Episode 901, “Manga is Something You Create By Yourself”

Summary

The One Piece Podcast – Episode 901, “Manga is Something You Create By Yourself”

Release Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Zach (Maji Media)
Guests: Stephen Paul (One Piece & Shonen Jump Translator), Sam Leach (Anime Recap Host), Kirsten Cary (Musician/Writer)

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Episode Overview

This special, in-depth episode is dedicated to dissecting One Piece Magazine Volume 20: Weekly Shonen Jump and One Piece. Host Zach and panelists (notably, translator Stephen Paul) deliver a rich discussion, focusing on a long autobiographical essay from Eiichiro Oda, creator of One Piece. Stephen provides a full, fresh English translation of Oda’s interview, sharing new, little-known details about Oda’s early life, influences, and deep love for manga and Shonen Jump. The team also delves into various bonus materials within the magazine and reflect on manga’s communal and creative nature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Issue: One Piece Magazine Vol. 20—What's Inside?

[02:24 – 13:13]

• Focuses on Oda’s career, Shonen Jump history, and the intersection of One Piece and Jump magazine.
• Stephen describes his quest to get this “scalped to hell” issue, mostly purchased for its exclusive Luffy card.
• Magazine includes a lengthy Oda autobiographical essay in lieu of a traditional interview, plus retrospectives, commemorative illustrations, insights on Jump’s production process, and manga by Oda’s friends and assistants.

2. Oda's Early Manga Memories and Jump Encounter

[40:10 – 45:06]

• Oda’s first awareness of Jump: “The first volume of JUMP manga I bought was Kinnikuman…in third grade. But…didn’t know what Shonen JUMP was.”

• Earliest Jump magazine read was the Dragon Ball chapter 2 issue:

  "…That issue had Dragon Ball Chapter 2. And I remember reading it and being completely blown away…All you have to do is buy one magazine and you can read all of these series. Wow, what a steal." – Oda [41:24]

• Oda’s philosophy developed early: Jump feels "worth it" when you can read three favorite series—an early conception of the "Big Three" model.

3. Family & Deciding to be a Mangaka

[47:51 – 54:04]

• At age 4, reading Kaibutsukun inspired his wish to become a manga artist.

  "…There was a job called Mangaka, where you could just draw pictures all day. First…amazed and…decided, oh, that's what I'll be." – Oda [49:19]

• Strict parents, but supportive of his dream after he won the Tezuka Award.

• He urges young artists: “Go and win the Tezuka Award.”

4. Formative Influences: Toriyama, Fujiko Fujio, and a Who’s Who of ’80s Jump

[54:37 – 75:58]

• Toriyama is a huge influence:

  “If anything influenced me the most, it was Toriyama Sensei’s art.” – Oda [57:05]

• His first series in Jump coincided closely with Toriyama’s brief return after Dragon Ball.

• Discusses role model series: Kinnikuman, Fist of the North Star, Dr. Slump, Kimagure Orange Road, and more.

• Emphasizes the “eccentric” heroes of ’80s Jump; admires artists who stuck to their own weirdness before the internet “flattened” art styles by exposing artists to mass opinion.

  “There was no internet at the time…so they just had to draw their own style and have faith that it would be good, that it would be successful. The result was a lot of uniqueness and creativity.” – Oda [62:16]

• Noted Romcoms, sports manga, and Akira (Otomo) also deeply affected him.

5. Early Breaks, Setbacks, and Rivalries

[75:39 – 85:15]

• First submission to Jump’s Hop Step Award as a teen; finalist at age 15, but misunderstood editorial instructions.
• Adopted pen names to conceal his hobby from classmates and only wanted his “real” debut as a pro to be surprising.
• Won the Tezuka Award at age 17 for “Wanted!”—a vital validation for Oda and his family.
• Hilarious anecdote: Leiji Matsumoto criticized his “cowboy” drawing for not looking Western enough.

  “At the time, I didn’t know who Leiji Matsumoto was, so I got mad thinking, ‘Who’s this jerk?’” – Oda [83:41]

6. Assistant & Helper Years: Learning the Trade

[85:45 – 104:03]

• Worked as an assistant for Shinobu Kaitani, Masaya Tokuhiro, and Nobuhiro Watsuki.
• Learned practical techniques and work ethic by observing and competing with his peers.
• Candid, humorous tales of being too chatty as a helper, and the “Kanzume Hotel” all-night manga marathons.
• Notable Reveal: Oda contributed (as an assistant) to a Shaquille O'Neal manga one-shot for Jump—something previously unknown in the English-speaking fandom.

  “Not only does this basically confirm that Eiichiro Oda contributed in some way to the art of an officially licensed Shaquille o’Neal NBA manga…” – Stephen [97:03]

7. Debut, Persistence, and Seizing Opportunity

[104:03 – 107:11]

• After publishing “Monsters,” Oda faced years of rejection before the serialized version of One Piece (Romance Dawn) got its chance.
• Emphasizes hard work, resilience, and seizing sudden, unexpected opportunities.

  “I learned that opportunities can come very suddenly and that you have to seize them when you get the chance.” – Oda [106:22]

8. Oda’s Thoughts on Shonen Jump and the 'Classic' Manga Path

[107:36 – 113:30]

• Oda describes the historic moment when Jump's dominance was challenged by Magazine after Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk ended.
• He intentionally avoided mimicking Dragon Ball and leaned into adventure over battles for One Piece’s early survival.

  “By knowing that I couldn’t win with a battle manga, I chose to reinforce the adventure…Once I got into the fighting, the survey results…shot through the roof.” – Oda [109:31]

9. Oda’s Advice to the Next Generation (and All Creatives) – THEME OF THE EPISODE

[113:30 – 119:33]

• Praises how manga can shape youth culture and foster community.

• Warns of hyper-niche fragmentation due to the internet; laments the loss of shared community-wide stories:

  “Manga is something you think about and create by yourself. So don’t allow yourself to be swept along by others. Believe in what you love…” – Oda [113:50] “It’d be sad if everything gets split into micro niches. I think we ought to have at least one magazine that everyone reads…and for that to happen, we need young people to become the next pillar.” – Oda [115:20]

• Urges young artists to be original, not to chase trends, and not to let strangers’ opinions on the internet dictate their creativity.

• The hosts reflect on the importance of shared culture, with poignant nostalgia for “everyone watching the same thing”—both for Japan with Jump, and the West with Saturday morning cartoons or Toonami.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On discovering Jump:
  “All you have to do is buy one magazine and you can read all of these series. Wow, what a steal.”
  — Oda [41:24]

• On creative individuality:
  “Nowadays, if someone out there has their own quirky style and puts it up online, they’re gonna have a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, that's weird.’…But I really love the individuality and power of those old Jump heroes. And I hope people find a way to treasure and preserve that.”
  — Oda [63:19]

• On listening to internet criticism versus trusting oneself:
  “Manga is something you think about and create by yourself. So don’t allow yourself to be swept along by others. Believe in what you love.”
  — Oda [113:50]

• On manga’s power to create community:
  “Shonen Jump was the key to making new friends. Manga can be a tool for that too.”
  — Oda [115:00]

• On the grind of ‘making it’:
  “Opportunities can come very suddenly and you have to seize them when you get the chance.”
  — Oda [106:22]

• Surreal Oda Trivia:
  “Not only does this basically confirm that Eiichiro Oda contributed in some way to the art of an officially licensed Shaquille o’Neal NBA manga…”
  — Stephen [97:03]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Volume 20 magazine & physical edition talk: [02:24 – 13:13]
• Oda’s childhood manga memories, first Dragon Ball issue: [40:10 – 45:06]
• Advice about the “Big Three” & Jump’s underlying philosophy: [42:07, 115:20]
• Toriyama & other 1980s Jump influence: [54:37 – 75:58]
• First attempts at getting into Jump, teenage years: [75:39 – 85:15]
• Assistant/Helper stories & Shaq manga revelation: [85:45 – 99:22]
• Debut & One Piece serialization struggles: [104:03 – 107:11]
• Jump’s shifting fortunes post-Dragon Ball/Slam Dunk: [107:36 – 113:30]
• Oda’s message to the next generation; communal power of manga: [113:30 – 119:33]

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Closing Reflections

The hosts marvel at the unprecedented openness and personal insight offered by Oda’s essay. They discuss the contemporary challenges faced by artists, social media’s double-edged sword, and the power of shared media experiences in building lifelong communities. Kirsten and Sam chime in as fellow creatives, affirming Oda’s advice on not letting online trends shape your authentic vision.

Summary in a sentence:
Oda’s essay spotlights the formative role of manga, the power of individual creativity, the importance of shaping rather than following trends, and the critical need for community in a rapidly fragmenting media landscape—a message inspiring for manga fans, creators, and anyone passionate about creative work.

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“Find that thing you love and spill it all over the pages. I want you to realize that even if no one else in the world knows about it, if you turn that love into manga, you can start the next wave.”
— Eiichiro Oda [115:00]

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(For further details, manga fans are encouraged to seek out One Piece Magazine Vol. 20 or revisit this podcast episode and accompanying translation.)

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. This is the One Piece podcast, episode 901 for the week of January 12, 2026. My name is Zach and this is the SZS. We have Stephen Paul, but no Simba Today, Very special guest and translator for One Piece and Weekly Shonen Jump in Manga plus Stephen. How's it going?

[B]

Hey, it's going well. Happy New Year to everybody.

[A]

Happy New Year. Yeah, Happy New Year to everyone here. We also, I'd be remiss if I didn't introduce who else we have here. It's not just the ses, it's the szsk. We'll get there. Yeah. With Sam Leach, our anime recap host with us. How's it going, Sam?

[B]

It's going. Just going to sit back and learn some new things from Steven.

[A]

That's what we're here for. And the musician for our show. Musician generally writer. You do like a million other things. We have Kirsten Cary with us. How's it going, Kirsten?

[C]

Oh, you introducing me as the musician made me feel like Brooke, so.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

You've been asking for a musician for years.

[A]

We have. That's the first thing I asked for. Yeah.

[B]

Well, we still don't have a cook.

[C]

Yeah. Who's the best cook?

[A]

Now? These are good SBS questions for. Well, I guess maybe not before we get started. Stephen. It feels like at least maybe Kirsten and I like all now I get sick during all the manga recap chapters and I'm here for all the off weeks. But I think the last off week, if you haven't listened to 899, very good episode, you should definitely listen to that. And this week we're going to be like shattering some brains or something like that. Stephen.

[B]

Well, we will be covering. We've been talking about this a little while. I haven't mentioned it in a bit, but at the same time, I think it was the same time that volume 113 was released or maybe a bit before that. We also had the release of one piece magazine volume 20, which is titled Weekly Shonen Jump and One Piece. And this is. This is quite a large issue of the magazine. What is it? Yeah, it's over 200 pages. And it was kind of infamous immediately for being scalped to hell and back because they had to put a, I believe, an exclusive Luffy card from the card game in the magazine. And therefore, you know, everybody was immediately buying it. And so, like, I couldn't get it from Amazon because it was completely sold out at Amazon. They didn't restock it. And eventually I Went on ebay and I found out that there's like. Like, oh, you can buy the magazine for $200 or $100 or something like that. And then I found the ones where the guy had like taken the card out and was selling it for like eight bucks. So that was what I did, because I don't give a shit about the card.

[A]

Wow. I could sell this for $200. I should probably. I do have the card. I haven't opened it, so I don't know if it's in there, but I have the little, you know, envelope.

[B]

I'm actively disinterested in the car. If I went to a baseball game and they were handing out Luffy cards and someone held that out to me, I'd be like, get that shit out of my face. You know, I would be. I would be furious. No, I'm just kidding.

[A]

But Sam here is offended as our wrestling card game.

[B]

Getting a copy of this magazine was quite an ordeal. But what I have for you today when we get into this segment is primarily because this is about one piece in weekly Shonen Jump. There is a long interview section with Eiichiro Oda where he talks about a lot of different topics, like pre One Piece. So it's all stuff that is not directly related to the series, but is from his personal history and his relationship with Shonen Jump and stuff. And I didn't just like go through it and take notes. I translated the whole thing. This is what I did yesterday. I have a Word document.

[A]

You're too hardworking. Have I mentioned this before?

[B]

I have a Word document that is 11 pages.

[A]

Oh, geez.

[B]

And so we're going to go through all of his. His responses like that. That's only one part of the magazine. Like there's. There's plenty more that we can save for another time if we, you know, break glass in case of emergency sort of a thing. Because there's lots of really cool stuff in this that's not just one piece, but about manga making in general, which is all really fascinating stuff. But today we will go through oda's responses to that. And I told Zach I was teasing them on Discord. I was like, I found out a fact. This is not one piece. This is ODA related. I found out this fact that I was looking up that I, you know, I was like, wait a second, Is that right? And I was like, look, looking it up. And I could not find any English language references to this. So I don't think anyone else has realized this yet, but There was something that completely blew my mind from his past history. And I will mention it. I will bring it up when we get to that part in the thing. So now you have to listen to the segment. You're, you're, you're on the hook now.

[A]

And if someone just posted what it is, just assume that's incorrect. They're lying to you.

[B]

They would never.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's just too unbelievable to like if you look at. That's how one piece ends. That's not the answer, Steven. I'm very excited. I don't know the answer.

[B]

No, I didn't tell anybody.

[A]

No, no, we know.

[C]

We've now been waiting a full calendar day for this. I'm very excited.

[A]

Me too.

[C]

That means it's probably not Zorro is gay if it's ODA related, right?

[B]

It is.

[A]

No, that wouldn't be. Would that be as Josh put it? Everyone knows that already. It's not now McKenu.

[C]

That's true.

[A]

McKenu. That's up to McKenu to.

[B]

They put that in the interview.

[A]

Yeah, I gotta out. McKenu. Thank you Oda. That's great. Really looking forward to that.

[C]

He's been over his house many times.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Who would know but oda.

[A]

Well now you're applying a whole other thing happening there. Yeah. So I'll ask now since I don't know all of Steven's plans and he has plans. So we're just doing the interview section of the manga or do you also want to go through.

[B]

We could just go through like just skim through the. All the glossy pages up to that. This is the first. What did I say? It was 200 pages of an issue. This is the first 50 pages.

