In the west, manga has done nothing but grow in popularity over the years, slowly taking larger and larger areas of comic book convention floors. Nowadays you’d be hard-pressed to find someone that hasn’t at least heard of Goku, becoming almost as much of a household name as Superman. The fact is, manga is insanely loved around the entire globe, spanning between cultural and language divides. With its rising interest around the entire planet, one might wonder where to start, looking to see which manga has sold best. Well, believe it or not, the number one selling manga in the world is none other than One Piece.
For those unfamiliar, One Piece follows the story of Monkey D. Luffy as he adventures across the ocean (the Grand Line) in search of the world’s ultimate treasure, known as “One Piece,” in an effort to become the next King of the Pirates. Overly optimistic and full of joy, Luffy has incredible rubber-like abilities gained from eating a magical Devil Fruit, which he puts to great use on his journey. Along the way, he meets up with a colorful cast of characters, many of whom join Luffy on his mission to form his own pirating crew known as the Straw Hats. Being a story about a treasure hunt, the story is wide open to never-ending swashbuckling adventures as the crew looks for the infamous treasure of all treasures.
One Piece first launched back on July 22, 1997, not stopping since, and to this day has hit a total of 97 volumes as of September 2020. The manga is written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda and has even set the Guinness World Record for “the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author.” As of this last April, One Piece had over four hundred and seventy million copies in circulation in forty-three different countries around the globe, making it the best-selling manga series ever. The series has spawned a wide array of various merch (such as this amazing clothing collab with Kappa) and media, including video games, a world-famous anime adaptation, and soon a live-action version by Netflix. It has actually reached such popularity that even Gucci recognizes the characters stardom, using them as models for one of this year’s fashion lookbooks.
While it may be surprising to some to hear that One Piece is the world’s top-selling manga, not Dragon Ball or Naruto, but to fans of the series, it seems pretty obvious. In fact, the never-ending journey of the Straw Hat Pirates has actually become somewhat of an “in” joke amongst the fans, leading to memes and satires galore. With the whole objective of the story being that Luffy is on the hunt for the One Piece, it seems that the crew is always just one step away from finally reaching their goal, and boy have they just been one step away for a long long time, twenty-three years long. Despite that mass popularity that has driven the series to carry on for so long, all good things must come to an end, and back in August 2020, it was announced that One Piece was approaching its final arc.
If you like pirates, globe-trotting treasure-seeking adventures, wacky characters, and even wackier superpowers, One Piece might just be the manga for you, and you can just take the word of the millions of hardcore fans worldwide. There is a definite reason that this is the number one selling manga in history, and if you don’t know already, it might be time to find out.