He created one of the most famous manga in the world, but despite his notoriety and frenetic work pace, Eiichiro Oda, the author of One piecehe likes to cultivate a part of recklessness in the image of the hero of his work.

The 47-year-old artist refuses to be called “sensei” (master), a title usually attached to the name of mangaka, and has a reputation for showing up at chic restaurants or hotels in shorts and sandals, the garb of a pirate. Monkey D. Luffy, main character of One piece.

“I want children who read One piece consider me your brother,” the author said in a rare magazine interview in 2017 on the show’s 20th anniversary.

But “I know I’m old enough to be his uncle…so maybe he’ll be a fun, nice guy.”

A very modest plan for the man whose best-known work, the narrative of the adventures of Luffy, who dreams of becoming the pirate king, and his motley crew, earned him entry into the Guinness World Records for “the number of copies in circulation from the same series of comics by the same author”.

“It’s like it’s Luffy himself”

On Friday, this cultural phenomenon, which has sold nearly 500 million copies worldwide, will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the start of its ongoing publication in the Japanese weekly Shonen Jump.

The final arc of this story of the river, which to date has 102 volumes published in bookstores in Japan, should be published from next week in the magazine.

Mischievous, fearless and smarter than he seems, Luffy the Straw Hat Pirate is on the hunt for the legendary treasure. One pieceembodies the manga’s target audience according to Oda: teenagers.

“Every week I wonder if at 15 I would have enjoyed” this episode, Oda said in 2009. “The goal is not to make the reader think,” he said, clearly presenting his works as pure “entertainment.”

Luffy is more interested in adventure than in matters of the heart, as Oda believes that would not excite his fans. “I know there are a lot of adult readers now, but if I align myself too much with their tastes, I feel like One piece would lose value,” he said.

The mangaka himself has preserved the soul of a child, transforming his house into a true amusement park, complete with a little train and stuffed animal catchers, not forgetting an impressive collection of figurines and dioramas.

“It’s like he’s Luffy himself,” said a close associate of Oda on a Japanese TV show.

obsessive worker

Oda says that he sees Luffy as his “ideal son”. “I wish children were like him. Sometimes he says something that inspires everyone, but I wish he was always a boy,” he told the Yomiuri newspaper.

Luffy “keeps a part of the mystery to me,” he admitted. “He’s really good like this. If I knew everything about him, readers would be bored.”

Originally from Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan, Oda entered the ultra-competitive world of manga at the age of 17, when his first job Dear! wins an award from Shonen Jump magazine.

His career then experienced headwinds and several failures. But Oda was only 22 years old when he began publishing One Piece, inspired in part by his childhood fascination with German-Austrian-Japanese cartoons. viking the viking.

At that age, “I was too passionate about manga. I was even willing not to go to my parents’ funeral if they died when I had” a manuscript to return, he said, confident one day.

A workaholic, known to sleep only a few hours a night, Oda trusts his assistants little and draws almost all the characters and objects on his own. And if he relaxed over time, his passion remained intact.

“For me, drawing manga is a hobby,” he explained in 2017. “It doesn’t stress me out, so I’m sure I’ll never kill myself at work.”