[A]

Sam and Kirsten, do you have one on you or no?

[B]

No, I don't. I'm just here to listen.

[C]

I do not. I sure could have probably gone and got one, huh?

[A]

Yeah, what the hell.

[C]

I do.

[B]

Somebody wants me to. If you fought off all the scalpers.

[C]

Oh yeah, good point.

[A]

Well, so I suggest people listening, we're going to try and use our word images, meaning the way we talk, as best as, as best as possible. But if you want a copy, I suggest doing what Steven did or you know, if you're out there and you have a copy, don't scalp them. You know, be. Be a good one piece fan and share the wealth and I guess I.

[C]

Mean that literally and give the card to Steve to make up for his heartbreaking baseball story.

[A]

Does that really make up for it? I don't Know what this card is, Sam? Do you know offhand which card this is?

[B]

Is that the Luffy one? Is that the. The baseball one? No. All I know is the packet says.

[A]

Should I open it or is that gonna say one?

[B]

It says One Piece Card Game ST21 014. Monkey D. Luffy.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, open it. Open it.

[B]

That's.

[A]

Well, I'm not giving it to pure Retro 5 Luffy. Do you want me to open it?

[B]

Sam knows that. Sam knows the serial numbers. What was that? What was the. What was the number?

[A]

It was ST21.

[B]

SC21 040. Yeah. 014. Yeah. So that's the red Luffy Leaguer.

[A]

Oh, good. I don't have to open. Okay. Okay, good. Now, I could still sell this.

[B]

Your investment is pristine.

[A]

Good. By the way, I think Greg mentioned this last week on the show, like how he has every shonen jump. I'm just like, waiting until 2055 when the series is long over, and then that's when I. That's when I pull that trigger when I'm old. It's my retirement. It's my retirement savings. Because we're millennials. We don't have 401ks.

[B]

Yeah, you're gonna tap Greg's account and get all of his jobs.

[A]

No, my own. I'm saying I have all of my collectible One piece stuff and that's gonna be my savings.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I suggest that's how everyone saved for retirement. On that fun note, let's get started with One Piece magazine number 20 in a second. Because first I have to talk about Patreon. I'm contractually obligated to say that our Patreon is the best of them. Contractually not. Well, no, it is accurate. Patreon.com One Piece podcast. You could get our episodes ad free and extended, including discussions about episode titles and a lot more. You get alternate art. You get the first the full force to watch four kids series. And you could also join our sticker of the month club. For just 12 bucks a month, you get a sticker from Steve that you get to vote on every month. Has this month's even been? I don't think it has been yet. Right. Because I know he is. Everyone is at Magfest. That's why. That's why everyone is not here. Except for only the best of us. Yeah, I don't think that's been posted yet, but should be posted soon. A poll to decide the next sticker.

[B]

Yeah, Steve is busy at. At. Was it Magfest right now, so that's that's why he's not here to explain himself.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. So we have to explain for him, which is much less, you know. Okay, let's get started with our manga recap of magazine volume 20.

[B]

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[A]

This is the manga recap for One Piece magazine volume 20, weekly Shonen Jump and One Piece. I have really been looking forward to this recap which Steven has, you know, given us a little preview of prior in the prior segment. So I'm gonna just hand it off to Steven and I'm gonna try and shut up as much as possible for this because I want to hear what's happening.

[B]

Yeah, this one is a. As I, as I said in the intro, this is quite a stuffed issue of the magazine, which you love to see, especially since they only put like one or maybe two of these out a year at this point. It's. It's nice that they, they give you your, your money's worth in terms of content and. Yeah, so this is all about, well, weekly Shonen Jump and One Piece. So we are going to talk about all the stuff at the front of the magazine, which is kind of a retrospective of One Piece stuff. They have a lot of pictures and things of One Piece related stuff like on the covers of Jump and things like that. And then we're going to go through Oda's responses. They call it an interview, but it's not. It's more like in. In formatting it looks more like an autobiographical essay because it's just, okay, here's the headline is this topic. And then it's just a big, you know, block of text that is Oda's answer to it. So he's really Memoirs. Yeah. He's not going back and forth with another person. And then after that there's. There's a bunch of other stuff like manga from his fellow friends. Like I, you know, I remember translating this for, for Shonen Jump. This Shimabukuro, the, the Toriko guy who Oda was, you know, big friends with. Um, they did. He did a, a one shot about, you know, his friendship with Oda for one of the anniversaries. And I remember translating that. There's also a little comic from the artist of Akane Banashi, which I did not realize he had been an assistant for one piece, which is really cool to know.

[A]

Yeah, I had no idea that was breaking news for me. That was like some of the big news out of this for me when I heard that.

[B]

Yeah. So he has his own version and then. And then there's a bunch of stuff about like, how Jump is made. They go into like the different Japanese font choices and they show like examples of it. And so it's really neat. There's a lot of like, really, you know how the sausage is made type stuff in this one.

[A]

I'll start our first tangent question here. Do you know when he was an assistant? Because Oda is definitely still smoking in this comic. So I'm just like, curious.

[B]

Let's see. Does it.

[A]

Because I Probably by this point. Has he ever.

[B]

He hasn't said he's quit, has he?

[A]

No. I think he did say he quit, didn't he? I might be making. That might be. What do you call that? I may have made that up.

[B]

I honestly. I don't know. I would not know.

[A]

No.

[B]

But yeah, I would have thought that they. That he had mentioned that before. It's.

[A]

I thought. I thought he did say he'd quit more recently. Like not.

[B]

I think it's even warned by doctors. He did say that health in general.

[A]

He. Yeah, he also said he was exercising with Pokemon Go. I remember. And now he's been. He's been like. He's. He's been saying he's been taking care of his health more like that was in the New Year's message, even. So.

[B]

But that could just mean, you know, one pack of cigarettes a day now.

[A]

Well, I mean, that is better than a. Than several packs of cigarettes a day. So.

[B]

Yes, I've been looking through the. The stuff here. It might say somewhere in this issue, but I don't. I don't see it. I do know that the art. The artist. Who is Moe Takamasa. That's the. Or Takamasa. Moe would be the. The western way he did. What did he draw before Akane Manashi? He drew that. There was some weird soccer manga, Joey would probably remember where the guy's name was like Bonba. And he. So he kept on going bamba, Bamba. That was like his catchphrase. That was like a one and done series. And that. That was like a year or two before Akane Banashi. So it's been at least probably five years since Ole Galazo. Yeah, that was the. That was.

[A]

Yeah, that was 2016. So. Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. That puts us a decade, believe it or not. 2016. You're on notice. 2016.

[C]

He is on notice.

[A]

He became a. I'm reading the Akana Banashi Wiki, which is great that that exists. He had a one shot at 21, so that was a while ago.

[B]

Yeah, that would probably been around the time that he was an assistant.

[A]

Yeah, he had. He had a one shot in 2013, so it's that. That makes more sense. I would not have. I would not be surprised if he was still smoking then.

[B]

Oda. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, Oda. Yeah. But no, I. I don't think Takamasamoe smoked, but I'm not gonna call him out here.

[B]

Who knows? But anyways, to get more specific on the issue itself, we do have on the COVID there's a picture. There's a. Like a digital painting of Luffy in one of kind of Oda's more experimental styles. Like, it almost has like a watercolory look to it. And that is superimposed over a photograph which apparently is the editor in chief's desk of Shonen Jump. They have a little, like, inside the. The flap on the dust cover, there is an illustration of Saito, who is the editor in chief, and I believe he was one of Oda's editors. They do have some.

[A]

Yes, he was him.

[B]

Yeah. And. And he's like, luffy, that's my seat. That's what he's saying.

[A]

I'll just mention two quick things while. While Steven continues, or before Stephen continues, having been to Shonen Jump's offices. This is what it looks like. It's a. Well, you see on the inside cover, the, like, the full detail of that desk. Yeah. And yeah, that whole office is a complete disaster. But I mean, it's like. I mean that in the most glowing terms possible as someone who also works in similar conditions. But. Yeah. And also I'm trying to put together a list of his editors for the website for, like, future reference. We had one, but it hadn't been updated in like, 10 years. So hopefully I could have that up, you know, for this episode or sometime soon.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's a neat picture. And yes, as Zach said, if you open it up, there's a different picture that shows more detail and kind of labels stuff. And so right over his shoulder is a little sign, signature board where Oda doodled his wanted poster and he is listed as worth 3110 berries. And that is one of those language jokes where Saito So sa is 3, e is Ichi is 1, and then toe is the counter for 10. So 3, 1 10, 3110. That's his bounty total. And you know, a bunch of other stuff which is. Which is very neat. But yeah, the front of these magazines is always a big glossy section. And so here, the first cool thing is that when you open it up, it has a reproduction of the COVID of the very first. The COVID of the issue that One Piece debuted in. So if you've ever seen that. That picture of like Luffy pointing, you know, kind of toward the reader and there's, you know, shanks and a bunch of pirates and even Nami is there, even though she's not, you know, in the story for a dozen chapters or whatever. And this time instead. And like all of the text is on it, but instead of being the text from the original issue of Jump, it's all like the table of contents basically, for what's in this.

[A]

Yeah, that's cute.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's a very neat, neat touch. They definitely put a lot of work into even the 20.

[A]

I didn't even notice that when I opened it originally.

[B]

Yeah, volume 20. And yes, all that. All that stuff is. There it is followed by, I guess, yeah, they say One Piece headline. So this is basically the magazine's version of. Of what we do every day, every time we record is like go to the. The Twitter account and look to see what they're shilling this time, you know, this week. And so, yeah, they have stuff like the season two of the Live Action. They. They have. They threw up Oda's like, little message about how he went to South Africa and the pictures of him with his, you know, fish head, like, icon where he was taking pictures with the actors and stuff. There's mention of the One Piece Live Action Legos. The. There will be a. What is it? An interview with Elgarden, who is the band that did Carmine. The latest anime opening, which we've. We've probably seen the last of, if I had to guess. I would assume they'll probably have a new one for when the season returns. In the anime, we got One Piece Bass shop opening. That was their big new, you know, their. Their new physical location for Merchant and stuff like that. There's a headline for the 10th anniversary exhibition for the Kumamoto reconstruction project, which obviously Oda, you know, was. Was heavily involved in that. That was all the. The Statues that they made in Kumamoto. There was a thing for the. The One Piece heroines, the. The anime spin off being announced for. For those gorgeous. Yeah, that's gonna be great.

[A]

We don't have a date for that yet. Right.

[B]

Except this year, certainly not listed on. On this magazine thing, but there will be a little thing about that. And yeah, that's it for the. The headlines. And then they kind of get into the. The meat of the issue and the first thing that they have then. And this is like, how many pages is this? 2, 4, 6, 8, 10.

[A]

Kirsten, Sam, if you want to read along, I'm trying to hold it up too. So. 16.

[B]

Okay? 16 straight pages of it. I believe this is every single issue of Jump that featured one piece on the COVID So not like, if it was just like, oh, here's Luffy as one of, you know, 18 other things. It's like, okay, this is when. When the straw hats or Luffy were front and center on that issue of Jump. And it's. It appears to be all of them. And they're all listed by year. So, you know, you can see 97. There's issue 34 when it started, and then it. The next One is issue 46, and then issue 50, and then they go to 98.

[A]

What an amazing resource this is. Because, like, I feel like this kind of thing does come up. It's like, oh, when did this happen? Or when, you know, and like, what year were they doing this? And you know, when it was published? And Jump, like, yeah, yeah. So like, it's like, okay, when you were born. I think a lot of people.

[B]

Well, right.

[A]

Anyone under the age of like 28 now, I guess, could look up the. The. The Shonen Jump issue that came out when they were born closest to. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Yes. In fact, I can see on page 11 here, the first set of pages. On the left page, second row, there is a 1999 issue, number 24, which you will recognize, features the. The illustration that was the COVID of volume. Is that volume 11 or volume 12? I always forget 12, I think. Yeah, it's the one where they're posing like fashion models and Nami is sitting in the chair and they look so cool and so hot. And that was the very first. That was the very first issue of Shonen Jump that I ever picked up. And so that was the first time I'd ever seen one piece. And I remember. I always tell the story. I remember looking at it and being like, oh my God, this story must be so cool. Like, it Must be so awesome and edgy and serious. Like, look at their posing. Like, they look so cool. And then it wasn't until later that I realized that it was actually an extremely goofy manga with tons of slapstick and everything. But yeah, that was fun.

[A]

Following one is him catching a really wacky looking fish. So I feel like it should have only taken you one week in Shonen Jump to figure that out.

[B]

Yeah, well, that was. Yeah, it's 11 issues later.

[A]

But it goes to show that like, I definitely remember from Shonen Jump issues, like what I remember, like specific moments in my life, 100%. But I mean, obviously not from the 1990s. But I'm not as cool as Steven. But like, I definitely remember some of these. Like, I could tell you which one was the one I was in Japan for because I remember seeing it everywhere. It's. I'm not going to do that right now.

[B]

But yeah, and it's interesting because then you can. Then you can say like, okay, well if that was volume 11, then it was at least like a dozen volumes before I guess he settled on his like, okay, I'm always going to create an illustration from scratch for the COVID because you know, at. At. At certain points he was just like, okay, I can use. I can reuse this one that we did for promotional purposes for. For Jump and whatnot. But yeah, I don't know. There's. Obviously there's a. There's a million of them, so I am not going to. To go through all of these, but they do show some other fancy promotions. There are two. Yeah, there are. There were two years that they did the special. It's like the Dragon Ball spines where they did the special, like wraparound. Not the wraparound, but the like the mural. The mural style illustrations where it's broken up across all the spines of JUMP throughout an entire year, where it's like a super, super long horizontal illustration. I'm sure that these are in whatever color walk would have contained this period. But yeah, there's one for 2008, which was the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump. And so I guess they selected one piece to be the, you know, the poster child for it. And so he drew four seasonal illustrations for, you know, spring, summer, fall and winter. And then they appeared across the little slice of each spine of Shonen Jump.

[A]

They're very cute images and I think have been like in color walks and stuff by this point.

[B]

Yeah, they have to.

