One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda recently expressed his frustrations with the overly serious nature of modern shonen manga.
Oda expressed these views and more in a special joint interview held with Detective Conan creator, Gosho Aoyama. Part 1 of this interview was published recently in Weekly Shonen Jump, which serializes One Piece. The second and final part will appear in Weekly Shonen Sunday, which serializes Detective Conan. Translations of Part 1's highlights have been posted on Twitter from user @WSJ_manga. During the interview, Oda expressed his dissatisfaction with overly serious shonen manga, and stated that he is intentionally trying to keep One Piece from following that trend.
Towards the end of their lengthy interview, Oda and Aoyama asked one another what they each felt was the most 'decisive point' of their respective series. Aoyama chooses an intense confrontation that occurs between two major characters in Chapter 1009 of Detective Conan, while Oda picks a moment from One Piece Chapter 1044 where the true name of the Gomu-Gomu No Mi is revealed, and Luffy's body transforms through the power of Gear 5th. Even after Luffy's dramatic transformation, the character still sports a goofy facial expression. Oda explained why he did this.
"I drew this because I really want to have fun, and I think that it's okay if people don't like it," Oda said. "Since I was an assistant, I have felt that expressions that were so characteristic in manga have been gradually lost. Putting a light bulb in a character's head...or making the character's legs go in circles when they're running, for example."
When Aoyama agreed, Oda went into more depth about his views, including observations about modern action series.
"I have always loved those symbolic expressions, but they keep disappearing," Oda said."Battle manga has to keep getting more and more serious to keep up with readers' expectations and I honestly hate that. I definitely don't want my work to become a serious manga like that."
When Aoyama expressed how much he liked Gear 5th's design, Oda replied that "you can think of it as if it suddenly became Tom and Jerry."
Oda is currently working on the final arc of the One Piece manga, with its first chapter currently scheduled for release on July 25. VIZ Media is releasing the series in English. The One Piece anime can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
Source: Twitter