Eiichiro Oda

In 2018, it was revealed that Oda gifted Kumamoto Prefecture 800 million yen (US$8 million) after it suffered a damaging earthquake in 2016 that even affected its iconic Kumamoto Castle. Oda's 800 million yen donation was offered in two separate gifts, one for 500 million yen under Luffy's name and a second donation of 300 million yen. Eiichiro Oda is a long-time supporter of the earthquake-stricken area, writing supportive messages, contributing art for local products, and participating in the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Reconstruction Project.

Oda referred to Masashi Kishimoto as both a friend and a rival. For the title page illustration of One Piece chapter 766, which ran in 2014's 50th issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump alongside the final two chapters of Kishimoto's Naruto, Oda included a hidden message and other tributes in the art. Kishimoto himself also made a tribute in the ending of Naruto where the character Boruto Uzumaki makes a drawing of the Straw Hat Jolly Roger on a mountain.

Additionally, individual volumes of One Piece have broken publishing records in Japan. Volume 56 received the highest initial print run of any manga, 2.85 million copies, in 2009. Volume 57's print of 3 million in 2010 was the highest first print for any book in Japan, not just manga. A record that was broken several times by subsequent volumes and currently held by 67's 4.05 million initial printing in 2012. In 2013, the series won the 41st Japan Cartoonists Association Award Grand Prize, alongside Kimuchi Yokoyama's Nekodarake Nice.

In 2009, a woman was arrested for sending roughly one hundred threatening emails to Oda between September to December 2007. The woman's husband was an assistant at Oda's office who had been dismissed.

In a 2008 poll, conducted by marketing research firm Oricon, Oda was elected fifth most favorite manga artists of Japan. He shared the place with Yoshihiro Togashi, creator of YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter. In their 2010 poll on the Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga, Oda came in fourth.

Oda and Akira Toriyama created a 2007 crossover one-shot called Cross Epoch, that contains characters from Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Oda's One Piece. In 2013, they each designed a Gaist character for the video game Gaist Crusher.

In 2004, Oda married Chiaki Inaba, who had played Nami during Jump Festa One Piece stage performances.

In 1997, One Piece began serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump and has become not only one of the most popular manga in Japan, but the best-selling manga series of all time. It sold 100 million collected tankōbon volumes by February 2005, over 200 million by February 2011, had 320,866,000 copies printed worldwide by December 2014, 430 million volumes in circulation worldwide as of October 2017, 440  million copies sold as of May 2018 and 450  million in print as of March 2019.

During this time, Oda drew two pirate-themed one-shot stories called "Romance Dawn", which were published in Akamaru Jump and Weekly Shōnen Jump respectively in late 1996. "Romance Dawn" featured Monkey D. Luffy as the protagonist, who then became the protagonist of One Piece.

Eiichiro Oda (Japanese: 尾田 栄一郎 , Hepburn: Oda Eiichirō, born January 1, 1975) is a Japanese manga artist known as the creator of the series One Piece (1997–present). With more than 473  million tankōbon copies in circulation worldwide, One Piece is both the best-selling manga and the best-selling comic series of all time, in turn making Oda one of the best-selling fiction authors. The series' popularity resulted in Oda being named one of the manga artists that changed the history of manga.

Eiichiro Oda was born on January 1, 1975 in Kumamoto, Japan. He said that at age four he resolved to become a manga artist in order to avoid having to get a "real job". His biggest influence is Akira Toriyama and his series Dragon Ball. He recalls that his interest in pirates was probably sparked by the popular TV animation series titled Vicky the Viking. He submitted a character named Pandaman for Yudetamago's classic wrestling manga Kinnikuman. Pandaman was not only used in a chapter of the manga but would later return as a recurring cameo character in Oda's own works.