[A]

They all look familiar. They have to be. Yeah, I think. I don't know if they did this for a lot of series. I know Bleach had it because I have a lot from the year that Bleach had it on my shelf. I have an Ichigo staring at me. And they. And I definitely have a few from the one you're talking. From the one you're about to talk about 2017.

[B]

Yes. The other one is 2017, which of course is the 20th anniversary 97 to 2017. This one was not a fresh illustration. They just used like, I guess these are like spaced out through, like through that through the period of time. So it's. It's just like here's all the biggest moments. So it's, you know, Shanks putting the hat on Luffy, you know, Zorro calling Luffy Captain for the first time, like meeting Usopp Nami, you know, crying and looking over her shoulder. All these. All these very, very iconic moments. And they just put one on each issue of Jump in that in the year of 2017. And it ends with. Yeah, it goes up to Luffy crying and saying that he. He still has his crew. And then the Last 1, the fifth issue 52, is, you know, new Luffy post Timeskip Luffy saying, I'm going to be the king of the Pirates.

[A]

And that was the end of the series forever.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Nothing happened after that.

[A]

Nope.

[B]

So, yeah, I don't know. I don't really, you know, necessarily need to. To point out any more of these. There's, like I said, There's 16 pages of just, you know, thumbnails of all of these issues. And they're. They're very cool to. To look at. So it's. I wouldn't say, you know, hey, go out and pay 200 on eBay just for this, but like, if they had.

[A]

The card game, you know, like a car.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, then you should. Yeah.

[B]

Then you can save it and, you know, sell it for $1000 later. But no, but like, yeah, if you're able to get this magazine at the, like the normal list price, I think this alone is like, cool enough to be.

[A]

This is. Yeah, yeah. I. So the. The. I'll give a few note or like one or two notes. I'll make it quick. Issue 46 from 2013 was the one. I was in the Shonen Jump offices watching them actually put it together, like on whatever program. It's the. It's like the very fancy, like, noir. Like, I don't even know how to describe that. And I guess it must have been right before that. That was the one that was for Sale. But no, these, this is just. I love, this is so my cup of tea. I love this. It's really awesome to see.

[B]

Yeah. They point out at the. On the last page that there were 251 unique, you know, pieces of art that Oda did for all of these covers.

[A]

So he seems to these days. I will make one note. I feel like a lot of them are done digitally like the Shonen Jump covers.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

More recently I like, I think that is a very recent trend. Like even here I don't think most of these are but I think the last few may, you know, this goes up to, this goes up to 2025. So maybe I'm wrong but yeah, no they're. And they're mostly all gorgeous. So it's, it's. It says something. Okay, we could continue a lot of cool stuff.

[B]

And then there is a, a two page like just a chronology which is, it's kind of interesting. It's like I'm trying to tell how they, I think the top. So they have the, they do that thing where it's like okay, there's a band in the middle of this set of pages that is the. All the years. And so it just, it just moves you know, forward in time as it goes right to left because this is, you know, this magazine is read right to left like, like manga. And I think the stuff on the top is like Jump history. So it's like here's notable events in jump. So like 1968 is like Shonen Jump is founded in July as like a, a bi weekly publication. And then you know, here's when they reach this milestone and you know 1984 is when Dragon Ball starts and you know, so it's, it's marking these like milestone moments and then the underside of it is moments in like oda's life slash one piece's history. And so you know it's also like milestones like when he won the, the Hop Step award as a you know, as a teenager and when the first theatrical movie came out and when the anime started, yada yada yada. So you know, it's a nice brief encapsulation of, of history which is. Is notable just because you know, for as long as Jump has been around like it has now shared a significant portion percentage of its history with one piece. Just because you know, oda's been going at it for so long. Yeah, they got to watch out because he's going to be over like half the, half the, the. The publication time of, of Shonen Jump is going to have Oda in it at some point.

[A]

That's crazy. But you're probably right. What was it, 1968?

[B]

Yeah. If it started in 68 and then 97 was when one piece. So we're almost there. We're almost at the point where One Piece started halfway through the history of Jump. Wild.

[A]

That is wild.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It'll be like 20, 28, 29. I think that'll happen. Yeah. Let's see if it keeps going. It will.

[B]

Yeah. The next couple of pages are just kind of like. They're a bunch of random like not promotionals things but like kind of special articles and extra things that. That appeared in Jump About One Piece. So it's a lot of like, oh, here's the announcement for the voice actors for the anime that's coming up that you know is gonna air. You're starting this, you know, October 20th and 1999. And so you know, you kind of get a little time capsule of. Of you know, how. How this sort of promotional stuff looked at the time. You also have like random little like magazine Jump, only little features that they did. Like the thing that. That we talked about because they. He. He drew them as like mobile scene characters was like the three weird pirates that were like him and Hiroyuki Takei, the Shaman King author. And then one was Watsuki I think. Or they had their like they designed their own random pirate crew from way back in the day. And then you know, more recently he drew them in the background.

[A]

Yeah, Craig. Craig spotted that immediately, right?

[B]

Yeah, he was. He was all over it.

[A]

That is a very Craig centric fact.

[B]

But it was for some like, like reader contest and so that's what they reprinted. It's amazing. The pages are like completely like. Like dark tan because you know, whatever materials that that was saved on it was pre digital. Yeah. 2000. Like that's. That's what they look like now, which is. Is kind of amusing. And a lot of the advertisements for crossovers and stuff, you know, special anniversaries like the 40th anniversary and 20th anniversary of Kochi Kame and One Piece and the like the Cross Epic and the Toriko crossovers and you know the, the. The COVID versions that like Boichi and what's his name, Shokugeki no Soma's artists did and the Nisekoi author did and so on like that. And that's neat. And then just as like on the.

[A]

Very last same face, Luffy and Goku. The. The famous haunting image.

[B]

Right, right. You Know Oda, Oda covering jump characters for himself. And then on the last page here they, they have just like as a, as a blow, like a sweepstakes little blowout here they have a list of all of these special like pack in bonuses for one piece that have been contained in the magazine over the years. So like postcards and cards and stickers and things like that. And like it is barely legible. There's probably. Oh yeah, it says here there's 120 different listings. They have it all in one complete list. Like not like one column. It's not even two columns. It's. It's just crammed onto this page.

[A]

Yeah, that is three to two point font maybe.

[B]

Right, right. Yeah. And that includes stuff like the. The Road to Laugh Tale if you remember that. That series that they did when he took the month off in 2022. And yeah, lots of, lots of interesting things and they include pictures of some of them. Just a few, A very small selection.

[A]

Wave. Wait, I have to, I have to talk about one from 2017 on the prior page. Is that an ener chair for to electrocute someone? I assume because it does look like an electrocution.

[B]

Oh yeah, that. Oh yeah, that was the. Okay, so it was the. So ISU is chair in Japanese and that was the one. P. Isu. The thing. This was like there. I feel like we must have made fun of this, that this is like the Homer.

[A]

Yeah, it's vaguely familiar.

[B]

Yeah, it looks like the Homer car. That Homer.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Yes, the Oda chair. I guess. But yeah, you're right.

[A]

So much going on there.

[B]

It has the torrents.

[A]

Oh, we definitely talked about this. I like vaguely remember this.

[B]

Yeah, there's toilet paper, there's a gong, lamps. Yeah, there's a bunch of random stuff.

[A]

This is like if you gave Oda car blanche to like design a chair. Yeah, this makes sense. Also I vaguely remember the 25th anniversary. Ichiro Oda's notebook. That's on that same column. I've often talked about like what my dream merch would be and that kind of, kind of was that. So I'm just shouting that out here for. To bring that into the world.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that was, that was another bonus that they gave away during that, that month long hiatus that he took in 2022.

[A]

I don't think it ended up. I don't think it was interesting inside as much as. Yeah, I don't think there's anything groundbreaking.

[B]

Yeah, you open it up and it's just like. It's just Like a moleskine. Like. Yeah, just a notebook to write in.

[A]

You know what? Probably. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and.

[B]

Yeah, so that. That's kind of like their little like show and tell. Like here's all this. This cool stuff that we can show you from. From one piece's history. And then after that is when we get into the long interview, which I have got.

[A]

Are you reading the whole thing?

[B]

Yeah, I translated.

[A]

Oh, okay. Do we. Do you need like someone. I guess you don't need someone to bounce off of since it's just him talking.

[B]

No. Yeah. And the thing is like, I'm going to have a lot of like little commentary of my own just as I. As I go through it, but there are like pictures and stuff. So we'll. We'll talk about the. We'll. We'll try to describe the. The pictures that are included on this. This whole thing. This whole section is 12 pages.

[A]

For listeners. The time code is here. I don't know what it is because we're still recording, but this is it. I'm just trying to help. Yeah.

[B]

Uh huh.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

All right. So we start on page one. The first page is titled 9 Year Old Oda's Encounter with Jump. So this is how he starts off. Oda says, I found out about JUMP series before I came across the magazine of Shonen Jump itself. The first volume of JUMP manga I bought was Kinnikuman by Yude Tamago in third grade. But that was because I had seen the anime and I didn't know what Shonen JUMP was. I don't know how it is now, but at the time, if you were a kid manga, when people said manga, they meant the volumes. You would watch the anime and then you would buy the volumes, and that was that. And after that, I would read Captain Tsubasa and Fist of the North Star. But I still hadn't gotten to Jump itself. Then in fourth grade, I went to play at my friend's house and they had issues of the magazine there, which is how I learned about the existence of Weekly Shonen Jump. That issue had Dragon Ball Chapter 2. And I remember reading it and being completely blown away. I was like, how is this art so good? And my next shock was, wait, Kinnikuman and Captain Tsubasa and Fist of the North Star are in this too. All you have to do is buy one magazine and you can read all of these series. Wow, what a steal. And so a little while after that, I started buying jump. My memories at that time were so vivid that even to this day I say Jump needs three manga that will serve as the pillars of the magazine. Kids love to feel like they're getting a great deal. So if you can read three of your favorites in one place, that's when you start to feel like it's worth it. So even back.

[A]

The Big Three. The Big Three.

[B]

The Big 3, yes. Oda understood the concept of the Big Three.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Oda make up that concept?

[B]

No, no.

[A]

Well, he, he may have. Without knowing it and never talking about it.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's just something that people kind of intuitively understand about, you know, a lineup this big. Like you just want. You want at least three things that are. That are a big successful eye catching.

[A]

It's rule of threes. Yeah, I was going to say it's, it's like almost shocking how coincidental or at least same thinking that even ODA at nine was to YouTubers of. Of today.

[B]

And, and I'll pause here to note some of the pictures. They have the COVID of issue 52 from 1984. This is the very first issue of Jump that Oda saw. And it is a series called Bakudan or Bomb from Hiroshi Motomiya who is the art. I believe that is the artist who did all of the Salary Man Kintaro series, which is like a long, long running. Like he, you know, he has. He. There he goes from Salary man and then there's like the sequel series is like the section chief and then the one after that is like the department chief and then the president. Like it's a very, very long running thing. So that's. He was doing a.

[A]

A season Jump Kintaro Yijima or vice versa.

[B]

No, no, Salaryman Kintaro is the, is the series that.

[A]

Oh, I'm sorry, sorry.

[B]

This, this author is famous for drawing.

[A]

Hiroshi Moto Miya is what you said. Okay, I was just looking him up. Sorry.

[B]

And so yeah, this was Bakudan. And then they have the table of contents for what was in that issue. You can see sure enough, the first. Starting from the, from the first, you know, like, you know, in popularity order as. As we all know, it starts with Bakudan, which is clearly the new series. And then there's Dragon Ball Kim, Nikuman, Fist of the North Star and then Wingman, which was the first series from Masakazu Katsura who did Video Girl Eye and Eyes and you know, a lot of other stuff. Another very, very classic, you know, mainstay of Shonen Jump and. And then a bunch of more. A bunch of more stuff. I see Kimagure Orange Road is in Here too. Kimengumi High School. That was another big one. Captain Tsubasa Ginga. Like, what is that? Shooting Star weed or whatever. The one about the little. Little dog that runs around in the. In the snow. So yeah, a lot of Classics. That's 1984.

[C]

There's definitely a beautiful poetry to the idea that Oda's first ever issue of Shonen Jump was chapter two of Dragon Ball.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's pretty. That is pretty crazy. I don't know if that's the fact you were alluding to. I assume not. No, that is.

[B]

No. But. But cool. Yeah, we'll. We'll come back to stuff like this. So he continues. Anyway, the first Kin Nikoman book I bought was volume eight, not volume one. You know, with a child's allowance, you can only get about one volume a month, right? So I went to the bookstore to buy Kinnikuman and they had about 10 volumes out at the time. So I bought the one that had the coolest cover. So I thought that was the best deal I could get. On the other hand, I felt like I was losing value if volume one and volume two of a series had the same colors on the COVID And some series I just fell off of because of that. I bought the volumes of Fist of the North Star and I liked that if you were wondering what stories were in each volume, you could just look at the COVID and figure it out right away. So based on those childhood experiences, I always make sure that each volume of one piece has one, lots of characters to a different color, and three, a clear demonstration of the story inside. Interesting. When I look for data on what everyone is most likely to enjoy, there's nothing more valuable than my own firsthand experience. And yes, then they include the. The COVID of Kinnikuman Volume 8, which is. It has a montage or a group shot here of the Chojin. You know, that's what they're all called in Kinnikuman. The 12 Chojins who are advancing in the Chojin Olympic Tournament Arc. So that was it.

[A]

It is a Oda esque cover. Like, I see that. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And for whatever. Remember of Kinnikuma. It's been a long time since I read it, but I think that was. It was one of those series where like the first several volumes is just kind of like they're all like cartoon episodes. And then around this time is when he was like, oh, but what if I introduce a bunch more and then put them in a tournament? And so that's when it really started taking off.

[A]

I'LL I'll also note, I think it was in one of our Greg, like, lengthy, earlier Greg segments talking about, like, the inspiration of Kinnikuman versus Dragon Ball and Toriyama.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I think this one page that we've gone through so far really demonstrates how it's both, like, yes, is what drew him in with the anime and everything, but, like, Dragon Ball also, like, really drew him in. It's. It's very cool just to see, like, kind of how both things are true here. Yeah.

