One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda is one of the most notorious workaholics in the manga business, and has had to take random breaks as of late. They aren’t nearly as frequent or as long as the Hunter x Hunter guy’s, but they can and do happen. A note was posted to social media that stated he’d be absent from the next three issues of Shonen Jump.
“Okay, so I’m taking three weeks for myself,” he starts out, admitting the timing is bad given recent events. “Yes, this is coming on the heels of the news about Toriyama-sensei. Yes, this could cause some unnecessarily excessive panic. But I am not unwell. And while it does have to do with my body, consider this a type of scheduled maintenance rather than anything else.”
He goes on: “More importantly, I think it’s about time I start figuring out what the ONE PIECE actually is! That’s going to keep me quite busy, I’ll have you know!”
Wait, does he really not know? Has he really been moving through this gigantic story without a real ending until now? The haters might think so, but we doubt it. It leaves three possibilities:
- The One Piece is exactly what we’ve been told it is — meaning this is a joke on Oda’s part. Gol D. Roger clearly said everything he had was gathered in one place. He says it every week in the opening sequence. Who is he fooling?
- The One Piece is some kind of Maguffin, not a literal treasure — this would feel like a retcon, because it would BE a retcon, but perhaps Roger had all his gold melted down into one gigantic statue of himself that Luffy has to go into 137th Gear just to lift. Or maybe he traded it for the single most valuable thing in the world. Maybe it gives you all the Devil Fruit powers at once….well, never mind, Roger wouldn’t have gotten arrested if that were the case.
- The One Piece is metaphorical — the least likely possibility. Oda said in a recent interview he despised the ending of The Wizard Of Oz, and how Dorothy and the gang didn’t really get anything tangible for all the trouble they went through. So no, “the friends we made along the way” will probably not be the real treasure.
Oda said earlier One Piece is entering its final saga, but that doesn’t mean the end is nigh — you and I both know the final arc will most likely be a looooong one. The manga resumes production in three weeks; all other One Piece things like the anime and the Netflix show will continue to cook along.
