Summary
VIZ Media will release Eiichiro Oda’s Wanted! in the fall, allowing foreign fans to see the author’s first works in official English. Want! is a collection of five short stories written by Oda before One Piece, providing insights into his creative process and the evolution of his artistic work. The release of Wanted! was released just in time, coinciding with renewed interest in One Piece and its creator due to multiple Oda-related adaptations, including Netflix’s successful live-action adaptation.
VIZ Media announced that Eiichiro Oda Want! coming west later this year in the Fall. The short story collection presents the author’s earliest works, many of which laid the foundation for his enduring masterpiece, A piece. This will be the first opportunity for foreign fans to see Oda’s previous work in official English and see what will eventually be assembled into Monkey D. Luffy’s vast ocean adventures. .
The book collects five short stories Oda wrote before starting One Piece. Together, they provide a unique insight into the author’s early days. While wanted! Originally published in 1998, an officially licensed English translation did not exist until this year.
The release seems to be timely amid renewed interest in One Piece and its creator, thanks to multiple Oda-related adaptations.
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Want! Shows Oda and Luffy in their humble beginnings
The short stories reveal the concepts that preceded and ultimately shaped One Piece.
Wanted Collection! includes the following five stories:
Want! God’s Present for the Future Ikki Yakō The Romantic Dawn Monster
The first story, which has the same title as the actual compilation, was Oda’s first manga, created in his junior year of high school and was submitted to the Tezuka Award. The remaining four stories shed light on Oda’s creative process, showing his evolving artwork and even prototypes of future One Piece characters, especially earlier sketches about Luffy when he appears in the story Romance Dawn. Meanwhile, Ryuma from Monsters appears to have been retconned for Zoro and One Piece’s subplot about the world’s greatest swordsmen. Between the stories are various commentaries written by Oda, expressing his thoughts on the creation of each story.
VIZ Media’s release of Wanted!, announced on their official X account, comes amid a wave of Oda-related adaptations led by Netflix. The streaming service has already launched a successful live-action adaptation and just last January debuted an E&H Production-created Monsters adaptation. Furthermore, it sponsored a reboot of the first parts of the story, produced by WIT Studio of Spy x Family fame titled The One Piece. For VIZ, it seemed like the time was right to strike while the iron was hot and give fans the unadulterated paperback Oda experience.
Currently, there is no sign of a new publication of Wanted! What form will it take, be it digital, physical or both. However, based on the X post, it can be inferred that the localization will use “Eiichiro Oda before One Piece” as the official subtitle, while the original anthology from Japan uses “Eiichiro Oda Short Stories”. While this is not a necessity to read One Piece, which surpasses any of Oda’s older stories in length, scope, and quality, Wanted! still offers the first opportunity in a long time to get more work from one of the anime industry’s most famous writers.
Source: VIZ Media (X account)
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