[B]

So the second page here is titled the Moment I Decided to Be a Mangaka. Oda says, I was reading manga even before I met Kin Nikuman. At the time, there were two magazines for young children. There was Korokoro Comic, which is from Shogakukan, and Comic Bonbon from Kodansha. And most people were readers of one or the other. Corocoro had lots of veterans like Fujiko Fujio, while Bonbon was more fresh and new. I was a Bonbon reader, but I'm pretty sure my older sister had some volumes of Fujiko Fujio stuff. So I was reading Fujiko manga too. And that, of course, is, you know, the creators of Doraemon and Kyutaro the Ghost, and like, just tons and tons of very, very iconic children's manga. It was when I read the series kaibutsukun at age 4. I feel like Greg has definitely talked about that. Kaibutsukun. When I read the series Kaibutsukun at age four that I decided to become a mangaka, I could still recall some of the sights of the time. I'm from Kumamoto originally, but I lived in Miyazaki for about five years, starting in kindergarten due to my father's work transfer. So those are both in Kyushu, which is, you know, like the most southwest of all the. The island. The. The four main islands in Japan. And Kumamoto is like. It's like in the middle of the island, kind of on the. On the west coast. Ish. There's like a very complicated bay area along there. And then Miyazaki is more on the southeast, so it's kind of across Kyushu from Kumamoto. So that's kind of. To give you an idea, he says in. When we were at our house in Miyazaki and I learned that there was a job called Mangaka, where you could just draw pictures all day. First of all, I was amazed and. And then I decided, oh, that's what I'll be. So every manga I read after that point wasn't just reading it for entertainment. It was research for the day that I eventually drew my own. He says my parents were very strict to the point that even my friends were intimidated and they would call them demon, they would call them oni basically. And he says, but strangely they did not complain at all when I said I wanted to be a mangaka. When my aunt, when my auntie said eiichiro's got this foolish idea that he's going to draw manga, they just said ah, nah, it'll be fine. And they supported me. Even I was shocked. I was like, whoa, even my demons are on my side. And he says, of course I always.

[A]

Sorry. I always assumed he had very strict parents but I didn't really have any reason to believe it. So this doesn't surprise me. But funny, yeah, I didn't.

[B]

I don't think I knew that. But yeah, that was, that was new to me.

[A]

But I. Yeah, I don't know. Did we mention that his mom was an abacus like instructor or something? I don't know. That. That job just. I don't. I think Greg mentioned that years ago.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

But that doesn't. I feel like that is something a strict parent would do back in the day.

[B]

Yeah. I should point out too that they've. They've included a picture. It's a little clip From Color Walk 2 which is when Oda got to interview Fujiko Fujio A, which is, you know, of course Fujiko Fuji was a two person group and one of them, they, they did split apart and draw material separately after a certain point and one of them passed away much earlier than the other. And so Fujiko Fujiyo A was the. There was Fujiko F. Fujio and then Fujiko Fuji A which makes me wonder if that's where Oda got the idea for doing the middle initial. But anyways, he did interview Fujiko Fuji A in Color Walk 2 and that was where he was talking about how much he loved Kaibutsukun as a. As a child. So yeah, you can, you can read that in the first Color Walk compendium. But back to his, his family life. He says, of course later on I realized that they probably were a little concerned when I mentioned becoming a mangaka and I'm sure they didn't think that it was going to be easy, but they were probably thinking, oh, you know, let him try. He'll. He could give it. He'll give it a good shot and if it doesn't work, he'll come back. I don't think they considered the possibility that I wouldn't come back. And he says where fortune was on my side was in making my debut with the Tezuka Award. The Tezuka Award was huge for convincing my parents that I was serious, because they would think, oh, the God of manga, Osamu Tezuka himself, said, you've got what it takes. Of course, by. By Oda's time, he had already passed away, so he did not say anything of the sort. And I never met him. But to my parents generation, the name Osamu Tezuka is like a magic word. This is the reason that I tell future hopeful, future mangaka, go and win the Tezuka Award. So there you go. And they've included the. I guess the notice for the like. The. The call for like. Okay, send your submissions to the Tezuka Award. I believe this was probably the original in 1971, the original announcement. And you can see that Tezuka included a little caricature of himself there on this advertisement. And it does point out that he served as the chairman for the award until the. The 36th installment, which was in the latter half of 1988. And Oda won the award in the Latter half of 1992, which was the 44th installment. And I believe that Tezuka died in what, 89, I think I want to say. 89.

[A]

Is that what 88 is? Oh, no, that's what they. Okay, yeah, 88 was when he stopped.

[B]

Yeah. But yeah, it was around there that. That Tezuka passed away.

[A]

Speaking of ebay or whatever, the one thing my. One. My white whale of things I've been trying to get one piece wise, is that Tezuko Award. They like have, I think all the submissions or something that are published.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that is.

[A]

That's been hard to find. But yeah, that's my white whale.

[B]

Yeah, I think that. I think that does come up later in this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, so page three, admiration for Akira Toriyama. And so he says, before I found Dragon Ball in fourth grade, they used to run Arale chan, which is of course Dr. Slump on TV. And I will notice that when they. When they say like, that is one of those things that I would reckon possibly, like a majority of Japanese people, they don't say. They don't call it Dr. Slump, they call it Ararachan. Because that was that. That was just how everyone knew the series. Which is very funny. Like in terms of, you know, what you. For the characters themselves because Dr. Swamp is constantly overshadowed by her in the. In the manga. But yeah, apparently the Anime was titled Dr. Slump Aral Chan. So that's why. That's why everyone called it that. So anyways, he found out about Arali Chan on tv, but my parents, being so strict, wouldn't let me watch it because it was, quote, undignified. I guess I can see that. I mean, there's a lot of poop jokes. It wasn't just my parents. Even I was aware of the danger of the series. And he says, I don't know how things are nowadays, but back then, families just had one. Had the one TV in the living room. So if I wanted to watch a Raleigh Chan, the whole family had to watch it. So choosing something gross and undignified would affect my reputation within the family. You know, they're all thinking, really, you like this? So I didn't read Arale chan until much later.

[A]

Boy, do I get this. Boy, do I relate to this.

[B]

Yeah, I think I bought the whole series at once as a teenager.

[A]

By the way, I relate to this as both a child and a parent somehow simultaneously, like, both feeling embarrassed about watching a show and also, like, what the hell are you watching?

[B]

Yeah, it's so funny because, like, the thing I most associate doctor Slump with is I owned the first volume as a kid, but I always had hid it in, like, my drawers, like, because I didn't want, like, parents to, like, thumb through it or something. See her, like, carrying around a poop on a stick and stuff. Yeah. You know, like, he's freaking out and he's like, porn magazines are flying and there's a nipple on one of them. Oh, yeah, that's. That was.

[A]

That was bad as a kid. That's probably the undignified portion of it.

[B]

Yeah. And he says the. The presence, the existence of Toriyama Sensei was bigger than anything to me. I had never seen such a good artist, and I was instantly hooked. Of course, I am who I am today because of so many other people I was influenced by after him. But if anything influenced me the most, it was Toriyama Sensei's art. The reason I applied to jump's rookie contest was because that's where Akira Toriyama was. I never even considered going anywhere else. He says. I wasn't in time to share the magazine with Dragon Ball, but a little while after one piece started, which was issue 34 of 1997, Toriyama started. Sensei started running co op in issue 48 of 1997. So that was just like three months. Like, the next round of series would have been co op starting. That was extremely exciting to me. It was like a dream come true having my Manga alongside Akira Toriyama in Shonen. Jump seems, yeah, very, very fortuitous that, that it was so soon, like right after one piece started, like that would have been. That must have been just amazing to see, especially after Dragon Ball ended. And then we have the covers of the KOA volume and volume one of Dr. Slump. His next one is Don't Bring in Dirty Manga. So I said, he says, you know how JUMP has some. You know how JUMP has some manga that are a little bit on the racy side like Dragon Ball was in the beginning? Yeah. This too was an issue that affected my reputation within the family. So I couldn't bring home volumes of those manga. Instead, I could sneak them in with issues of jump. No, no, no. I don't want to read those series. I'm reading these series, but if I buy the volumes that it's obvious that I'm reading the dirty ones. He says, the truth is, Truth is, I really wanted them. There were a bunch of series I had to hold off from buying in the period over elementary and middle school. There was Kimagure Orange Road by Izumi Matsumoto that was a famous rom com. Wingman by Masakazu Katsura, Shape Up Ran by Masaya Tokahiro, Cat's Eye and City Hunter by Tsukasa Hojo, Godsider by Kojimaki, Cyber Blue by Bob and Tetsuo, Hara Bastard by Kazushi Hagiwara, and on and on. So it's because. It's because they're not just sexy, they're also entertaining. But to a young lad, it was worse to have my family think a cheer is a little perv. So instead I refrained from purchasing the volumes and I would just reread them over and over in jump.

[A]

I hope his family never read the sbs because he's pretty open about it.

[B]

Yeah, he. No, he. He waited until after, you know, he. He waited until what, Volume six or seven to like really get the sbs going. And by that time he could probably buy him a house, so they couldn't complain.

[A]

I'm sure I don't know about that.

[B]

And then we have. And then we have volume one of Kimagure Orange Road, which was. What did that in 1984-87 when that was running and after that. So this, this set of two pages is just like, here's a bunch of very formative series that Oda goes into, which are kind of interesting. Some of these I'm familiar with, some of them I'm not. And you can tell from you'll be able to tell from like, the years listed that, like, whether they were like actual hits or whether they were just like, oh, this was just like another random series that probably got two or three volumes and then failed. So, yes, the JUMP manga Young Oda was obsessed with. And we start off here in the top right with two series. SuIteni Tonchinkan and failing teacher Kotetsu Nashimoto. So Tsuideni Donchin khan was from 1985-89 by Koichi Endo. And failing teacher Kotetsu Nashimoto was 86 and 87 by Keiichi Kasugai. And there are covers of jump that show off. I guess this is probably the first issue for each of these. Would be like, it's hard. It's hard to translate, but it's. It's sort of like also. Also some nonsense or something like that or like adding on some nonsense. So you can tell this is very clearly a. A gag manga because it has like, a weird little bald guy with giant eyes with like, just one beady little dot for the pupils, and he has like two enormous hippo teeth. It's a very simplistic design. Looks very wacky. And then Nashimoto looks more like a cool. He's got, like the aviator sunglasses and like a mustache like he's a teacher.

[A]

It's the most of that time looking like, exactly generic looking.

[B]

Yeah, I'm glad that you say that because here's his. Here's his comment. So he says, when Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure started, I thought, this is something new and crazy. But I was equally stunned by Kotetsu Nashimoto, which started at the same time. What is this manga? He's some old dude. It would be really hard to start a series today with a protagonist like this one. Suiteni Tonshinkan was super funny too. And the character of Nukesaku Sensei has an even wilder look than Kotetsu Nashimoto. At this time. All the heroes of JUMP were really eccentric. He continues, there was no Internet at the time, so all hopeful future artists didn't know what the collective answer to the question of good art was. So they just had to draw their own style and have faith that it would be good, that it would be successful. The result was a lot of uniqueness and creativity. Nowadays, if someone out there has their own quirky style and puts it up online, they're gonna have a lot of people saying, oh, that's weird. And many of them are going to change in response. It's all part of the changing of the times. But I really love the individuality and power of those old jump heroes. And I hope people find a way to treasure and preserve that. So, yes, clearly a very formative period for him. And like his. His philosophy on I don't even.

[A]

I. I design. I like the fact that Araki was like so has been around for so long, he still looks like he's 40. I think we've discussed that before. But like, I know. I think part four started around when one piece started. Because I saw earlier in this issue something like that. But that I think one of my favorite parts of JoJo is it does kind of exemplify that aesthetic that is so of that time. So I do agree with Oda, even if I haven't experienced many of them. It's just. There's something I want to say nostalgic because I didn't really live through that. But there's like just something so very distinctive. Yeah, distinctive about it.

[B]

The next one he's going to talk about is called the Momotaro by Makoto Niwano. That was from 87 to 89. And this is a story about. Is about the descendant of the famous Momotaro, also named Momotaro, who is a pro pro wrestler. And you can see in the picture, like he's got. He's got like the Momotaro look with the weird haircut and the headband with the peach on it. And then he's just got like a wrestling mask, like a, like a luchador style mask on, which is very funny to think of like the, the. The fairy tale hero's descendant being a pro wrestler. And so Oda says reading Momotaro was extremely instructive to me because I learned you can make your characters this quirky. That is a lesson that still lives on inside of me. When this manga started, I was in my first year of middle school and my homeroom teacher was a young gym teacher who got along well with the students. I went over to his house with some friends to hang out, where he had the latest issue of Jump. I saw the Momotaro and thought, this is awesome. And my teacher said, oh yeah, you can take that issue with you. To an adult, 170 yen for a magazine issue at the time might have been no big deal, but to a middle schooler, that was very generous. I definitely remember thinking, this teacher rules. That memory is very closely tied to the Momotaro in my mind. Just kind of a sweet, sweet little anecdote.

[A]

It's also fun how I said, we have memories tied to specific issues of jump. And he also. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

The next one is Star Bakuhatsu, which it literally means, like, Star Explosion. This is by Hideaki Hataji, 1987. And I discovered from looking it up, I was like, that kind of sounds like A Star Is Born. Like, maybe in like, the. The illustration from the JUMP cover when it started is like a guy and a girl dressed in, like. What is it? Like the kick line, like, suits with the cabaret. The lapel. Yeah, like a cabaret. Yeah, exactly. With the batons and stuff. And. And I was like, maybe. Maybe it is, like, supposed to be based on A Star Is Born or something. And I looked at it and the. Apparently the English subtitle on the covers of this manga were A Star is Bomb, which I think is really funny for some reason.

[A]

Did someone say A Star is Born? No, they said A Star is Bomb.

