Manga

Manga One Piece

The most popular manga series of all time in Japan and one of the most popular manga series worldwide, is the highest-selling manga in the history of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has received wide critical acclaim, primarily for its art, characterization, humor and story. It now currently ranks at number one for the best-selling manga in history.

One Piece is also the first manga to increase Weekly Shōnen Jump's sales in eleven years. Volume 61 holds a manga publishing record in Japan, with 3.8 million copies published in its first printing alone, breaking its own previous records established by volumes 57, 59 and 60 (at 3.0, 3.2 and 3.4 million copies respectively). In addition to that, it also broke Japan's all time first print publishing record of all books, passing the previous record of 2.9 million copies, held by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.Overall, the series has re-written Japanese record for first print manga publication 9 times with Volumes 24, 25, 26, 27, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61 and 63. The first week sales of volume 60, at 2,094,123 copies, also broke the Japanese all-time sales record for all books in its debut week, and is currently the only book to reach the 2 million mark in its first week. It is also currently the highest selling manga series of all time in Japan with over 230 million copies sold, and the fastest manga series to reach sales of 100 million. One Piece was the best-selling manga series during 2008 in Japan with 5,956,540 volumes sold. Volumes 50, 51 and 49 placed first, second, and fourth, respectively, on Oricon's list of best selling manga volumes, with sales of 1,678,208, 1,646,978, and 1,544,000 copies sold respectively. Additionally, Oricon conducted a popularity survey with Japanese male and female readers between with ages ranging from ten to forty to determine the "Most Interesting Manga of 2008". In that survey, the four One Piece volumes published that year, volumes 49, 50, 51, and 52, placed first with an approval rating of 45.9%.[1] In ICv2's list of "Top 25 Manga Properties Fall 2008", One Piece made a 15th place. In 2010 One Piece had improved to 2nd in ICv2's list of "Top 25 Manga Properties—Q3 2010". 

According to Anime News Network, which gathers its rankings for Oricon, One Piece maintained its top spot in 2009 with 14,721,241 copies sold, more than second [Naruto] and third place [Bleach] combined. The four volumes released during that time frame 53, 54, 52, 55 ranked 1–4 respectively for single volume sales. 

In 2010 One Piece again maintained its top spot with 32,343,809 copies sold, more than second Naruto, third Kimi ni Todoke, fourth Fairy Tail, fifth Bleach and sixth Fullmetal Alchemist combined. 

ANN comments that the art style of the One Piece manga requires "time to get used to" with its "very simple" artwork and its designs, which appear "very cartoonish" at first. They also note that the influence of Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) shines through in Oda's style of writing with its "huge [sic] epic battles punctuated by a lot of humor" and that, in One Piece, he creates a "rich tale" without focusing too much on plot. Active Anime describes the art work in One Piece as "wonderfully quirky and full of expression". Splashcomics comments that Oda's "pleasantly bright and dynamic" (German: "angenehm hell und dynamisch") art style suits the story's "funny and exciting" (German: "witzigen und ... spannenden") atmosphere. 

EX lauds Oda's art for its "crispy" monochrome pictures, "great use of subtle shade changes" on color pages, "sometimes exquisite" use of angles, and for its consistency. Shaenon K. Garrity, who at some point edited the series for Shonen Jump, said that, while doing so, her amazement over Oda's craft grew increasingly. She states that "he has a natural, playful mastery of the often restrictive weekly-manga format", notes that "interesting things [are] going on deep in the narrative structure", and recommends "sticking through to the later volumes to see just how crazy and Peter Max-y the art gets." Mania Entertainment writer Jarred Pine comments that "One Piece is a fun adventure story, with an ensemble cast that is continuing to develop, with great action and character drama." He lauds Oda's artwork as "imaginative and creative" and comments that "Oda's imagination just oozes all of the panels". He also comments that "Oda's panel work [...] features a lot of interesting perspectives and direction, especially during the explosive action sequences which are always a blast", though he complains that the panels can sometimes get "a little chaotic". 

The North American releases of the English translation of volumes 39–43 debuted at #5–9 on the New York Times Best Seller Manga list.

One Piece's 60th volume held the fastest selling record until in February 2011, the manga beat its own record with its 61st volume, selling 2,086,080 copies in 3 days after its official sale (Feb 4–6).