One Piece - Chapter 709 [manga] (NOTE: NO CHAPTER FOR TWO WEEKS)

[Vajra]

I wish Oda a speedy recovery, and not just for the fact I love One Piece but because being sick sucks

[Chiaki_chan]

good recovery
yes

[marvelB]

Originally Posted by philip72

Because unlike other mangaka, every stroke of Oda's pen on paper creates a thousand dollars. Each finished page subsidizes an editors annual wage.

The man is the sole reason why, unlike every other manga weekly out there, Jump is turning a profit. It's a meme in the industry to call Jump's Shueisha Jimbocho Building in Tokyo the One Piece Building. Each volume of One Piece now outsells the rest of the top 50 mangas, combined. One Piece volumes outsell even Harry Potter. At 280 million volumes and counting, as a whole, it's one of the best selling stories, ever, worldwide.
Oda now IS Japanese publishing.

So Oda kicking back his heels isn't like a normal mangaka or author taking a break. In a sense it's like if Apple shut down when Jobs got sick, or government stopping when the president is on vacation.
A year without Oda would mean curtains for Jump as he's currently their license to print money. It wouldn't be painful, it would be catastrophic.

Yes, yes, I got all that. However, the thing is that despite all the revenue Oda brings to his parent company, he's still, ya know, one man, not a robot. Dude's gotta have some rest sometime. His devotion to his work is admirable, that's for certain, but I just can't see any good coming out of literally working himself to death. I'm not championing him going on a Togashi-length hiatus (heaven forbid if he walks down that path), but I see no reason why giving him a little extra time off (as well as a revised work schedule that allows him more than 2-3 hours of sleep) wouldn't go amiss.....

[Magin]

After finally managing to catch up to the One Piece manga and having burned through tons of chapters at a time in order to do so... it's going to feel strange to not have any One Piece chapters to read for a while. But Oda more than deserves a ton of time off and to get well.

On the topic of mangakas and their work schedule... according to a chart I once saw, a regular weekly mangaka has an insane enough schedule as it is, between drawing up chapters and speaking with editors, essentially only getting a few hours of sleep a week. But for someone of Oda's stature, that schedule has to be 100x as insane (in fact, I often wonder how some of the big-name ones don't end up dead from overwork sometimes)

[golgo13]

Hope Oda will get well.

Any theories on the fairies? Also, I wonder if there is a DF power being the puppets being "alive", perhaps Law?

[Poetic Justice]

Any theories on who is on Thousand Sunny? I'm guessing more rebels of the island.

[marvelB]

^Personally, I'm thinking that our mystery stowaways are either those supposed "fairies" that exist on the island, or else more of those toy people (perhaps they could even be the friends/allies of the one=legged puppet dude).


Though speaking of fairies, I am rather curious about the identity of that sword thief.....

[aohige]

Originally Posted by philip72

Because unlike other mangaka, every stroke of Oda's pen on paper creates a thousand dollars. Each finished page subsidizes an editors annual wage.

The man is the sole reason why, unlike every other manga weekly out there, Jump is turning a profit. It's a meme in the industry to call Jump's Shueisha Jimbocho Building in Tokyo the One Piece Building. Each volume of One Piece now outsells the rest of the top 50 mangas, combined. One Piece volumes outsell even Harry Potter. At 280 million volumes and counting, as a whole, it's one of the best selling stories, ever, worldwide.
Oda now IS Japanese publishing.

So Oda kicking back his heels isn't like a normal mangaka or author taking a break. In a sense it's like if Apple shut down when Jobs got sick, or government stopping when the president is on vacation.
A year without Oda would mean curtains for Jump as he's currently their license to print money. It wouldn't be painful, it would be catastrophic.

What you say is true.
It's kinda scary that the fate of the industry hinges on one man right now.
The collapse of OP as a franchise would cause a domino effect affecting the entire entertaining industry in Japan, from publishing, television, to films.
Heck, in just the manga industry alone, One Piece sells more than the top six to eight titles combined.

However, I think they put way too much on his plate.
This is a good time for shuueisha to reconsider throwing so much work at Oda outside of the manga. Precisely because his well-being is perhaps their most important asset currently, they should do everything they can to keep the guy fresh, healthy, and in top spirit to continue.

No more movies, Oda. I'm sure Toei doesn't like that considering OP films with Oda on the team sells far, FAR better than OP movies they make on their own, but it's just way too much freakin' work for a weekly artist to take up.

[randomlex]

Originally Posted by aohige

What you say is true.
It's kinda scary that the fate of the industry hinges on one man right now.
The collapse of OP as a franchise would cause a domino effect affecting the entire entertaining industry in Japan, from publishing, television, to films.
Heck, in just the manga industry alone, One Piece sells more than the top six to eight titles combined.

However, I think they put way too much on his plate.
This is a good time for shuueisha to reconsider throwing so much work at Oda outside of the manga. Precisely because his well-being is perhaps their most important asset currently, they should do everything they can to keep the guy fresh, healthy, and in top spirit to continue.

No more movies, Oda. I'm sure Toei doesn't like that considering OP films with Oda on the team sells far, FAR better than OP movies they make on their own, but it's just way too much freakin' work for a weekly artist to take up.

I knew One Piece is selling better than the other mangas, but better than the other top 6 combined? That's pretty insane (and awesome)!