[B]

Yeah. And he says, I really loved how soft and sensitive Hataji Sensei's black and white art was. I was obsessed with A Star Is Bomb to the point that there was a time when I wanted to draw like him. I also liked Jun Tomizawa Sensei and bought volumes of his. He drew several series in jump, but I especially liked Aspirin Dandy from Super jump from 1988 to 1990. So, you know, these are just kind of like other artists of the time. The next one is Rokodenashi Blues from 1988 to 1997 by Masanori Morita. That is, of course, one of the very great classics. I believe it was. Yeah. 60 million copies were sold of that one. Definitely one of the defining JUMP manga of its time. And he went on to draw like Rookies and some other hits. He's had several, like, very long, very successful series. I like him a lot. In fact, I have a signed autograph board of his. That's the only manga thing that I have, or only mangaka like, illustration that I have. And it was addressed to me specifically because of our. I know he didn't want me to say this, like, years ago, but this was like, 10 years ago. It was from William. Our old friend organized that. And I was like, wow, that's really cool.

[A]

The best.

[B]

So, yeah. Roku denashi blues from 88 to 97, he says, I was blown away when I read moita Sensei's first one shot, which is called Bachia Tari Rock from 1987. His art's so good, but I thought, there's no way he can do this regularly. It's just because it's a one shot. And then Roku Denashi Blues started. And I was like, are you joking? There's no way he could last in a weekly series with that kind of quality. But he continued his first series for 10 whole years. It's an incredible achievement. Yeah, that was a delinquent boxing manga. So lots of street fights between delinquents. And then he kind of turns it into a career of boxing. And it reminds me a lot of Slam Dunk too, where like it's the first series of like a really, really good artist. And when it starts, you're like, this art is kind of weird. And then it's just like a completely dramatic like metamorphosis over, you know, the next 10 volumes or so where suddenly they just like a master by the end of the series.

[A]

Oda was. I mean, if you look at 1 versus 10, I feel like maybe not a little bit.

[B]

A little bit. I mean, it obviously it happens with everybody who kind of goes through that gauntlet and they, they. They learn on the job and get tons better. The next one is called kyoryu daikiko from 198899 by Daimuro Kishi. This. That literally means like dino, like the dinosaur epic or something like that. I think if you look in at the picture, they have like the. The color spread from the first chapter. And I think it says the dinosaur stories in English on it somewhere. And Oda says the dinosaur stories were amazing. First of all, the fact that it was run in jump at all. It is a story only about dinosaurs. No human characters at all. It ended pretty quickly, but it was huge with me and my friends. I think it became a part of me with the way that I used the narration during the little garden arc. So there you go.

[A]

That's a really. I can't believe that that didn't do better like that. Knowing boys.

[B]

Well, but that's the thing. Yes, sure. But then there's no marketable characters. That's the problem. You have to like, you gotta walk into very well. What if you made dinosaurs who were like humans and lived in human lives in their own houses and they had a baby that was. Did not like his dad and said not the mama.

[A]

Okay, now I'm getting it. Now I'm getting it.

[B]

Wow. I was. Yeah, you had me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Dangling there.

[A]

Well.

[B]

The next one is God is a southpaw from Shinji Maizumi from 88 to 90. He says before this point, good manga to me meant that it was a manga that had excellent art. Or cool battles or funny jokes. But reading this manga was the first time I experienced being moved by emotions. I was amazed by Shinji Imaizumi's manga and went back to read his previous work, Canvas of the sky from 86 to 87 as well. And then Video Girl AI from 89 to 92 by Masakazu Katsura. Reading chapter one stunned me. I realized Mangaka can evolve. His art style had completely changed since his previous series, Wingman. I just thought that when a mangaka becomes a pro, their style is solidified. Sometimes art changes a little, but I'd never seen someone's style evolve so dramatically. That was an Eye opener. And this is interesting because I remember hearing about Video Girl Eye. But like generationally, AI was way more into Eyes, which was his other rom com series that he did in the 90s and the early 2000s where Video Girl I was a little more sci fi and Eyes was just sort of like a regular, you know, regular people teenage rom com. I really loved that one. But yeah, Katsura has been around for a very long time. And then lastly, I'm sure Zach has been waiting patiently to hear these comments. What about outside of JoP?

[A]

I still have to read this. It's sitting on my shelf.

[B]

You didn't read it?

[A]

You worked on it, Stephen. No, I haven't yet. I've read. I've read the Simpsons version of it, but. Yeah, go ahead.

[B]

Yes, we're talking about Akira from 1982 to 1990 by Katsuhiro Otomo, my man. Yes, Here we go. What is. What does Oda have to say about Akira? He says this wasn't just a shock, it was a revolution. I didn't read it. I didn't read it until I was in high school. Akira volumes were huge and thick and each one cost over a thousand yen. But I was so desperate to read it, and I had more allowance since I was a teenager, so I managed to buy the first volume. I'd never bought anything so expensive, but it was so thrilling and the art was so good that I rushed back to buy the rest as soon as I could.

[A]

Fine, Oda, I'll read it tonight. Geez.

[B]

I don't think there's a single artist from our generation whose path does didn't travel through Akira. That's how influential it was. And you couldn't ask for a better manual of how to produce art. Everything is drawn in it. How do you draw fire? How do you do explosions? How does ice? Blah blah blah. Anything you need to know, you can Find out by reading Akira. So a very manga, a mangaka centric view of Akira, for sure there. So that is kind of him talking through all of his influences and stuff like that as he gets older, through his childhood. Now we're going to talk about his first time being in jump at age 15. But it says, in middle school, I had a friend named Nakao. I had lots of friends who loved reading manga before that, but Nakao was my first friend who liked drawing manga. He was a huge fan of Fujiko Fujiyo, and not only did he draw manga, he submitted them. I had sworn that I would be a mangaka at age four, but had never actually thought about how to do that up to this point. So seeing Nakao finally got me to consider the concrete process of how to go about achieving my goal. Before then, I'd just drawn illustrations, so Nakao was able to teach me where to buy proper manga paper and ink and so on. And that was also when I realized, oh, if I want to draw manga, I have to create a story too. But even then, at this point, I wasn't thinking too deeply about it. I just whipped up a manga on the spot, decided there. It looks great. Time to send it in, and mailed it off. I sent it to a monthly contest run by Shonen JUMP called the Hop Step Award. My attempts were miserable. Failures at first, but after several tries, I got a call from the editorial department saying that I'd been a finalist this month. They said, draw up a name and send it in. And I will interject here to say that name. Nemu is the Japanese term for storyboards. So it is a. It's just a pencil draft, you know, for. For something. I don't know why they call it. I would love to know. I've never been able to figure that out. But yeah, that's what. That's what it is.

[A]

I thought we were going to discover a secret pseudonym after.

[B]

Yeah, notice that I said okay and hung up. Then realized I didn't know what a name it was. Why would I write down my name and mail it to them if I had asked, what do you mean by name before I hung up? My life as a mangaka might have taken a very different path. So yes, even then, you know, he was. He was so ignorant of various, you know, fundamental terms of making manga. He continues, I never really connected with that editor again. But if you make it as a finalist, it gets listed in the results page in jump. That was so exciting to me. Finally, my name was going to be in Shonen jump. When that issue came out, I went to all my friends, I was so proud and I said, check out Jump. My name's in there, see if you can find it. And they were like, oh, is this you? Awesome. So I looked over their shoulders and on the page before the Hopstep Award results with me on it was this huge thing that said winner of the Gag King Award with Kyousuke Usuta's name on it. They all thought that Kyousuke Usuta was my pen name. And Kyousuke usuta is like Mr. Gag Manga in Jump. He did Sugoyo Masaru san, Sexy Commando Gaiden, which is a famous like kind of culture. You know, people love the anime of that from the 90s. He also did was it Pew Tofuku Jaguar, like, like Blow the Whistle Jaguar or whatever. That was from the 2000s. He's done a million series in, in Jump. And he's like they, they all thought that Kyosuke Usta was my pen name. I was so pissed. Plus they put his manga in the issue and it was super funny, which made it even more frustrating. Who would have thought that I would be running in JUMP next to Usuta in the future? And so they have the, the reproductions of the pages here. And so they show, okay, here's the Hop Step Award winners and there's like a whole bunch of, there's like six or seven of them. And so they, they magnify in and they show Oda's, which is Fly Up Boy attributed to eiichiro Oda, age 15, from Kumamoto. And yeah, it does look like, does look like Oda. And then they also show the, the GAG Award winning page where you know, it has like two big things and so it says, yeah, Kyousuke Usuta. And it has this very weird drawing on it. And yeah, so that was what that, that was what they were confused about. And the funny thing is they are both the same age and they were both from Kumamoto. So I guess you can't blame the friends for thinking that it must have been Oda. But it is very, it is very funny that it happened to both be two, two artists who were future big, big stars and Jump.

[A]

You know, I have no memory of, of this being talked about at all. The Fly Up Boy.

[B]

That's the Fly Up Boy. No. Yeah, this was not in Wanted and I don't think it's ever been published as far.

[A]

Well, now we have to get it. I mean like also, I mean for 15 year old OD already looks like his. Like, I mean from the artists I know, having seen them grow over time is always remarkable and. But like, yeah, could see why Oda soda here.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I should point out that like those, those runner ups, like they don't put the, like they, they don't put them in the magazine. They're not published. They're just like hey, here's a drawing, here's an illustration. So you can see if you want, you know, you can see your thing in Jump, but it's just your one little picture.

[A]

Yeah. Probably only exists in Oda's desk at this point.

[B]

Yeah, if that. Well, yeah, because they have to send it in so I don't know if.

[A]

They send it back. Yeah.

[C]

But they might have put the storyboard in had Oda known what a name was.

[B]

Yeah, maybe.

[C]

Incredible.

[B]

So next we have the Tezuka Award. Debut at age 17. But it says in 1991 I received a Tezuka Award for Wanted, which was a runner up award for the 44th I guess biannual Tezuka Awards. That was the start of my life as a mangaka. My fellow winner was Shoichi Ehara who is now like his pen name is actually Shosho Kurihara and he is famous for doing a long running series or like collection of series called Uramiya Honpo which runs I think in one of the other Jump, like Business Jump or Super Jump or one of those. But that's another long running, very successful series. So he was the fellow winner. And then the Akatsuga award winner was Tenya Yabuno who worked in Corocoro Comic, the kids kids selection. So they. To. To Oda. Those are my doki, which is the word for contemporary. So like if, if your senior is a senpai and your junior is a kohai, then the people who started at the same time or who you know, reached the. The the same point at the same time are called doki. So those are your contemporaries. I use the pen name of Tsukihi Mizuki Kondo, which is basically just all the kanji for the days of the week in a row that was his pen name. Because I hadn't told my high school friends that I drew manga. I didn't want them to see the half steps in my process. I wanted my name to appear for the first time as a pro, to be as shocking as possible. My school didn't have an art period, so no one there knew that I could draw. Some of them might actually have been shocked the first time they saw one piece and they're like that guy could draw. A while after that, I moved to Tokyo and started work as an assistant for Shinobu Kaitani Sensei. When I visited his studio, someone there said, huh, I've seen you before. It was Eihara san, the fellow winner that I met at the Tezuka Awards ceremony. We became friends and he was an excellent assistant. So I learned a lot by watching his example at that time. Both. By the way, both Ehara and I had the same editor who was Oda. What. What he likes to call Oda's zero with editor Kushima. So like they never, you know, he never really published anything professionally with Kushima, but he was assigned to work with Kushima. So that was kind of his. His first initial editor. Before being Pro, I was on very good terms with Ehara, but I remember feeling a rivalry too. Like Kushima son is always spending more time working with him rather than me. I always like to feel that I'm the top priority among all authors who work with my editor. So the competitive streak of Oda, he continues. They put out a book collecting the winners of the Tezuka and Akatsuka Awards, and Wanted went into it. This is what you were talking about, Zach. The commentary from the judges was included, which was almost all praise for the young artists. But there was one person listed as Matsumoto Sensei who dissed me by saying this art isn't Western in style. And when he says Western, I don't mean like Western as in European or American. I mean Western as in like Rootin Tootin Cowboy Western. Because that, that, that was the cowboy one was Wanted. And he says, at the time, I didn't know who Legi Matsumoto was. So I got mad thinking, who's this jerk? What's his problem?

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Which is amazing. Yeah. And wow. And they do include the. The. The. The slice of text of all of the. The artists who were reviewing his. His Wanted short story. And it does include the comment from Matsumoto which says it doesn't make much sense, but it's entertaining. But if I could be greedy, I wish that the art made it look more like a Western. If he develops his drawing skill more, there could be great things in his future. So that was.

[A]

That was a compliment sandwich right there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That was the bulletin board material for. For Oda. And he. He finishes later. Right before my series started, I read some Leiji Matsumoto manga on a recommendation and I realized just how amazing he was. Matsumoto Sensei drew a western manga too. Called Gun Frontier. So at last I understood. Well, if he's able to draw a Western so well, you know, he. He. He has the right to throw a complaint my way about it. And from there I really grew to love Legi Matsumoto's works, which, you know, if you're not familiar, you know, legendary artist. He did what was a Galaxy Express 999. Queen Amarlda's Captain Harlock.

[A]

Interesting. Five five, five five. I don't know how that's pronounced the.

[B]

Oh, yeah, he did, yeah. Design for it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think of what I mean. Leiji Matsumoto.

[B]

Yeah. Absolute. Yeah. Legend. Legend.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He passed away a couple. A couple years.

[A]

You're gonna get dissed by anyone.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

He wasn't even dissed. I mean.

[B]

No, no.

[A]

I think this is constructive criticism. And as defined in Japanese especially, I assume it's very polite.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. It's truly a wonderful. A wonderful way to criticize somebody. Like textbook, like compliment, criticism. Compliment.

[A]

Yeah. No, that's. Yeah, that's how you do it in real and wherever you are too. That's a.

