"You want my treasure? You can have it! I left everything I gathered together in one place! Now you just have to find it!"
These words lured men to the Grand Line in pursuit of dreams greater than they've ever dared to imagine! This is the time known as the Great Pirate Era!
Welcome to the best-selling single-author comic in the world, as acknowledged by the Guinness World Records themselves.
One Piece began as a manga series written by Eiichiro Oda since 1997, and in 1999, it was adapted into an ongoing popular anime series produced by Toei Animation. The story chronicles the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, an ambitious yet kind and rather dense young man who has eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit (Gomu Gomu no Mi), turning him into a Rubber Man. He dreams of following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, Captain "Red-Haired" Shanks, by becoming a great pirate. In fact, he plans to find the titular treasure and become the new "Pirate King." Said treasure was left by Gold Roger, the greatest pirate who ever lived and the previous Pirate King, and his dying words have spurred the world of One Piece into an age of piracy, as pirates from all around the world set sail for the Grand Line, the place where the One Piece is most likely hidden.
To obtain his goal of becoming Pirate King, Luffy has assembled one of the strongest (not to mention weirdest) pirate crews in the world, consisting of:
- Roronoa Zoro: The swordsman. A cool, snarky, lazy former Bounty Hunter with an impossibly bad sense of direction and unbelievable super strength. He is the creator of the Three Swords Style of swordsmanship ("santoryu"), carrying one in each hand and one in his mouth. Proves wise at times, and questionably sane at others. His goal is to become the world's greatest swordsman by defeating the current title holder, Dracule "Hawkeye" Mihawk.
- Nami: A sly, spunky thief, master manipulator, and outstanding navigator who dreams of making a map of the entire world. She's quite greedy and obsessed with cash, often conning other characters, even her own crewmates. Possesses an instinctive ability to predict the weather that borders on the supernatural, which later becomes the basis of her combat techniques.
- Usopp: A long-nosed, cowardly sharpshooter with a penchant for bragging and telling tall tales. He dreams of becoming a great warrior of the sea, much like his father, with the side goal of visiting Elbaf, an island of giants and a "warrior's paradise".
- Sanji: The sharp-dressed, girl-crazy, chain-smoking chef of the crew. Master of the Black Leg technique, with kicks strong enough to shatter boulders into dust. For the sake of elevating his cooking, he dreams of finding the All Blue, a sea where the four "regular" seas (not counting the Grand Line) converge, which therefore holds every species of fish in the world.
- Tony Tony Chopper: A young, naive, and adorable reindeer who consumed the Human-Human Fruit (Hito Hito no Mi), giving him sapience and a humanoid form. After a series of mishaps, he was adopted by quack doctor Hiriluk (and later mentored by grand doctor Kureha), becoming an expert doctor. He joined the Straw Hats to fulfill his dreams of becoming a doctor that can cure any disease, and to become his own reindeer/man.
- Nico Robin: Unflappable mystery lady, archaeologist, former agent/assassin of Baroque Works who ate the Flower-Flower Fruit (Hana Hana no Mi), and is the only survivor of Ohara. She's been ruthlessly hunted by the World Government since childhood, with a bounty placed on her head at the tender age of 8 years old. She dreams of finding the Rio Poneglyph, an enormous stone block that holds the secrets to the world's "Void Century
", an unexplained 100-year gap in history. - Franky: The crew's resident shipwright/cyborg/engineer/speedo enthusiast. He runs on cola, and dreams of making an invincible ship that can sail to the edge of the world. Shows his approval through much gesticulating and cries of "SUPER!"
- Brook: A fencing musician skeleton with an afro, a weird sense of humor, an odd obsession with seeing women's panties, and the power to come back from the dead. Once. After he's already decayed to a skeleton. He dreams of reuniting with Laboon, a whale his crew befriended before leaving for the Grand Line, and betrayed by dying before returning to him as promised.
- Jimbei: A whale-shark fishman who is a master at Fishman Karate. Formerly one of the Seven Warlords, certain events that transpired would lead to him becoming the Helmsman of the crew. His dream is to fulfill his former captain Fisher Tiger's dying wish of coexistence and equality between humans and fishmen.
