One Piece has been going on for almost 25 years and will enter the Elbaf arc soon. Over the years, people have loved Eiichiro Oda’s storytelling and given him the title of a genius. Even though One Piece crossed 1110+ episodes and 1110+ chapters, it remains one of the best and most popular franchises in the anime and manga industry.
On the other hand, Kohei Horikoshi has earned great fame through his masterpiece, My Hero Academia. The story belongs to the Shonen genre but later takes a darker turn. Horikoshi’s magnum opus focused on superheroes, and he introduced multiple characters in the very beginning. Eiichiro Oda always refrained from adding too many characters at once for a particular reason.
Eiichiro Oda Did Not Introduce Multiple Characters At Once
Fans believe Eiichiro Oda was the best storyteller of his generation. He was careful when it came to building up the narrative or having proper character development. One thing that the mangaka always refrained from was introducing multiple characters at once. Integrating everyone in the plot would have been a strenuous task. He even warned Kohei Horikoshi about the number of characters introduced in one go.
During an interview with Kohei Horikoshi, he said,
Once you have that many characters, it becomes difficult to integrate them all into the story. I’m not sure if he’ll be able to fit everyone in. Luckily, Horikoshi-sensei’s characters tend to be both recognizable and popular, so I’m probably overthinking it. I’ve always thought that his volume covers are drawn especially well—they’re packed with emotion and style. It’s clear how much effort he puts into them.
The One Piece creator clarified it by giving the example of Reverie arc. During the arc, countless Royal families came for the meeting and discussed the serious matters surrounding the world. Oda had to bring multiple characters into the plot, and it was difficult for him to show them all. Most characters were featured in past arcs, and clubbing them together was difficult for the mangaka.
Several people have started One Piece from the latter chapters instead of the beginning, so they would not get the reference that the old readers or watchers would enjoy. But Kohei Horikoshi introduced most of the characters at once. Class 1-A of UA had multiple students who aspired to be the number one hero, and all of them had to be fitted into the story. It is never an easy task to fit everyone into a single plan.
Kohei Horikoshi Is Massive One Piece Fan
Eiichiro Oda has inspired countless people and set them on the way to being a mangaka. Even though Kohei Horikoshi also fell in the same category, he was also a massive One Piece fan. During his school days, he even drew Captain Smoker, which was featured in a One Piece volume. The interview between Oda and Horikoshi happened in 2018, but they had met each other years before.
Horikoshi was pretty shy since he had yet to establish himself as an admired manga artist and refrained from approaching the One Piece creator. On the contrary, Oda’s daughter loves My Hero Academia and even questions his father whether One Piece is fine after learning about Deku and Bakugo’s massive popularity. Even though My Hero Academia was serialized much later, it successfully integrated all the characters, which even Oda refrained from doing.
One Piece and My Hero Academia are currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