[B]

Yes. It's very tactful.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The next page is the days of working as an assistant and helper and I, and we will. We'll find out the distinction between those two. The three artists whom I worked for as a regular staff assistant were Shinobu Kaitani, Masaya Tokuhiro, and Nobuhito Watsuki. With Kaitani Sensei, almost everything was new to me and I didn't know what I was doing. This was the first time I drew speed lines and I was kind of surprised at the fact that I was able to do it well. I was like, what is this paper? I had been satisfied with cheap manga paper prior to that, so I was stunned to learn that professional paper, like pro grade paper, is this easy to draw on. Looking back, you know, it was embarrassing and amateur work. But at the time, I would work on this metal walkway. So they include a picture that he was apparently pointing to when they were talking to him for this interview, which is Shinobu. Shinobu Kaitani's series Midoriyama Police Gang. That was what Oda was helping with. And it is chapter 19 and they're pointing out in the background. So like this. This image is like. It looks like a. The aftermath of a fight scene or something in a warehouse. So there's like people standing around, there's a big burly guy lying on the ground, and there's a Bunch of, like, materials and crates and things like that stacked around. And in the foreground, on the right side, there's like, a second story. Like, it's looking down from, like, maybe 30ft or something like that. And in the foreground, there's like, a corner of, like, a walkway with a railing and everything. And so apparently that was some of the detail work that Oda was working on.

[A]

Oh, my God, it's Oda's railing, Right?

[B]

Right. He says, I would work on this metal walkway and think, this is so tedious and boring. Meanwhile, Ehara was next to me, whipping up the background art incredibly fast. Watching him helped me learn the skill of emptying my mind and just drawing without thinking about it. Also, despite being in the foreground, the line strength is too fine here. At my next job with Tokuhiro Sensei, I learned that this is a no, no. And at Watsuki Sensei's studio, I learned how to throw the shadows of buildings onto the ground. And at that point, drawing stuff quickly and mindlessly started to become fun. My own art got better and better, and I discovered that drawing the foreground lines thicker made them look more professional. Basically, from. From Kaitani Sensei, I learned the proper mindset for drawing. And from Tokuhiro Sensei and Watsuki Sensei, I learned how I should draw. He continues, aside from my regular shifts, I also did some Helper stance or Sketto is the name. And that's the. If you know the series Sket Dance, that's what Sketto was. That's why they call it Sket Dance, because they help out the other clubs. But that's nothing to do with. With Oda. So he did little helper stints for stuff like Man Gatoro Sensei's Man Yuki, Yuko Asami's Wild Half, and Koji Kiyama's Ninku. These are all, you know, 90s series in jump and thereabouts. He says, I got to go to Asami's Sensei, Asami Sensei's studio a couple of times. Sensei and the staff were so nice, and I had a really great time there. But after that, they stopped calling me. So I asked my editor about it, and he said, quote, when Ota kun comes over, the staff all get to talking and they're not getting any work done, he says. He says, I'm the type of person who can walk and talk, who can talk and draw at the same time. So I guess I got a little carried away. I said, I'm sorry. I promise I Won't talk. Just call me again. And they finally did. Lol.

[A]

That sounds right. Okay, yeah, that whole thing.

[B]

And he continues at Kiriyama Sensei's place. Or actually, wait, before I do that, I want to point out they do have the author comments from just after. Let's see. This is issue 36 of 1997 and I think one piece started in issue 34 or 35 or something like that. But right in that list is a Wild Half by Yuko Asami, which is in jump at the time, who mentions that. Or Oda mentions like oh, thanks for. Thank you to Asami Sensei and all the staff for the. The flowers. They sent flowers to him to congratulate him for getting his series started. And he's like, yeah, this is how nice the author of Wild Half is. So you can see how. How much it meant to him at the time. Of course. So he continues at Hideyama Sensei's place for Ninku, I met Takeshi Konomi who is famous for doing Prince of Tennis and Hajime Kazu who did a series called Seijuro Goto. Emperor of Medio, which I remember seeing in jump had a crazy title. But yeah, that was another late 90s thing. He says Konomi san's Konomi san was very stoic and was exactly the same person we all know today. I'm also friends. I'm friends with Kazu san and Daisuke Higuchi who did a series, a soccer series called Whistle and we would go to karaoke every now and then. I was so interested in seeing different workplaces that I told anyone who would listen, call me if you need help. I worked with some of my fellow assistants who got their series started before me, like Gin Shinga or Shinga Gin he was Oda name, dropped him a few times in the early volumes of One Piece. And Hiroyuki Take, of course, author of Shaman King. Even some new artists whom I didn't know at all, but who replied, I mean, if you're available, sure. And so then he mentions here, this is. This is where it's going to get interesting. Kenji Mitsuyoshi before it gets interesting, I'll ask you this.

[A]

Our assistants or helpers? And also to give you a chance to get your, you know, voice back for the interesting part. Are assistants and helpers at all credited in any way or form in any manga that you know of?

[B]

Not by. What was I going to say? Not by. Not by fiat. Not. Not. Not like required to. So a lot of artists will list like the Staff in say the end of the volume. Like there's a lot of series that I work on where at the end of every volume is like their acknowledgments thing. And they'll, and they'll do a little credits list where they'll say who worked on the volume, but it's not, it's not required at all. And so some like, like with one piece, you know, they don't, they don't list it at all. I've seen a lot of artists who will do the like sort of end credits at the end of their series. Well, that. Where they'll just write all, all the assistants who. That's over the, the last scene or something like that, which is kind of cool.

[A]

Yeah, I, I wish they did that more. I mean like, I guess it might be an anonymity thing too, but some of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they do good work and important work and hard work. So I'll let you get into the interesting stuff.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So. So he's gonna talk about Kenji Mitsuyoshi who was a senpai from Tokuhiro Sensei's workplace. So the second of the two of the three assistant gigs that Oda did, he asked for help because he was on the hook for a one shot very soon. So I went to what he calls the Kume Hotel near the Shueisha Building to help. And kanzume is a term, it literally means like canned or like stuffed into a can. And that refers to like a practice of like if you just really need to get something done, where you basically just lock yourself into a room and do it until it's done. That's like a consumer thing. And so apparently this was. They have a picture of it here of this hotel. It's very unassuming looking. Building that was called the King Yukon, which is no longer open, but it must have been like right down the street from the Shueisha building. And apparently it was infamous for being a. The Kanzumi Hotel for Mangaka, where if it was like, oh, I just really need to get this thing done and I don't have like my own studio space or whatever, we'll just rent out this hotel for, you know, a hotel room for a couple of days and bring everyone in and just work on it in the hotel room because it's right next to the Shueisha building. So he says. So I went to the Kanzume Hotel near the Shueisha Building to help Mitsuyoshi with this one shot. He says it was an old fashioned hotel. Where you could put a 100 yen coin in the TV to watch it for an hour. The bathroom was right next to the workspace. And let me tell you, when someone has diarrhea, it was just the worst in so many ways. That was.

[A]

That's the groundbreaking. I mean, he's right.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

Diarrhea bad.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You were to hear first.

[B]

That was when I thought, if I ever have my own studio, I'm going to make sure the workspace and toilet are very far removed. Later, when I was looking for studios, I really did check to make sure. So all of those experiences helped me out later in life.

[A]

Now he has a shark toilet. So he keeps that closer because that's him.

[B]

So they include here a little comment. This is the author comment for this special one shot that the. The artist had to put together on such short notice. And it has a little thing similar to the other comment. He says, you know, oh, this was my, my first job for this, for the magazine. And I got. I was so happy to have such so much help from so many wonderful people. Like, I hope you all enjoy the story from Kenji Mitsuyoshi. Now, what's interesting is you can see there's a little English subtitle on this comment. And this is not mentioned at all in the, in the. The text from Oda. So this is completely incidental. It is. It says Dream Team story. Now consider if that. If the term Dream Team sounds familiar, if you perhaps know of legendary Olympic feats. The actual title of this story in Japanese, written right above it is Shaquille o' Neal Monogatari, the Story of Shaquille o'. Neal. That was the one shot that ODA was helping this guy out with. Oh my God, 1995.

[A]

So we gotta get Shaquille O' Neil on the show.

[B]

So not only does this basically confirm that Eiichiro Oda contributed in some way to the art of an officially licensed Shaquille o' Neal NBA manga. It also means that there's probably an infinitesimally small chance that ODA might have said, watch out for the shock attack like Marge Simpson. I'm going to, I'm going to hold out the breaking.

[A]

Was this the breaking news?

[B]

This is the thing. I have not seen anyone talk about this. And when I looked it up in Japanese to be like, is this like a common thing? Was this something that everybody knew that I didn't know? I found some Japanese posts that had some more interesting info. And in fact, just as what you were saying, Zach, is that he did Draw. The author did write handwrite in the margins, probably on the last page, the names of all the assistants, all the people who helped him with it. So you do see Eiichiro Oda in the margin of this Shaquille O' Neal manga from 1995.

[A]

I gotta get my hands on this.

[B]

And it also happened to be. And the person. The post that I saw said this was like, infamously so. I don't know necessarily why it would be infamous, but this one shot ran in the issue after the last chapter of Dragon Ball.

[A]

So infamous may be the word. Yeah.

[B]

So what a weird, like, collection of coincidences there that intersect with one piece. Just amazing.

[A]

Yeah, I think it is.

[B]

It.

[A]

There's a lot of things about that, but I think it is an exemplar of like, what a small community it is. And like, I mean, I think this goes for like, most communities generally is. But like the fact that he crosses paths with so many people and then crosses them again and like that. Leiji Matsumoto commented that for me, so far, the more groundbreaking news that I hadn't seen. But I gotta get my hands on the Shaquille o' Neal comic for so many reasons.

[C]

Go into Mandarake right after this.

[A]

You know, I felt bad. I forgot to mention the college basketball tour that one piece is on right now when it fits so perfectly into this.

[B]

Yeah, we forgot to say that.

[A]

Yeah, I get. I get oda's fascination with sports, I guess a little more generally there. And also diarrhea was a result of this. That's also equally groundbreaking. And I mean that literally in this case. Yeah.

[C]

There's no secret Michael Jordan one shot that ODA also worked on, is there?

[B]

Not to my knowledge yet. But if I let. If I find out. If I find out, I will let everyone know through the podcast.

[A]

He's 51. He still could do it. After one piece ends Michael Jordan comic.

[C]

There'S still demand for Michael Jordan.

[A]

To be fair, I would 100% read Michael Jordan one shot from a true. Kidding me? That sounds great. Great.

[B]

All right. So he continues after that. Of course, like I said, no mention of Shaquille. No, no Shaq mentions in oda's story at all.

[A]

Unfortunately.

[B]

He says you have all these upand cominging artists working for different senseis. So among the assistants, there's a kind of like Obasan, like old lady water cooler gossip that gets carried around. Like, you know, oh, I heard that Sensei is like. There was even a crazy rumor that said so. And so Sensei Drowned a cat in their bath. I don't know who started that one, but when I met that sensei later on, he was like, of course I didn't do that. He was a very nice person. Asked, apparently. So this.

[A]

This.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You know, I think Greg often says Oda is kind of Luffy incarnate, and Luffy was not 100 asked that too. So that makes sense. But also, no, don't do that. If you hear someone drown a cat, don't just go up to them and say, did you drown a cat? Do some snooping. Figure it out.

[B]

Yeah, he says, snooping.

[C]

It was just very direct snooping.

[A]

That's not snooping. That's asking.

[B]

He continues. There was also a rumor that Shueisha had a special mystery group called the Something Something Bon. So he. He censors himself out. He just puts, like, blocks of text to hide whatever it's actually called. So the Something Bond. If a series popularity was waning and it needed help, the Something Bond would spring into action, make adjustments to the series, and make it way better.

[A]

Tokusatsu. Yeah.

[B]

Whenever a manga had a sudden shift in direction or introduced some mysterious, extremely powerful new character, we'd all say, oh, the Something Bond got to them. He says, that's all nonsense, of course. But overall, I had a lot of fun as an assistant. Every day felt like a school field trip. I remember thinking to myself, things aren't going to be fun like this in the future, so I need to commit all of this to memory. Seeing Watsuki Sensei drawing in silence by himself made it seem very painful. But taking one step out of his room into the shared workspace, all of us were just chatting about manga and having fun. I knew I'm supposed to go over there, and once I do, I can't come back here anymore. So that's what made it so fun. It was a great time working alongside fellow artists who were all trying to get to the same place as me. This was my youth.

[A]

I'll say two things there. One, I am glad that the parts he seemingly loved about working on Kenshin did not have to do with Watsuki, according to that little anecdote. I'll take it. I'll take the. I'll take it. But, you know, that's. It's also just, like, kind of great to hear about this part of his life, because I don't think we've heard very much. And it is. This is definitely the most honest and forthcoming I've heard. Oda. I know we're not Done. But this is a little bit more to go. Yeah, no, no, I. And oh, the thing I did want to say is I think anyone in high school and also for those who have been to law school, it's the same kind of energy as. As this, the. Oh, I wonder what they're doing. Oh, they must be having a secret club that does this and this and this. It just feels very familiar and yeah, no, it's adorable. Almost. Yeah.

[B]

So, yes, we're getting closer to the end of the segment here. The magazine debut arrives without warning. And so this is getting a little more into well worn territory as far as Otis history, he says. Meanwhile, as I enjoyed my riveting life as an assistant after my story Monsters ran in the 1994 autumn special issue, all of my manga was rejected. With my back against the wall, I finally pulled out my secret weapon, the pirate manga I'd kept hidden away in my mind and I drew romance dawn version one. That ran in the 1996 summer special. So the first professional publication in two years and it scored third in the reader surveys. There were, and this is like a special, you know, quarterly thing that, that it was published and not. Not a regular issue of JUMP that ran. So he says there were three professionally published artists in that issue. So if I was third, it meant I outscored at least one pro. That was a huge win for me. I felt more confident and I think because of that success, I got a chance to run a story in the regular JUMP magazine. Soon after that. It was a tough hurdle. They said, we've got a hole in our schedule for a 45 page one shot. If you can draw one from scratch in two weeks, you're in. Without hesitation, I said, I'll do it. He continues, I got two weeks off from assistant work, of course, and I worked myself to the bone to get it done. That was the second version of Romance Dawn. Since I didn't have time to work on a big fancy story, I decided I'd have this one start and end on the deck of the ship. So this is Bottle episode of Romance Dawn. From there, I didn't think of it like, if I can draw it, I can get into jump. I thought of it like, can I fit everything I want to into this story? I got some help from my assistant friends and somehow I was able to finish in time. It was such a rush to get finished that I don't even remember the outcome of the survey results. Maybe I was more filled with relief that I helped fill a huge gap in jump's programming schedule. I learned that opportunities can come very suddenly and that you have to seize them when you get the chance. From this point on, I started working on my storyboards for the One Piece series. And though they were rejected a few times during the serialization meetings, one piece finally started one year later.