Together, the group of True Companions known as the Straw Hat Pirates travels the world, making their way to and through the Grand Line, facing villainous rival pirate groups, Marine forces, and corrupt elements of the World Government. Much of the mysteries surrounding the events of the storyline concern not only where Gold Roger hid his treasure, but why he did, what happened in the True History of the world, why the World Government wants to hide it, and what "One Piece" actually is.
The big gimmick to the series is that many characters, including Luffy, have consumed a "Devil Fruit". Devil Fruits are mysterious fruits that grant the sole consumer incredible powers, at the cost of the consumer losing their ability to swim by draining their energy when submerged in water. Luffy, for example, has eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit (or the Gomu Gomu no Mi if you're feeling Japanophilic), turning him into a Rubber Man capable of stretching his body like elastic. The powers granted by the other Devil Fruits are a varied bunch, from producing natural soap to transforming into a giraffe-human hybrid, to becoming a being made of living ice.
It has numerous specific pages:
- Due to its humongous cast, the series has fifty-nine character sheets. Please move any character tropes to the proper pages. If there is a One Piece character, they must be in that index somewhere.
- Its very own podcast, with its own page here.
- The podcast went to Japan and filmed a documentary about One Piece here.
- The podcast went to Japan and filmed a documentary about One Piece here
- A comedy spinoff!
- Its own 7,000+-article-large wiki which covers every conceivable aspect of One Piece, both in fiction and fact.
- Its own recap page for the manga; please move any tropes from specific chapters, episodes, and arcs to that page.
- The manga even has its own country, its own congress, its own ice cream flavor,
and its own restaurant. No, really.
Joking aside, it's no exaggeration at all to say that One Piece is the Dragon Ball of the early 21st century,note and the single biggest and most influential manga franchise in a generation.
The anime has had a troubled distribution history in America. In 2004, 4Kids Entertainment dubbed the first 142 episodes (edited into 104 episodes), but the dub ended in 2006 and stopped being rerun in 2008. It returned to U.S. airwaves from May 18, 2013 to March 18, 2017 via Toonami on [adult swim],note this time being dubbed by Funimation. Funimation's English dub, which has covered 1000 episodes and counting, has become one of the longest anime dubs in history. At the time, the show was also streaming on VIZ Media's Neon Alley service, and Funimation had the episodes they acquired on their website available for members to stream, with only episodes 1 through 205 dubbed, probably because they wanted people to watch the dubbed episodes 206 onward on Toonami instead. The series would later join Netflix after its run ended on Toonami in 2018. However, in 2022, it was announced One Piece would rejoin the Toonami block once more, much to the shock and joy of fans. In December 2020, the series got its own channel on the Pluto TV app, though in this case sub only.note Needless to say, you have a lot of options on where to catch the series now.
But wait, there's more. It seems that Hollywood took an interest in the series as, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the franchise on July 21, 2017, it was announced that One Piece would be getting a live-action television series from Tomorrow Studios (the same ones who produced the Cowboy Bebop live-action series), co-executive produced by Oda along with Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements. Nearly three years later, on January 29, 2020, Oda himself announced the show would be airing on Netflix, with an eight-episode order for the first season. In late 2021, five of the show's leads were officially cast. The series premiered on August 31, 2023.
Oda announced in August 2019 that he was planning to end the manga at some point between 2024 and 2025, and in August 2020, Shueisha announced the story was "headed toward the upcoming final saga." Indeed, on June 8, 2022, it was announced the final saga would commence in chapter 1054.
At Jump Festa 2024, it was announced that One Piece would be receiving a second anime by WIT Studio and Netflix titled The One Piece, set to run concurrently with the original.
If you haven't read the manga, there are spoilers below.
Due to length, the trope examples list has been split into sub-pages:
- Tropes A to B
- Tropes C to D
- Tropes E to F
- Tropes G to J
- Tropes K to M
- Tropes N to P
- Tropes Q to S
- Tropes T to Z
