Strong World propelled One Piece from popular manga to cultural phenomenon

Original post: November, 2017

Made by swans-anime-ramblings

I just got done listening to the latest episode of the One Piece podcast, where the official translator for One Piece in Weekly Shonen Jump, Stephen Paul, reads through the interview with Oda and his editors from the One Piece magazine. 

It was a REALLY long podcast, but I’m also glad to have listened to all of it because it gave some really fascinating insight into Oda, the process of making One Piece and the origins of One Piece. 

One part that stuck out to me was the section on Strong World. If you listen to the OP podcast, that part starts at about 1 hour 21 minutes in. I was told and believed that it was Water 7 which made people go nuts for One Piece and was responsible for the crazy obsession in Japan. 

Not quite the case, apparently.

(Note, I transcribed Steven Paul’s words here from the Podcast, and edited them ever so slightly to make sense. I didn’t put in his pauses or when he said words twice)

Oda: At the time, the movies were getting a bit stale. They were having trouble, they weren’t getting the results they had in the past. So something needed to change. So the very first producer of the anime came to me. For my part, I am perfectly happy to leave the anime and movies to those who are in charge of them, but at the same time, they are a very important promotional tool and I was worried about the image that it sets if they stop making the movies. Does that have a knock down effect of the anime? And if the anime stopped would that have a negative effect on the original story? So I didn’t want there to be this chain of failures. So we talked with the editor-in-chief and made the decision to get super involved in this movie.

*Then a little bit later*

Editor: Thanks to Oda’s hard work and the success of that movie, that was the point One Piece jumped to a new plateau. It was always a very popular series and number 1 in the magazine, but at that point it was an explosion.

the interview goes on to detail the after affects of Strong World, and how marketing for One Piece became an all consuming machine. Those working on and with One Piece felt they had to “strike while the iron was hot”. Every opportunity they had to put out merchandise or insert OP into something, they took it. The interview also mentioned that they were putting games out every 3 months during that time.

It was insane. 

Obviously, I would never be presumptuous enough to say the reason for Strong World’s success is because of “LuNa”. To make that sort of claim, we’d have to survey the Japanese audience at the time and ask them “why did you like Strong World?” and a vast majority would have to say, “because of LuNa”.  And getting that answer from Strong World movie goers seems unlikely to me.

I think Strong World’s success in Japan has to do with the fact that Oda wrote this movie, and that it’s a REALLY GOOD movie. It’s got Oda’s whacky humor, ties to the main story, shows really cool visuals and has some badass fights. I think it encapsulates all the reasons that make One Piece such a compelling story, and I’m sure many people were hungry for more when they left the theater. 

There is something to be considered about Strong World, however. Regardless of whether you ship LuNa or see SW as “shippy”, it’s impossible to deny that Strong World is anchored in Luffy and Nami’s relationship, even if that relationship is strictly “just friends”. As a character, Nami is the one front and center and Strong World is told through her and Luffy’s point-of-view. 

I think what Strong World does show us is that people (namely the main audience who is Japanese) are interested in a story about these two characters and feel invested in them. If people didn’t like that type of relationship based story from One Piece, the movie wouldn’t have been as successful, and it wouldn’t have propelled One Piece from a very popular story to something that’s been ingrained into every aspect of Japanese culture. 

Strong World’s anchor is in the “potent pairing” (as Warlordgab would say) of Luffy and Nami, and it makes sense that Oda revisits their relationship in the One Piece narrative. It makes me feel hopeful that we’ll continue to see more of Luffy and Nami in the future.

I also recommend you check out the podcast! Oda had lots of interesting things to say!

Link to the podcast:
http://www.onepiecepodcast.com/2017/11/19/episode-496-horrifying-fish-head/