Early Life
As a child, Oda was inspired by Akira Toriyama's works and aspired to become a manga artist. He recalls that his interest in pirates was probably sparked by the popular TV animation series titled Vicky the Viking. He submitted a character named Pandaman for Yudetamago's classic wrestling manga Kinnikuman. Pandaman was not only used in a chapter of the manga but would later return as a recurring cameo character in Oda's own works.
Career
At the age of 17, he submitted his work Wanted! and won several awards, including second place in the coveted Tezuka Award. That got him into a job at the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine, where he originally worked as assistant to Shinobu Kaitani's series Suizan Police Gang before moving to Masaya Tokuhiro on Jungle King Tar-chan and Mizu no Tomodachi Kappaman, which gave him an unexpected influence on his artistic style. At the age of 19, he worked as an assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki on Rurouni Kenshin, before winning the Hop Step Award for new artists. Watsuki also credits Oda for the creation of the character Honjō Kamatari who appears in Rurouni Kenshin. During this time, he drew two pirate-themed one-shot stories, called "Romance Dawn", which would debut in Monthly and Weekly Jump in late 1996-early 1997. "Romance Dawn" featured Monkey D. Luffy as the protagonist, who then became the protagonist of One Piece. While Oda was an assistant of Watsuki, his colleague was Hiroyuki Takei, and the three of them are good friends.
In 1997, One Piece appeared for the first time in Weekly Shōnen Jump and promptly became one of the most popular manga in Japan. His biggest influence is Akira Toriyama, who is the creator of Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump.
In an interview with Shonen Jump, when asked what his three favorite manga by other authors were, he stated 'everything by Akira Toriyama'. Oda and Toriyama have made a one shot called "Cross Epoch" containing characters from Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Oda's One Piece.
Works
One Piece (since 1997)
Wanted! (1998, Collection of the short stories below)
Wanted! (1992)
God's Present for the Future (1993)
Ikki Yakou (1993)
Monsters (1994)
Romance Dawn (Version 2, 1996)
Dragon Ball x One Piece: Cross Epoch (2007)
Popularity
In a 2008 poll, conducted by marketing research firm Oricon, Oda was elected fifth most favorite manga artists of Japan. He shared the place with Yoshihiro Togashi, creator of Hunter X Hunter and YuYu Hakusho.
Personal Life
Oda is married to Chiaki Inaba, who had played the One Piece character Nami during Jump Festa One Piece stage performances. They have two children. On April 9, 2009, Anime News Network reported Oda was receiving death threats from a 27-year-old unemployed woman , who was arrested earlier that day. According to authorities, the woman's husband was an assistant at Oda's office and was fired for an unknown reason. As a result, Oda was sent threatening text messages that read "Die Die".
