Move over, Avengers: Infinity War, One Piece is set to steal the crossover crown for comic book characters.As Eiichiro Oda's hugely popular manga series approaches its 1,000 chapter milestone in two weeks' time, Weekly Shonen Jump will reportedly publish a special side-story crossover to mark the occasion. According to an unofficial news source on Twitter for Shueisha's famous manga magazine, this story, which will run in Issue 5/6, will include every "main character" from each currently serialized title in Shonen Jump.
Though no stranger to crossovers, this will be a colossal one for One Piece -- and every single other property that's about to collide with the Straw Hat pirates' world. Most notably, the series previously crossed over with Akira Toriyama's equally-beloved Dragon Ball in the "Cross Epoch" manga one-shot, as well as in Episode 590 of the One Piece anime series. One Piece characters have also featured in various Shonen Jump-based video games alongside other prominent favorites from the magazine.
Before the upcoming side story's release, one of the series' more recent collaborations was with Jump's Food Wars!, which remodeled the Straw Hat chef, Sanji, through the lens of the culinary series' creative team (Yūto Tsukuda, Shun Saeki and Yuki Morisaki).
First published in 1997, Oda's nautical fantasy adventure is the highest-selling comic book series of all time, though not the longest-running by a long-shot. It is, however, the longest-running title still being published in Weekly Shonen Jump, and if comments from its creator are to be believed, it still has another five years left before it finally disembarks from the publication's pages for good.
There has been no confirmation as of yet on whether or not the upcoming One Piece crossover will be made available to read outside of Japan.
New chapters of One Piece are simulpublished in English by Viz Media and release every Sunday via the Shonen Jump app and website. New episodes of the One Piece anime series are simulcast every Saturday (ET) by Crunchyroll, and are also available for streaming on Funimation.