One Piece Creator Takes Leave After Death of Akira Toriyama

Very few intellectual properties manage to make a huge stamp on popular culture, that’s why it was such a devastating blow to audiences when Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama died in the beginning of March.

As it turns out, Toriyama’s death is having other artists take a look at their lifestyle—specifically One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. Shortly after the news of Toriyama’s death, Oda has decided to announce (via @screentime) that he will be taking a 3-week leave and will be contemplating the future of his hit series.

English translation: @pewpiece & @Inumaru08 pic.twitter.com/BSTa0QDHXO

— ScreenTime (@screentime) March 21, 2024

“I’ve been excessively worried about my health. It’s not an illness, btw. But I thought I want to take a break to do some self-maintenance on myself, and maybe take some time to think about what is One Piece.”

If you do any research on the manga industry and what it takes to bring a lot of popular series to life, it’s been a well known trend that the authors of these hit manga series are always under tremendous amounts of stress; what with having to make sure they can deliver weekly chapters.

Not to mention they also get asked for extra art work by their editors. Plus they constantly have to be laying out a story that their publishers want to run for as long as it possibly can. That’s how Toriyama ended up making  Dragon Ball for decades.

Let’s also not forget they have to be involved in the several collaborations/spinoffs of their work like video games, anime, and probably merchandise. Oda was even said to be involved with the live-action Netflix adaptation of One Piece.

With One Piece already surpassing 1000 chapters (and no end in sight), it would make sense for Oda to be thinking about his health and what he wants to do with his mega hit series. Should Luffy’s story finally end? Or should Oda keep it going while his heart is pumping and his hand can draw?