Makes me even more puzzled by the lackluster sales in other countries - a lot of countries haven't even licensed OP, and a lot of them dropped it after a short while...

[aohige]

2-3 hours thing was when he was working on the movie as well as serialization.

and

Mangaka are a little like scanlators.

LOL no. Not at all.
That totally underestimates the work load of weekly mangaka, it is no joke.

[SilverSyko]

Just out of curiosity aohige, do you know how many assistants Oda has working with him right now if any at all?

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

I'm actually inclined to agree with philip72 in that Oda's work schedule may be exaggerated. I thought that as of recently Oda only slept 3 hours a night, but now Aohige is saying that was during the production of film Z and weekly serialization. That means that his work schedule has gotten more manageable as of late. He works hard no doubt, but I sense some embellishment into these claims.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by SilverSyko

Just out of curiosity aohige, do you know how many assistants Oda has working with him right now if any at all?

Dunno how many, but he does have assistants. I doubt any more or less than average, probably half a dozen or so.

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

I'm actually inclined to agree with philip72 in that Oda's work schedule may be exaggerated. I thought that as of recently Oda only slept 3 hours a night, but now Aohige is saying that was during the production of film Z and weekly serialization. That means that his work schedule has gotten more manageable as of late. He works hard no doubt, but I sense some embellishment into these claims.

I'm sure it's manageable now, but he continues to do more outside work than what's expected of a mangaka.
And that's exactly why I think Shuueisha should rethink about lending him to Toei again.
The problem with One Piece is, the franchise relies on Oda himself's work too much - there's money gained when he's involved, so it's a tug-of-war.

Weekly serialization is the cream of the crop in manga field.
Most mangaka cannot even manage the workload on weekly basis, hell, some can't even on monthly basis.

[paradox13]

I don't think its possible for humans to operate or function if they are only sleeping 3 hours a night on a regular basis. Not even investment bankers or startup founders do that.

[marvelB]

Well, whether the news of his work hours are an exaggeration or not, I think it's pretty clear that Oda DOES tend to push himself quite a bit at some points, particularly when he's involved in projects like the movies. I remember back when Strong World came out he was juggling between stuff like interviews, making promotional art for the movie, drawing OP-related covers for different magazines aside from Jump, etc. So at the very least, I agree with Aohige that Oda's bosses should lighten his workload a tad, just to give the man a bit more breathing space....

[ronin myael]

the work of a mangaka is no joke, especially that of a weekly artist. the manga bakuman tells it all. oda is probably the most active manga artist ever! he continuously works to promote his series that's why one piece is the most beloved franchise in japan today. i guess he is kinda like luffy, he's always overreaching, always trying for the impossible just to see if it's possible. get well soon odacchi! hope you get the rest you need, we'll wait patiently until you are well enough to continue the manga.

[Lemongrab]

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

Any theories on who is on Thousand Sunny? I'm guessing more rebels of the island.

I have a feeling it's going to end up being the little girl from Doflamingo's crew who's on the Sunny. It'd make things pretty interesting if he sent her to gain the trust of those on the ship without them knowing who she is..

[Undertaker]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

I'm actually inclined to agree with philip72 in that Oda's work schedule may be exaggerated. I thought that as of recently Oda only slept 3 hours a night, but now Aohige is saying that was during the production of film Z and weekly serialization. That means that his work schedule has gotten more manageable as of late. He works hard no doubt, but I sense some embellishment into these claims.

He has tons of outside works as mentioned, also a HUGE workload comes from the color spread on JUMP as well.

If I remember correctly from a crosstalk way back between Toriyama and Oda, the touched up on how hard it is to produce color spread and cover and Oda was amazed on how Toriyama could manage 2 spread in like 6 month period.(or something like that) But for past few year OP has been on cover with color spread almost every month, I once saw a fan research on this on 2ch that past 5-10 year that almost 30% of JUMP's cover and color spread were OP, that in itself is a pretty crazy workload.

[randomlex]

Originally Posted by Undertaker

He has tons of outside works as mentioned, also a HUGE workload comes from the color spread on JUMP as well.

If I remember correctly from a crosstalk way back between Toriyama and Oda, the touched up on how hard it is to produce color spread and cover and Oda was amazed on how Toriyama could manage 2 spread in like 6 month period.(or something like that) But for past few year OP has been on cover with color spread almost every month, I once saw a fan research on this on 2ch that past 5-10 year that almost 30% of JUMP's cover and color spread were OP, that in itself is a pretty crazy workload.

Looks like someone learned how to use a computer .

But seriously, once the idea and colors are defined, the assistants can do all the work... Or am I missing something?

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by Undertaker

He has tons of outside works as mentioned, also a HUGE workload comes from the color spread on JUMP as well.

If I remember correctly from a crosstalk way back between Toriyama and Oda, the touched up on how hard it is to produce color spread and cover and Oda was amazed on how Toriyama could manage 2 spread in like 6 month period.(or something like that) But for past few year OP has been on cover with color spread almost every month, I once saw a fan research on this on 2ch that past 5-10 year that almost 30% of JUMP's cover and color spread were OP, that in itself is a pretty crazy workload.

But that work can't be as much as the actual chapters themselves. That's where the brunt of his workload comes from. And it's not like he does everything by himself; he has assistants as well, just like other mangaka.

Either way, hopefully he won't strain himself too hard from now on. Health comes before work, and Oda can definitely afford to ease up a bit.