Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, and Masashi Kishimoto the creator of Naruto have been serving the anime community for a long time. Both of these creators are legends in the anime world and have established and influenced many other anime and manga creators over the years with their masterpieces.
While Kishimoto’s masterpiece has shifted to its sequel, Oda’s magnum opus is still going strong for more than 1000 episodes and 1100+ manga chapters. Although initially, Oda and Kishimoto had fierce competition between them, they also became good friends later on in their lives.
So much so, that they even used references from each other’s works for their own mangas and openly accepted it. Both Oda and Kishimoto have stated that they loved the works of the other and Oda even mentioned his favorite characters from Naruto. While two of them are Rock Lee and Might Guy, the other is a famous villain in the series, by the name of Zabuza.
Zabuza Was a Fan-Favorite Villain
Zabuza Momochi, also known as the Demon of the Hidden Mist, was a ninja from Kirigakure’s Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist who betrayed his village. At first, Zabuza is presented as a harsh, conceited, aggressive, frigid, and ambitious man, but later on, gets a personality change and becomes an anti-hero.
He is a perceptive opponent who can analyze his opponent’s tactics after just one encounter, yet he may easily get overconfident if he believes a strategy is pointless. Vicious in combat, even as a young child who had not yet started at the Academy, his aptitude for fighting was evident as he murdered over a hundred skilled students by himself.
He could hold his own against one of Konohagakure’s greatest, Kakashi Hatake, for a considerable amount of time, which in itself was a big deal in Naruto. He was one of the first persons who was inspired by Naruto’s words which led to him doing the right thing. He is widely regarded as one of the best characters written by Masashi Kishimoto.
Zabuza is Eiichiro Oda’s Favorite Character from Naruto
According to Shonengamez, Oda’s favorite characters in Naruto were Rock Lee and Might Guy, two of the strongest characters from Konoha. Kishimoto was inspired by international celebrity Jackie Chan to create both Might Guy and Rock Lee. However, these two were not the only favorite characters of Oda.
Eiichiro Oda also revealed that he loved the character of Zabuza from the series. Kishimoto introduced the character during the Land of the Waves arc, where he was killed. Kishimoto stated that while writing the Land of the Waves arc, he was getting a fever every week but he wanted to wrap the arc quickly, thus he kept on going.
Both Oda and Kishimoto have inspired millions of people with their work and will continue to do so. That is simply down to the fact that they have a deep appreciation for each other and respect their work a lot.
