New Netflix series “One Piece”
The manga template has been a phenomenon for decades
Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy, r.) and part of his straw hat gang.
© 2023 Netflix, Inc.
“One Piece” is now also a real series. If you stumbled upon it on Netflix and wondered: the template is considered the holy manga grail.
While in 1997 a certain “Titanic” sailed across the screens and from one cinema record to the next, Leonardo DiCaprio (48) and Kate Winslet (47) set sail at the same time as Leonardo DiCaprio (48) and Kate Winslet (47). The Japanese manga artist Eiichirō Oda (48) devised his magnum opus called “One Piece” more than 25 years ago, which has also been available as a real series since Thursday (August 31). Netflix has done. The “One Piece” phenomenon itself is as exciting as the search for the eponymous treasure.
The manga has been in continuous production since 1997 and has now made it to over 100 editions. Even more: Thanks to a worldwide and extremely loyal fan community, we have been able to go far to date selling more than 500 million copies, making One Piece the best-selling manga series in history. Another benchmark that should illustrate the popularity of the manga: In 2010, “One Piece” broke the previous initial print run record for all books in Japan with three million copies, which was previously held by a certain Harry Potter thanks to the “Order of the Phoenix”.
More successful than “The Lord of the Rings”
Similar to George RR Martin (74), Oda also finds it difficult to give the fans an exact date on which they can count on the finale of the series. Again and again he postponed the conclusion, the last status was that it could be possible in 2024 or 2025.
But “One Piece” is not only a successful manga, since 1998 the material has also been convincing as an anime. The TV animation series already has more than 1,000 episodes and since it lags behind the manga in terms of story, many more are likely to follow. And if you want to play the shrill members of the straw hat gang yourself, you can do so thanks to numerous video games.
All in all, it was in 2019 such an amazing bill: With more than 20 billion dollars in franchise income, “One Piece” overtook the “Lord of the Rings” universe at that time! With the Netflix series that has now been released, one or the other dollar should be added.
This unites manga, anime and real series
All formats revolve around the would-be pirate Monkey D. Luffy (Luffy in the original), played by Iñaki Godoy (20) in the Netflix series. Thanks to a so-called devil fruit, the lively nuisance has superhuman abilities and can stretch his body like rubber – similar to “Fantastic Four” character Reed Richards.
He is accompanied in his nutshell by a gradually growing and motley crew, which includes swordsman Zorro (Mackenyu, 26), navigator Nami (Emily Rudd, 30) or cook and womanizer Sanji (Taz Skylar, 27). Together they search for the “One Piece”, a legendary treasure whose owner becomes the pirate king.