An entire generation has grown up with comics or the animated television series of One Piece. Millions of people around the world have followed the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy to become the king of the pirates. The most faithful have devoured a manga With more than 515 million copies in circulation in 61 countries, the best selling in history. Others have not missed any of the more than 1,000 episodes of the series. And the most fans have played all the video games in popular online forums.
The phenomenon has now reached Netflix as a live-action which is also breaking records on the platform: One Piece is already the number one series in 84 countries. There are eight chapters in which so many things happen at the same time that there is no time to get bored of the plot starring the pirate with the straw hat. The role of Luffy is played by a young Mexican actor named Iñaki Godoy, who recently received the approval from the creator of the original manga.
Netflix published a video about a relaxed meeting between Godoy and the Japanese mangaka – comic creator – Eiichiro Oda. All good, except for one detail that has not gone unnoticed among followers: at no point in the video does Oda’s face appear. Instead, the drawing of a fish. There are few who put a face to the father of One Piece. There are some old images that were leaked years ago on the Internet. But the creator never shows his face in the few interviews he grants nor in the videos in which he appears.
It was in 2016 when Eiichiro Oda (46 years old) appeared on television in his country for the first time. An entertainment program had summoned him to give him a Borussia Dortmund shirt signed by one of the then stars of the German team, the Japanese Shinji Kagawa. When filming began, viewers found a man sitting with his back to the camera. The presenter explained that Oda agreed to appear on the program on the condition of don’t show your face.
In other interviews with the author, when they focus on him in full body, his face is covered with the drawing of the fish. This week, Oda has been in Los Angeles promoting the Netflix series and gave an interview to the New York Times. “It is extremely reserved and he does not allow his face to be photographed,” the newspaper clarifies. In the photo that heads the story, he poses from behind, holding the characteristic hat worn by the protagonist of a manga that first appeared in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shonen Jump in July. of 1997.