[A]

So that was his persistence is. I think anyone who knows Oda or One Piece, you know, shouldn't be surprised at that.

[B]

And the funny thing too, of course is that they show the COVID of jump on that issue where the romance dawn one shot, the 45 page one ran. And the headliner for that one is Sexy Commando Guidance Sugoyo Masaru san. Which is, you know, by Kyosuke Usuta.

[A]

The.

[B]

The one that his. His classmates confused him for. So that is.

[A]

And then he gets a little thing in the corner that is.

[B]

Yeah, that is.

[A]

So they're the same age and they're from the same place too. That's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Are they. Do we know if they're friendly or even know each other? Like, that's pretty.

[B]

Probably pretty weird. I. I don't. I. I don't remember if he commented on that specifically, but I like wonder.

[A]

If they did know each other in some capacity growing up. But it's just kind of crazy. Yeah. What a. What a weird coincidence though.

[B]

And so he says the classic way of jump manga. That's the next section. Soon after One Piece started. And this is. It says volume or excuse me, issue 48, 1997. That's not when One Piece started, but that's the moment that he's talking about, which is soon after One Piece started, there was a huge event. Jumps circulation numbers fell behind Shonen Magazine. That was very frustrating to see. Ever since I first picked up JUMP in fourth grade, it had been the era of Shonen jump. I didn't want to lose to other manga in jump, but I also didn't want to see Jump lose to other manga magazines. Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Dragon Ball and Slam dunk ended in 1995 and 96, which was disappointing to the readers and probably contributed to the drop in sales. But it was an era of incredible opportunity for hopeful artists like me and my fellow assistants. We were all hyped up thinking if I can squeeze my way into this huge hole that's left behind, I could be the pillar of the next era. It's a lot like Jump right now with my hero academia and jujutsu Kaisen ending. And they do include. And I've posted this picture before as well, this legendary Asahi shimbun article from 1997. The one that is commenting on this change in, you know, the power balance between jump and magazine, where it's saying, you know, jump. The champion loses speed, loses steam. You know, line, you know, sales are equal to magazine. 24 years of being on top comes to an end. And so it's like, you know, oh, two years, you know, precipitous fall over the past two and a half years as popular series end. And then the photo of that article is issue 3497. The first issue with one piece in it with Luffy on the COVID pointing his finger at the reader. So it's this amazing picture where it's like this article of like, is jump dead? Are we doomed? Is will jump never recover?

[A]

And it's like, Truman.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Chapter one of one piece pictured. It is amazing. It's like you could not script it any better.

[A]

That's. That's amazing. First, I see why they chose it. It's because he's holding up the number one. And that's probably. They're like, oh, that's. That makes sense.

[B]

I'm guessing that was the new issue at the time. Yes, that was. Yes, it was the July 28 issue of the Asahi Shimbun.

[A]

That is crazy. That's very funny. And I'm sure devastating to Oda personally at that time. Like, that really must have hit him.

[B]

I'm sure he was too. I mean. You mean in terms of like the paper article?

[A]

Yeah, no, the paper article. Cause I mean, like, this almost like reinforces. Like sometimes I'm like, okay, how much of Greg am I getting in Greg's stories? And how much of Oda am I getting in Greg? But this really. This, I think, gives Greg a lot of Fred here.

[B]

Because I. I feel. I bet that at this time, like, this was when one piece started. Oda was way too. I doubt he was reading the newspaper for the news. I'm sure he was just like, I gotta draw. I gotta draw.

[A]

People always say they don't read the comments, but they do. Okay. No, I mean, I. Yeah, but there's.

[B]

Many news articles in the world.

[A]

No, I know.

[C]

It's just like someone probably was like, hey, look, your comics being held up as the down.

[B]

Look at how far it's fallen. Lazy.

[A]

Matsumoto cuts in and he just like opens the door. Look at this article.

[B]

Does not look like a cowboy manga.

[A]

No, it does not look like a cowboy.

[B]

So. So continues. My thinking at the time was, how can I not fight Dragon Ball. Because any reader who sees a new battle manga starting is going to read it, hoping to see the next Dragon Ball, and there's just no way to win that fight. I was right there up close, watching the people who got their chance just before me wade into the fight and get struck dead. But by knowing that I couldn't win with a battle manga, I chose to reinforce the adventure of it all and added drama to the mix, which is how One Piece managed to survive the initial gauntlet. Of course, in the end, boys of every era love their battles. So once I got into the fighting, the survey results for One Piece shot through the roof. So if anyone asks what's the classic way of JUMP manga, I have to say it's the excitement of a passionate battle scene. There he goes. And then we are on the final page here. And not to editorialize or to. To prime you for what he says here, but this was my favorite page. I think this is so cool what he says here. So this one is to the Jump and Jump artists to come. He says, twice a year, I judge the Tezuka Awards, which is, you know, the. The. The panel for the Tezuko Awards is always like a series of, you know, big authors aligned with with jump. So no surprises that he would be involved. Twice a year, I judged the Tezuko Awards. When you do that, you can see plain as day what the young people of today are thinking about. New artists reflect the influence of the times very clearly. During the pandemic, there was a huge surge in dark, gloomy stories. There were several submissions all at once, with premises that were like, the world is a dystopia. There's no hope here. We should settle the moon instead.

[A]

And they still are like that today.

[B]

Yeah, it makes sense that the manga that today's youth draw, their imaginations spurred on by what they experience, reflects the world. But this is also an era when, through the Internet, you can hear the voices of strangers more than you need to. If you're going to go through the rigors of drawing manga, I beg of you. Manga is something you think about and create by yourself. So don't allow yourself to be swept along by others. Believe in what you love. If jump is anything, it's the medium that allows you to turn that into the next big thing. My generation was the one that read Captain Tsubasa and got obsessed with soccer. In the past, the only sport worth caring about was baseball, and no one cared about soccer. Captain Tsubasa got huge in the middle of fourth grade for me, and as soon as fifth grade started, all of us tried to join the soccer team at school. That was when I realized the power of manga. If I'd been born a few years later, I bet I would have joined the basketball team after reading Slam Dunk. Jump is the magazine that's always created these movements in the youth. So find that thing you love and spill it all over the pages. I want you to realize that even if no one else in the world knows about it, if you turn that love into a manga, you can start the next wave. Plus, this is an era when everyone's favorite things get more and more hyper specific. I still hope there can be things that everyone in the class can talk about equally. I still remember when I changed schools as a kid, the first thing they said to their new classmate was, did you re Jump yet? Shonen? Jump was the key to making new friends. Manga can be a tool for that too. I hope that Jump continues to be a successful magazine forever, so that it can continue to serve that role as a tool. It'd be sad if everything gets split into micro niches. I think we ought to have at least one magazine that everyone reads. And for that to happen, we need new young people to become the next pillar. As long as there are three pillars that can convince a child they're getting a good deal, the kids will always read jump. That's the.

[A]

Yeah, that. That is my favorite page as well. Yeah, that's. That's just. You never also hear Oda kind of speak that impassionedly about anything, really. I feel like directly.

[B]

Yeah. I was thinking about this and I was like, this is so interesting because when we read Oda's words, you know, that are attributed to him, not his dialogue. Like the sbs, he is playing a character, right? Like he's. He's goofing off. He's being kind of silly.

[A]

He.

[B]

He. He does these gags and he's generally unserious. And then when you see his. His interviews with like the Color Walk stuff. The Color walks are all interviews with like Akira Toriyama and Yoshitaka Amano. And I forget if you did one with Watsuki or not, but like, there are all these people who are very formative for him. That's like. It's like a treat for him that he gets to do an interview with someone that he really admires. Or like the. The guy who did the puppets.

[A]

The one I was thinking.

[B]

Yeah. That he based a lot of his wano designs off of. And so it's Oda, like he's kind of coming in as like the excited, like, oh, boy, I can't wait to talk with you and pick your brain about stuff. This feels like the first time I've ever seen Oda talking as like the senior voice in the room.

[A]

Like, he.

[B]

He's speaking to the young people of today and offering his advice as a veteran, which is really something you'd never see him do.

[A]

Specifically, he always seems to. What's the word? Askew. That's role.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's also. This is just like good advice period for especially creatives. And Kirsten, I know you're a creative, so I could. And Stephen and Sam. But yeah, like, the, the fact that media is so fractured as it exists today. Like, I think my analogy. We didn't have weekly shonen jump, obviously, in New York in the late 90s and early 2000s, but, you know, we did have Toonami and that kind of feels like the closest thing maybe we had at that time. And, you know, I think in like, what my kids watch is curated, which is sometimes great because you could avoid commercials, which are awful and just like, generally more crap. Like, you could actually watch a thing that you want to watch. However, you know, sometimes having to sift through the crap or having something curated for you definitely has its, Its, you know, benefits, as Oda mentions and does bring a sense of community.

[B]

Yeah, it's the. What? It's the water cooler effect. Right. It's like, oh, everybody saw the thing, so they're going to talk about it the next day.

[A]

Yeah, Like, I guess maybe I'm like, trying like, severance and Game of Thrones, I feel like was like the last. Even though I was not part of that water cooler discussion was. I feel like one of the last.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Big ones. Like, and that was like a decade ago or something. So.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I guess everybody's talking about Stranger Things right now, which I guess is the closest thing, but. But, like, not in a good way.

[A]

Yeah. And like, how well did that really do? Like, how many people actually have seen that?

[B]

I think it's still.

[C]

And it's also like the Stranger Things finale is also kind of drawing from a decade ago. Right. Like, it's not a new thing.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So to speak. Like, I. I think about this a lot and I do. I use that same, like, Game of Thrones example because that does kind of feel like that in season one of Stranger Things was sort of the last time that everyone watched the same thing. And it is. Yeah. Like, it's. I think oda's Totally right. Like, it. I mean, like, you've all been saying the community of everyone sort of following the same story together is something that I miss. I miss it a lot.

[A]

Well, that's why we do this show too. Like.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean, if. If this show isn't an exemplar of, like, entertainment bringing people around the world together to talk about a thing and, like, bond over something. And it's something, you know, I've been doing since middle school or before. Like, just, like, media does have a very important role to play, and it is curious how that's going to evolve for Generation Alpha and Beta, I assume, is the next one.

[B]

I'm just thinking to myself, like, just from this podcast, like, if we were to cut end to end, like, all of the. All of the. Behind the. Or was it in the actor studio questions that we give everyone on their first.

[A]

Oh, the five.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The. Who's your favorite straw hat? Who's your favorite villain? What's your favorite arc? Like, we probably have, like, hours of that just from everyone's first appearance on the show. All the guests that we've had, all the people over the years.

[A]

We gotta cut those together now, I guess. Delaney, if you need more.

[B]

Idea. Idea.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good idea. It is a good idea. It is a generational thing. We've discussed this too. Like, what people cling to and that there. That they're. I think maybe our. I don't know if I want to speak for Gen Z, but, like, I feel like millennials, because we kind of grew up in a time when media wasn't quite as fractured, you know, like, the Internet was just burgeoning to, like, where it is, like, we might be kind of the last of that kind of era where it's like, oh, we all have a shared media that we grew up with. You know, obviously I want to speak in absolutes. That might not be the case, and I'm not going to claim to be an expert at it, but I think the importance of it is definitely. It's just the fact that ODA is talking about, like, a thing he is passionate about, like this for the future generation, as you. Future generations. As you mentioned, Steven is remarkable. And therefore I feel like I need to sit, you know, think on that more even.

[B]

Yeah, well, he's definitely got the. The perspective on it right since, like, like, there's. He's. He's seen multiple waves of, like, mega hit series that came and went. You know, obviously Naruto and Bleach. Really had a lot of lasting power. They really suck it out for a long time. But he outlasted them. And then he outlasted, you know, my hero and Demon Slayer and, and Jujutsu Kaisen and everything.

[A]

Still, he mentioned JJK and my hero specifically. That's interesting.

[B]

Yeah, I'm sure he thinks about it a lot of like, wow, I'm still doing this. And you know, all these other series that are running are drawn by 23 year olds.

[A]

You know, this is the one and only time I'm going to reference Family Guy. But when they list through all the things that got canceled by Fox, like in those five years they were off the air, that's kind of what that makes me think of.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, it's, it's, it's. It like, it also makes me wonder like, does he feel pressure to leave or finish basically because he wants to make room for an additional pillar? Or conversely, can we say that he is usurping that like, ability, you know, like, what did he say? When Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk ended, it was maybe a dark time for JUMP and then like sales, but it was a very bright time for New Mangaka.

[B]

Yeah, it's like, what is it like when the, when the big four. When the big tree falls over in the forest, it lets all the light in for the space around it, so.

[A]

Absolutely other stuff can grow. Yeah, but I love that tree. I don't want that tree to fall. It's a beautiful tree.

[C]

I'm sure also the editors of JUMP are hanging on to Oda's ankles and being like, please don't go, please don't go.

[A]

That's without one doubt, like, I bet you. Well, there have been like series that have surpassed one piece in, but have come and gone because they just have concluded. I think Jujutsu Kaisen's a great example.

[B]

I think like the yearly rankings or whatever. Yeah.

[A]

Or just sales. Yeah, just like, just, you know, because we're, you know, talking about like for jump. You know how well that does in terms of sales. Yeah, no, I, it would be fine, I think, if one piece left. I don't, I wouldn't fear personally if I were Oda for the future of that magazine, but obviously Oda has a story to tell and that's his number one priority. But it is. And also the idea of tuning out the comments. So maybe I've eaten my own words here and maybe he didn't read the article unless Lazy Matsumoto came popped his head in about, you know, him the, the first Volume of One Piece or the first Shonen Jump one Piece issue being the exemplar of the fall of Shonen Jump. The. It is a good lesson that I think everyone knows but is very hard to do in practice is to not read the comments and to not. Or just not to get feedback from strangers. Like, I think friend of the show Joe often, like, has mentioned to me before, it's like, you know, that humans are not really meant to just get a bunch of random feedback.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like the. What is social media? What is just the Internet, like, is not evolutionarily good for you or healthy. I mean, this shouldn't be a surprise. I'm not breaking news. Yeah, Kirsten, sorry.

