One Piece has been going strong for 25 years and still counting. Over the years, Eiichiro Oda has embellished the story with layers of detail, numerous mysteries, and hundreds of characters. These characters are undeniably a huge reason behind the massive popularity of One Piece, but they have also posed some problems for Oda.
Oda opens about the need to create too many characters and then having to keep up with them. But it wasn’t necessarily the characters posing the challenge, rather the long-running nature of his series.
One Piece has too Many Characters!
The way Eiichiro Oda builds his world is truly fascinating. One can never tell if a storyline has been put to rest, as Oda reintroduces previous events quite often. He doesn’t just recall these events as flashbacks but adds to the existing storyline by associating it to a different character. The way we were introduced to Laboon and the story was contextualized with Brook’s introduction. So in that way Oda ends up creating too many characters.
In a conversation with Kohei Horikoshi, Oda shared (via translation on reddit) that sometimes while creating characters, he thinks to himself that this character will become popular. But then he sees the characters not performing as well in popularity polls. He accredits their poor performance to the length of One Piece.
That’s what I get for being serialized for so long.
It’s both a curse and a blessing, as he can bring back his characters because of the long-running nature of his series. At the same time, for the story to be this long, he needs to keep introducing characters to keep the magic alive. While old fans or long time fans tend to appreciate the return of their favorite characters, the same can’t be said about every reader of the series.
As I’m drawing them, I think, “This is a popular character who’ll please the readers!” But then the readers are like, “We don’t know this guy!”
Oda explains that some fans might begin reading One Piece because it features in Shonen Jump, they might not even be familiar with the complete story. So when he references the story through a reappearing character or event, it doesn’t always land in the way it’s intended with the newer fans. Oda also shared similar concerns for My Hero Academia as he was worried that Horikoshi might face some trouble while trying to incorporate all his characters into the story.
One Piece is a Powerhouse of Memorable Characters
Even though the reception of some characters doesn’t meet Oda’s expectations, One Piece is undoubtedly a treasury of great characters. Even someone like Senor Pink with a comparatively lesser screen time has a dedicated fanbase. Simply because Oda always tries to keep most of the characters in the loop, if not directly, then through cover page stories and sometimes even SBS.
Who knew that sometimes Oda also thinks that ‘One Piece is too long’. But as the story progresses and the end draws near, it won’t be too long before fans start saying that ‘it should’ve been longer’.
One Piece manga is available to read on MangaPlus app and website.
