharpened his craft drawing other people's pages before launching his own.
During this period Oda drew two pirate-themed one-shot stories titled Romance Dawn, published in 1996. They featured a stretchy, straw-hatted protagonist named Monkey D. Luffy, who would go on to anchor the series that made Oda famous.
One Piece began serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump on 22 July 1997. It follows Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hats, as they search the seas for a legendary treasure called the One Piece so Luffy can become King of the Pirates. The world is built around a vast sea route known as the Grand Line, divided into Paradise and the New World.
The sales records are staggering. One Piece passed 100 million collected volumes by 2005 and over 200 million by 2011, reaching more than 600 million copies in print by March 2026. That makes it both the best-selling manga series ever and the best-selling comic series by a single author measured in volumes sold.
Individual volumes have broken Japanese publishing records, including some of the highest initial print runs ever recorded for any book in the country. In 2015 and again in 2022 the series earned a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author, and since 2008 it has consistently topped Oricon's weekly comic chart.
Oda has stayed close to his roots. After a 2016 earthquake damaged Kumamoto Castle and the surrounding region, he donated 800 million yen toward recovery, with part of the gift made in the name of his character Luffy, and he has supported the One Piece Kumamoto Revival Project. He won the Grand Prize at the Japan Cartoonists Association Awards for the series.
Compiled from public records.
