Manga and pop-culture blog, The Eastern Edge, is currently in the process of translating a magazine interview conducted last year with Takehiko Inoue & Eiichiro Oda, the mangaka of Vagabond and One Piece respectively. While only a small portion of the talk has been translated so far, it already reveals an interesting bit of trivia.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Inoue: I was in Los Angeles around the time One Piece started and I was having Shonen Jump sent out to me. When I read One Piece chapter one, I remember thinking, “Wow, this is the start of a really good comic.” I thought it was a can’t miss piece of work. I hadn’t felt that way about a comic in a while so I made sure to follow it.
Oda: Around the time One Piece had just begun serialization, I saw a survey in a magazine asking famous people what comics interested them. In that survey, you had chosen One Piece and commented, “The creator really believes in his work”. I almost literally jumped for joy, I was so happy. I had a copy of that page pinned up at my work place for the longest time.
You can keep track of the translation progress here.
