TOP 10 secrets about One Piece series

One Piece has been a beloved anime for over 20 years, and the series’ secrets are still being uncovered. Here are 10 surprising facts about One Piece:

1. The main character, Luffy, was actually inspired by an old Japanese folktale called “Usopp” or “Usogui” which features a young boy who sets out to become a pirate.

2. Oda has stated that he wishes all of his characters to have unique traits. To make this happen, each major character in the series is based on either real-life animals or plants. Examples include Usopp (squid), Nami (cat), Zoro (falcon), Zoro (dragon) and Chopper (reindeer).

3. The crew’s ship the Going Merry, was named after a type of fish found near Oda’s home town in Kumamoto prefecture.

4. A running joke in One Piece is that all the Straw Hat Pirates cannot swim and Luffy is the only one who can do so without any problems. This is an intentional reference to the fact that real-life pirates were bad swimmers because they wore heavy clothes and boots made of metal while swimming.

5. There are over 800 characters featured in the series, with some being introduced as late as 2018!

6. In order to keep up with his career, Eiichiro Oda has taken many breaks from One Piece since its debut in 1997. However, his longest break was over a year when he took time off to work on a feature-length movie for the series.

7. One Piece is one of the most successful manga and animes of all time with more than 430 million copies sold as of 2017. It is also regarded as the highest selling manga series ever.

8. The popular online game “Pirate King” was based off of One Piece and features many characters from the series as playable characters.

9. Oda has stated that he will end One Piece once he reaches 1,000 chapters—and fans have been counting down since chapter 822!

10. As if it wasn’t enough already, One Piece has also spawned a series of video games, books, trading cards and even theme parks. Who knew that a simple manga could have such a major impact on the world?