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The One Piece Gallery

One drawing, two countries, and a shelf that now runs to 114 volumes.

One Piece is the best selling manga series ever published, and its covers tell that story in miniature. The same Volume 1 illustration crossed the Pacific and came back wearing a different frame. The debut magazine issue became so valuable that Shueisha reprinted it, and the Library keeps a page on telling the two apart. And in March 2026 the jacket band of Volume 114 carried the biggest number in manga history. Every cover below is a door.

VOLUME 1, IN JAPAN AND AMERICA

Shueisha 1997 · Viz 2003

One Piece, Vol. 1: Romance Dawn

Same illustration · Different frame

One Piece volume 1 Japanese cover, Luffy Zoro and Nami on the ship rail — Japan · Shueisha · December 1997Jump Comics banner at the top, the logo in black and red, and the subtitle ROMANCE DAWN printed under it. Eiichiro Oda's name sits at the foot in blue.

One Piece volume 1 American cover, the same illustration inside a gold map frame — America · Viz · 2003The first Viz edition sets the identical illustration inside a gold frame over a faint sea chart, adds the Shonen Jump Graphic Novel banner, and gives the volume a large numeral 1.

The art never changed. Luffy, Zoro and Nami ride the rail in both countries, seagulls and all. What changed is everything around the picture: the banner, the frame, the branding, and the six years between the two editions. That is the honest shape of this series in English. The drawing is Oda's; the packaging belongs to each market.

THE ISSUES AND THE LATEST VOLUME

1997 · 2022 · 2026

A physical copy of Weekly Shonen Jump 1997 No.34, the One Piece debut issue

The debut issue · 1997

Weekly Shonen Jump 1997 No.34, where chapter 1 ran. Shueisha's 2017 facsimile matches its cover, so this Library documents the interior tells that separate an original from the reprint.

Weekly Shonen Jump 2022 No.17 cover, Sakamoto Days, the Gear 5 issue

The Gear 5 issue · 2022

Weekly Shonen Jump 2022 No.17 carries chapter 1044, the first Gear 5. The cover belongs to Sakamoto Days, which is exactly how you identify the issue.

One Piece volume 114 Japanese cover, the God Valley cast

Volume 114 · 2026

The latest volume on this shelf. Its jacket band announced the number no manga had ever reached: over 600 million copies published worldwide.

THE STORY BEHIND THE COVERS

The questions

Two prototype drafts in one summer, a five year plan, and the twenty-nine year run that followed.

The pirate one-shot Oda drew twice in 1996, a year before the series. Two drafts, and two different men hand Luffy the straw hat.

How Oda Makes It

Storyboards first, every moving thing drawn by Oda himself, and a book of ideas kept since childhood.

The Ending Statements

A last panel decided decades ago, a treasure he insists is real, and finish dates that all moved.

The question corner between the chapters, running since Volume 4, and the childhood promise behind it.

The first opening was sung by a man who was only hired to record the temporary vocal. It saved his career.

Why is One Piece getting a new anime from WIT Studio?The One Piece shelf

MORE FROM THE ONE PIECE ARCHIVE →

One shelf of eighty-two in the Library. Browse them all →