One Piece (stylized as ONE PIECE) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine since July 1997, with its individual chapters compiled into 96 tankōbon volumes as of April 2020. The story follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a boy whose body gained the properties of rubber after unintentionally eating a Devil Fruit. With his crew of pirates, named the Straw Hat Pirates, Luffy explores the Grand Line in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as "One Piece" in order to become the next King of the Pirates. In August 2020, it was announced that One Piece was approaching its final arc.
The manga spawned a media franchise, having been adapted into a festival film produced by Production I.G, and an anime series produced by Toei Animation, which began broadcasting in Japan in 1999. Additionally, Toei has developed fourteen animated feature films, one original video animation and thirteen television specials. Several companies have developed various types of merchandising and media, such as a trading card game and numerous video games. The manga series was licensed for an English language release in North America and the United Kingdom by Viz Media and in Australia by Madman Entertainment. The anime series was licensed by 4Kids Entertainment for an English-language release in North America in 2004, before the license was dropped and subsequently acquired by Funimation in 2007.
One Piece has received praise for its storytelling, art, characterization, and humor. Several volumes of the manga have broken publishing records, including the highest initial print run of any book in Japan. The official website for Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga announced that the manga has set the Guinness World Record for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author". As of April 2020, the manga had over 470 million copies in circulation in 43 countries worldwide, making it the best-selling manga series in history. It became the best-selling manga for the eleventh consecutive year in 2018. One Piece is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, estimated to have generated more than $21 billion in total franchise revenue, from the manga, anime, films, games and merchandise.
Premise
The series focuses on Monkey D. Luffy, a young man who, inspired by his childhood idol and powerful pirate "Red Haired" Shanks, sets off on a journey from the East Blue Sea to find the titular treasure and proclaim himself the King of the Pirates. In an effort to organize his own crew, the Straw Hat Pirates,Luffy rescues and befriends a swordsman named Roronoa Zoro, and they head off in search of the One Piece. They are joined in their journey by Nami, a navigator and thief; Usopp, a sniper and a pathological liar;
and Vinsmoke Sanji, a womanizing chef. They acquire a ship named the Going Merry and engage in confrontations with notorious pirates of the East Blue. As Luffy and his crew set out on their adventures, others join the crew later in the series, including Tony Tony Chopper, a doctor and anthropomorphized reindeer; Nico Robin, an archaeologist and former assassin; Franky, a cyborg shipwright; Brook, a skeletal musician and swordsman; and Jimbei, a fish-man helmsman and former member of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Once the Going Merry becomes damaged beyond repair, the Straw Hat Pirates acquire a new ship named the Thousand Sunny. Together, they encounter other pirates, bounty hunters, criminal organizations, revolutionaries, secret agents and soldiers of the corrupt World Government, and various other friends and foes, as they sail the seas in pursuit of their dreams.
The world of One Piece is populated by humans and many other races, such as fish-men (a race of fish/human hybrids, similar to mermen and mermaids), dwarves, minks (a race of humanoid animals), and giants. It is covered by two vast oceans, which are divided by a massive mountain range called the Red Line, which is also the only continent in the world. The Grand Line,a sea that runs perpendicular to the Red Line, further divides them into four seas: North Blue, East Blue, West Blue, and South Blue. Surrounding the Grand Line are two regions called Calm Belts,[Jp 10] similar to horse latitudes, which experience almost no wind or ocean currents and are the breeding ground for huge sea creatures called sea kings.
Because of this, the calm belts are very effective barriers for those trying to enter the Grand Line. However, navy ships, members of an intergovernmental organization known as the World Government, are able to use a sea-prism stone to mask their presence from the sea kings and can simply pass through the calm belts. All other ships are forced to take a more dangerous route, going through a mountain at the first intersection of the Grand Line and the Red Line, a canal system known as Reverse Mountain. Sea water from each of the four seas runs up that mountain and merges at the top to flow down a fifth canal and into the first half of the Grand Line. The second half of the Grand Line, beyond the second intersection with the Red Line, is known as the New World.
The currents and weather of the Grand Line's open sea are extremely unpredictable, whereas in the vicinity of islands the climate is stable. The magnetic fields within the Grand Line cause normal compasses to malfunction, making it even more difficult to navigate, and instead a special compass called a Log Pose must be used. The Log Pose functions by locking on to one island's magnetic field and then locking on to another island's magnetic field. The time for it to set depends on the island. This process can be bypassed by obtaining an Eternal Pose, a Log Pose variation that is permanently set to a specific island and never changes.
The world of One Piece includes animals that function like devices. Transponder Snails are snail-like animals that act like a rotary phone, fax machine, or camera. Dials, the shells of certain sky-dwelling animals, can be used to store kinetic energy, wind, sound, images, heat, and the like and have various applications.
From wikipedia
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