EIICHIRO ODA was born
January 1, 1975 in the city of Kumamoto (in the prefecture
of Kumamoto). He decided to pursue a career as a a manga
artist at the age of 4 (because they didn't have to work
in companies as adults). Unlike many youth who give up
this dream, he kept nurturing it as he grew up; and at
age 17, he received a Silver Honors ("jun-nyuusen"), the
second highest honor available (that's why I translitersated
"jun", which usually means "sub",
as "silver") from the 44th semi-annual Tezuka
Awards (a "story" manga artist scouting contest co-hosted
by the editorial staffs of Weekly Jump and Monthly
Jump, this is the contest that many other familiar
Weekly Jump faces, such as Yoshihiro Togashi, Hiroyuki
Takei, Daisuke Higuchi, Takeshi Obata, Masanori Morita,
Ryu Fujisaki, and even Masakazu Katsura got their big
breaks) with his short story, WANTED!. (His pen-name
back then was "Getsu ka sui moku kin do", i.e. "Moon Fire
Water Wood Gold Earth", or more commonly, "Mon Tue Wed
Thu Fri Sat".)
 His
first work as a pro was Kami Kara Mirai no Present
(A Gift of the Future from God), published in the October
1993 issue of Jump Original (Monthly Jump's
bimonthly spinoff). His talent was further noticed by
the Weekly Jump staff when he got Gold Honors ("nyuusen",
i.e. the top honors much like a gold medal, which explains
the transliteration once again) in the Hop-Step Awards
(WJ's monthly talent scout contest, now called
the Tenkaichi Manga Awards) in 1993 with his work Ikki
Yakou (One Devil's Night Trip).
In 1994, he
decided to leave college after the end of his freshman year to head out to Tokyo, and there, he
studied as an assistant for three Jump authors: Shinobu Kaitani (Midoriyama Police
Gang), Masaya Tokuhiro (Jungle no Ouja Tar-chan and Mizu no Tomodachi Kapparman),
and Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin).
During his
apprenticehood, Mr. Oda published two short stories: Monsters in the 1994 Autumn Special (the
seasonal spinoff magazine created by the Weekly Jump staff, now called Akamaru Jump)
and the first of the two versions of Romance Dawn in the 1996 Summer Special. A few months
later, he broke into the pages of Weekly Jump with the second incarnation of Romance
Dawn, published in issue #41 of 1996. And as with any other short story that does well in
Jump, the series ONE PIECE (yeah, the one that you're reading this website for)
started in #34 of 1997... and the rest is history. =)
If you are interested in reading his short stories, every
story except the first version of Romance Dawn
is available in his short story collection WANTED!...
He has said in this volume that this elusive first version
of Romance Dawn will someday be included in the
back of a ONE PIECE volume; that promise came to
life when the first version was included - though, not
in an actual OP volume but as a part of the special
character book RED: Grand Characters.
To further get an idea of what Oda-sensei is like, follow these links...
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