There is no anime or manga quite like the legendary “One Piece.” For nearly 30 years, this manga and anime have delighted readers and viewers with its epic tale of adventure, friendship, and defiance in the face of authoritarianism and imperialism.
Created by Eiichiro Oda, “One Piece” follows Monkey D. Luffy, a young man on a quest to become King of the Pirates and find the legendary treasure One Piece, which was left behind by the former pirate king. At least, that’s how the story began, but over 1,100 episodes and chapters later, “One Piece” is so much more than that.
Oda has vastly expanded the scope of the story to be more than a series of silly adventures that hop from one island to the next. Instead, the story has become a proper epic with multiple moving parts and several stories happening simultaneously in the background. We’ve learned about a larger mythology spanning centuries and dealing with actual gods and cataclysmic events. Though “One Piece” has explained a lot about its history, we still know rather little about the titular treasure. Sure, we know the One Piece is on the island of Laugh Tale, but not much else.
Well, that ends today. To celebrate “One Piece” reaching 600 million copies in circulation, the franchise’s official YouTube channel posted a video of creator Eiichiro Oda apparently writing down what the One Piece treasure is on a piece of paper. Yes, that means the biggest mystery in the whole franchise is within our reach.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Oda put the piece of paper in a treasure chest inside a container and dropped it somewhere in the ocean for fans to find.
The world has truly entered a Great Pirate Era!
“My treasure? If you want it, you can have it! Find it! I left everything this world has to offer there!” This is how the story of “One Piece” begins, with the dying words of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, inspiring men around the world to set sail in pursuit of their dreams. This is what starts the “Great Pirate Era,” the story takes place in.
For years, fans online have joked about the idea of Eiichiro Oda hiding a real treasure like the final issue of “One Piece” and inspiring fans to seek it out (via Reddit). That he has now gone ahead and done it, hiding the biggest reveal in the entire manga somewhere under the ocean, is hilarious. It’s without a doubt the most bonkers stunt a comic artist has done, something so ridiculously silly that only the guy responsible for “One Piece” could have come up with it.
After all, “One Piece” is a manga where the ultimate power-up is not bigger muscles, but the power of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. One of the main characters is a literal skeleton, while the other is a guy who turned himself into a cyborg powered by cola. This is a manga that thrives in silliness, but to bring that sensibility to the real world is something else entirely.
Of course, Oda’s stunt is happening in a different world than the one that saw the release of the first chapter of “One Piece.” In an era of geoguesser, finding coordinates from a few random clues isn’t impossible.
Maybe someone finds Oda’s treasure, and maybe the answer is incomplete. Maybe it’s just a joke. Regardless, this is a fantastic way of celebrating such a milestone for the franchise.