Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece Manga Peeks Into the Past

Once a manga becomes really popular, we start to see callbacks to their past works. When Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family turned into a hit, Tistawas localized. Viz Media picked up  Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man: 17–21 and 22-26after Chainsaw Man. It feels only natural that now Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece, a compilation manga of other one-shots, is available in English now too. Like these other releases, it feels like a must-have because of the range and creativity it shows from one of the now most-famous mangaka in the world.

Editor’s Note: There will be no Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece manga spoilers below.

The Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece manga volume consists of four short stories called “Wanted,” “Future Present from God,” “Ikki Yako,” “Monsters,” and “Romance Dawn.” Of those, “Monsters” and “Romance Dawn” are probably the most interesting for those of us who love One Piece and are coming to this compilation. The former recently inspired a Netflix anime. The latter was the original Shonen Jump one-shot story that eventually became One Piece proper. But in their own way, each of these stories is fascinating due to both the storytelling and art. We can see Oda’s style and growth in every one. Each one is also followed by the author’s commentary, which I appreciated.

“Wanted” starts things out with an wild west themed piece about Gill Bastar. He’s an outlaw being hunted by the police and other folks, and one of the first things we is a wanted poster a la One Piece. Naturally, since this is an Oda story, Gill isn’t a bad guy. A goofy one, yes. It’s evident by a comical picture he struck for the aforementioned poster. We soon learn he killed in self defense, which is how he got the high bounty. He kills Wild Joe, a bounty hunter after him, and then ends up being trailed by his ghost, who he can see. The tale follows his brief adventure with Joe and encounter with another legendary bounty hunter. It sets the idea of a good-natured antihero wanted by authorities.

This continues a trend. “Future Present from God” involves another antihero. Branco is a thief who wants to go straight, but keeps stealing. God is watching, and he wants to teach him a lesson. But Branco steals the notebook seeing said punishments and witnesses them happen. However, as a result, Branco gets a chance to be a hero. Likewise, “Ikki Yako” follows Guko, a wandering monk, who is terrified by ghosts. However, he gets called upon to deal with a situation in a village, facing his fears and doing good for a community. 

In the case of “Monsters” and “Romance Dawn,” it’s really about seeing Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece manga series come to fruition. We get to see the general storyline, concept, characters, and execution. It’s an opportunity to clearly witness how one inspired the other. In the case of “Romance Dawn,” I found it fascinating to see exactly how true to the final product that early one shot was. Not to mention, I loved seeing how the tone for each remained consistent. 

I really love when Viz Media releases these types of manga compilations, and Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece is a delight to read. All of the works show us how the mangaka had sort of concepts and ideas for stories in mind that seemed to embody the One Piece vibe even before it happened. They’re all interesting enough to even sort of result in their own adaptations or larger, longer tales. (Something we even saw with Monsters.) I hope we continue to see Viz release these types of collections.

Wanted: Eiichiro Oda Before One Piece is available via Viz Media outside Japan.