[C]

You're muted on social media. No matter what kind of creative you are, you feel like you have to be on social media, you have to be posting. And therefore because you're posting, you're getting feedback or you're not getting feedback, you're getting a lack of views or listens and you're worried about that. And it's. It does flatten things, I think. And Oda alluded to that earlier on too when he was talking about jump in the 80s. Like, he's 100% right. And I think his advice to just like, I mean, I don't know if it's realistic or not to not post at all. But then again, if you're sending stuff, right, to jump and jump likes your stuff, maybe that is a possible line for Mangaka to avoid the Internet wormhole.

[A]

I mean, I really believe that's true. I wonder how much he is just talking to the next generation of creatives as well. Like, not just Mangaka. Because this does. I. The. The person who is popping into my head is kind of the closest example to like this sort of thing is someone in that he. He is in a privilege, I'm sure he would admit a privileged position to be able to kind of give the middle finger to like, not. I mean, he cares about numbers. I know, but like, he'll just do the thing that he likes to do. I think that is something that I try and take, you know, into this podcast we do the, the episode art is not really what YouTube would want necessarily. Or, you know, like, we don't do the thing that gets views. We've been talking for two hours about a magazine issue. Like, I, you know.

[B]

Yeah. That we're not showing on camera.

[A]

We're not showing on camera, you know, like. But we're doing the thing that we all love to do and we're Talking about one piece, and we're hanging out together, and we're, you know, having this collective experience. And I think that's really what's important. At the end of the day, it's like what he said. You have to treasure those moments that you're having. Fun, I think is also a really good lesson to take away and not to worry about what random strangers are thinking. You know, I. I have luckily, over the last year or two, I think, just unplugged a lot more because I'm busy enough, I guess, to unplug that I'm not thinking about the Internet as much. But, like, obviously I want people to like and be able to listen to the show. Not to get, you know, introspective here, but, like, there. There's, like, you know, the. For Oda, too. The idea that your work makes random and strangers happy and gives, you know, kids, you know, something to bond over is important, but also, you can't let strangers influence your creativity. And your creative direction is kind of almost oxymoronic, but is also, you know, two sides that you kind of have to hold in unison. It's. It's tough. I don't know. But, Steven, thank you so, so, so much for going through this. I. You know, I think all of this just about was new to me. I don't know how much I, like, I don't know how much of this you knew going into it. I know you're the authority, so I.

[B]

Think he did go into some of, like, the, you know, the history of, like, then I did this, you know, one shot, and then. And then we worked on this thing. You know, he's. He's gone through those in, like, some of the Color Walk interviews and things like that before. So at least it was not new to me, but there was a lot of it that was, like, filling in gaps in my knowledge, which was, yeah, really interesting to get into.

[A]

It contextualizes a lot of things I think we already knew, like the Romance dawn second shot. The second one, I don't think I knew he did that in two weeks, but, boy, does that contextualize a lot. I think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What happened there?

[B]

Yeah, there's a lot of other cool stuff in this issue. Like, I said, absolutely. You know, things about, like, the way that Jump has evolved over the years and, like, the. The COVID design and the logo design.

[A]

There's also. Do you have the special booklet?

[B]

That's where I found very interesting. Yeah, yeah, there's a. There's a booklet with a bunch of stuff in There a bunch of, like, really rare random illustrations and comas and stuff. Yeah, the. The. Yeah, the four panel things, like the one with the, like, buggy as Santa Claus. I think people have seen that one a lot. There's a lot of neat stuff, and I think we'll. We'll leave the door open on, you know, that's something we could potentially cover in a future episode. But I think for sure, you know, keeping this one to a single episode was. Was a. Was a good choice just because.

[A]

Yeah. I didn't realize the time. Yeah. Because I feel like I could talk about that interview even for as long as it's a very, very interesting peek into ODA that even your Deep Dive series didn't really get us to. I mean. Yeah, because that was from an outside perspective. I think this is just. This is the most intimate interview I've seen of his. Any questions or comments for Steven translating.

[C]

All 11 pages of that, Stephen?

[A]

Yeah. Thank you so much. I. I can't.

[B]

That was one day.

[A]

I. Yeah. Stephen, you went above and beyond once again. I mean, you always do. But everyone out there should send only praise to Stephen. I will say on the Internet, please, I'm.

[B]

I'm glad. I'm glad that I did it. But I will admit that. Yes. When. When Zach was like, what are we doing this week? And I was like, well, we didn't mention it earlier in the week that I should start looking at the magazine.

[A]

Yeah, sorry about that.

[B]

And I was like. And I was like, all right, I'll give it like an hour or two. And I started getting into it. I was like, this is really interesting. Let me keep going. And then that was my whole Saturday, so.

[A]

Oh, no. Okay. I should have. Yeah, sorry. I was sick earlier in the week and then I got busy and then. Yeah, no, my. Yeah. So we're not going through the law novel here, I guess.

[B]

Okay, well, chapter one, you have 11.

[A]

Pages of the translated law novel ready to go. Go. Yeah, I think we definitely. I mean, this whole issue is like, this is up there. Like the first of all, for those who don't get the one piece magazines, not just because the card game has made it in completely inaccessible. They're almost always excellent to purchase, even if you don't understand Japanese, which I do not.

[B]

Yeah. So much to look at.

[A]

At the very least, you could listen to these kind of episodes and Hear Stephen Translate 11 pages worth of content for you. So, again, Steven, thank you so much. Why don't. I guess we could round off. I don't really know what else we could do here unless we have some pieces together?

[B]

We have an anime recap.

[A]

Oh, I am.

[B]

We do not. We do not.

[A]

Okay. We do not have an anime recap. And I don't think we have any disputes really. So Randolph, right after this New year.

[B]

Same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus.

[A]

Fries and a medium soft drink for.

[B]

Just $8 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.

[A]

This has been episode 901 of the One Piece podcast for January 12, 2026. I'm still upset I wasn't able to come on last week, especially since I really enjoyed the episode. I I. So I want to give a thanks to Jeff and Miles and Greg for coming on. I'm not avoiding any of you. I'm not. Despite that pause. No, I'm really, I'm really not. I'm very upset I wasn't able to do it. But also I would have not been really conscious through that. It would have been interesting. So I guess you guys missed some interesting podcasting. But yeah, thank them so much. We have a manga chapter next week for for 1171. Excited for that. I am going to do my best not to get sick. Although I might not be able to come on that episode actually now that I'm thinking about it out loud. So, you know, cursed. I'm cursed, particularly the last few weeks. But you could check us out one piece podcast.com wherever you get your podcast. We have a Discord channel. I don't know if we talk about this enough, but you could join us on Discord. The link is on our podcast website. So yeah, join us for fun discussion and if you're a Patreon subscriber also you get to ask disc piece questions. We didn't get any last this week because I don't think anyone, including Steven, knew what we were doing until like 24 hours beforehand. So apologies for that. But Steven, where could people find you?

[B]

I'm over on Bluesky at StevenPaul BSky Social and when I am not healing my throat with a lozenge, you'll be able to read One Piece and Akane Banashi and all that good stuff. Next week Jump is coming back.

[A]

I forgot to tell you, while I was sick and meaning I should probably reread this, I did start Kurozumi. I can't pronounce it correctly. Your other series.

[B]

Oh yes, yes, Kurumizawa's Folly that is continuing as well Which I've been.

[A]

Which I'm enjoying. I mean, the first chapter is like 80 pages, so I read a few chapters. Yeah. So I still have a. There's been like, nine, right?

[B]

Yeah, I think we're up to 10 or 11 right now.

[A]

I love the style. It's great. And your translation, of course, is impeccable, as always. Thank you, Sam. So I just mentioned. Also, he's working on that. Steven's working on everything. Was there anything else I cut you off?

[B]

Nope.

[A]

Okay. Sam, where could people find you?

[B]

They can find me on bluesky, Csam.

[A]

And Sam, for you, I'm playing Wind Waker right now.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

As you know, I'm very much enjoying it, and I hate the controls, but, I mean, it's. I. I was telling Steve this before I started playing. I just want a One Piece game like that. I just want to sail around and make a crew and do some weird, you know, like, adventure stuff. That's. That's all I've really wanted in a One Piece game.

[B]

I've been playing a Fire Emblem Assault podcast.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

How dare you.

[A]

How dare you. You're just using Steven as background noise.

[B]

Like, everyone listening a personalized live podcast.

[A]

Yeah, it's a personalized. That's what it is. It's one you can interact with. It's like, oh, finally.

[B]

Like, you're. When you're listening to a podcast and you're like, oh, I really wish I could get a comment on, to be.

[A]

Fair, what the hosts are talking about.

[B]

I can just do that. Sam's living the life, and we didn't even get an anime recap out of it.

[A]

That is, I have to say. And Steven, I'm sure you feel this too, when you were not on for a week, like, and you have a thing that you're like, I have the answer to the thing you're thinking of. It's extra frustrating. And you know, as a podcaster, that you don't remember a word you said earlier in the episode, you know, that same episode. So I can't be like, steve, it was this you were thinking of the entire time, because he doesn't know what the hell I'm talking anyway. Kirsten, where could people find you?

[C]

You can find me on Instagram at K I R C A R E Y G T R. The last bit for guitar, because I play guitar. And you can find me on Blue sky if you delete the GTR bit.

[A]

No guitars. That's Blue Sky. It's very specific role.

[C]

Yeah, I actually did kind of have those divvied out when I was doing more freelance journalism as sort of like Instagram's where I put my music stuff, and Blue sky is where I put my journalism stuff. And now Blue sky is sort of where I throw the occasional shade at Jujutsu Kaisen.

[A]

Whoa, why are you doing that in front of Sam? Oh, Sam's on Blue sky too, and he could see those.

[C]

Actually, I lied. I threw my juju Kaisen shade on my Instagram stories.

[A]

Oh, okay, good. Those are temporary.

[C]

Yeah, those are temporary. You can find my music on Bandcamp if you want. I have a couple albums on Bandcamp the first Friday of some months as Bandcamp Friday, which, if you don't know, you can go to your favorite artist Bandcamp page and all the money will go directly to them. It's a lovely thing to know about, because Spotify is evil.

[A]

It's true. You can find us there.

[C]

You can find us on Spotify. You can find us on Spotify for now, too, but I might pull it off soon.

[A]

I'll say. What is it? They. They did the right thing after doing every other thing. What was it? I forget the saying, but I think they finally have Ice ads off. It just took them.

[C]

Oh, good.

[A]

I believe that that has happened. Don't quote me on this. I'm not, like, breaking news here, I hope, because Spotify sent me specifically an email about it. Now I think they've finally done the right thing. It just took them longer than one second, which is the amount of time it should have taken them to determine.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'll say our new sign off. We've replaced our phone number, which no longer exists, with Fuck ice, which I will once again, I think. Evergreen. Evergreen.

[C]

Evergreen.

[A]

Unfortunately, Evergreen Fuck Ice. Yes. Needs to be said as often and loudly as possible. Yeah. And I was just thinking, Bandcamp doesn't really have, like, a podcast platform to it, Right? As far as I know.

[C]

No, they don't.

[A]

Yeah. Because I would totally. You know, if you're listening, Bank Band Camp, hit me up. But in an email that's not clearly spam, please. Because those are hard to find because I get a lot of those. I get a lot of those. They look like they're not spam, but they're totally spam. And I think we have to end this the show, Especially with the big shocking reveal that Stephen gave with information about the One piece college basketball US voyage from January 23rd through March 4th, 2026. You could check out One Piece days. One Piece is teaming up with five US Colleges, College Basketball teams don't miss the exclusive exclusive experience. I should really get paid for this. Well, I'm not. But just stop.

[C]

But stop because you're not getting paid.

[A]

Stop because I'm not getting. But I've already said the part that is piquing everyone's interest like mine. You could check out One piece halftime shows in Rutgers or is that Gonzaga? Gu.

[B]

Yeah, I think. Yeah. Gonzaga was St. John's one of them.

[A]

Oh that's here. I used to go to St. John's games when I was a kid. Yeah, that might be because they have those in Madison Square Garden sometimes. The anyway, Illinois to be fair, I really enjoy college basketball. I just don't get time to watch sports usually because it is a time commitment and I'm too busy playing wind waker as I've determined before.

[B]

I mean honest, honestly college like college athletics the. Especially for basketball I think maybe more so than football like this. The people in the audience are going to be college students. That's probably pretty good. Pretty good audience for. For attracting One piece fans.

[A]

Yeah yeah I think this. Yeah, no I think it's. It's probably one of the better sporting event. The worst one is still though they did that college football USC one and I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one knew what the hell was happening there. Yeah there's also like One piece has become much more ubiquitous since that USC show. When was that even pre pandemic? Few years ago it was post pandemic anyway. Yeah, you could check out more information about that at one piece-base.com college basketball.

[C]

Or J. I didn't know that Shonen Jump had a college basketball team.

[A]

Yeah, well yeah. And Shaq is on it apparently. Yeah. And please pick up. Please support your local Shaquille o' Neal one shots. If you're reading like vote for them in the popularity poll because who knows the next great mangaka might come out of that. Or another major basketball player. Maybe the one of the Michael Jordan. Yes, we've heard of him or whoever else is in the next space jam.

[B]

Yeah, apparently ODA was also credited on a follow up which was the Reggie Miller story. So another basketball player from that same.

[A]

You know, I almost believed you until.

[B]

No, that's true. Reggie Miller is another. They did a Reggie Miller monogatari as well.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh okay. I'm not serious. Yeah. To be fair, Stephen doesn't joke around.

[B]

No, never.

[A]

That's. Yeah. No. Okay. Well Reggie Miller, Shaquille o', Neal, this is your invitation. Complete the talk to you. We want to talk to you, Michael. Dennis Rodman will be on the One Piece podcast. And no, God, that would be. This is the One Piece podcast. We'll see you next week, everyone. Goodbye.