New One Piece special will premiere on December

Following the special we had around Nami, FujiTV announced that a television anime special, One Piece Episode of Luffy: Hand Island no Bōken (One Piece Episode of Luffy: The Hand Island Adventure), will air on Saturday, December 15 at 9:00 p.m. One Piece anime airs on Sunday mornings.

 These specials serve as a tie in for the upcoming movie One Piece Z, which premieres also on December 15. Author Eichiro Oda is supervising the scripts.

The story of the Hand Island no Bōken special is set a little before the events of One Piece Film Z and depicts a major "Hand Island" incident during the New World storyline. The story is set at "Cannon Town" where a parent and a child work as craftspeople. The incident revolves around them and a commodore of a marine base. The special will also have a flashback scene to the story in the first chapter of the manga, but with new animation.

One Piece is the most sold manga in the history of Shonen Jump magazine

Japanese publisher Shueisha published their all time top 10 best selling manga titles from Weekly Shonen Jump magazine by volume sales in their advertising guide, as of February of 2012:

'Nuff said, One Piece exceeds them all by far. 

Source: ANN

One Piece manga volume 67 breaks all time first print record in Japan!

4.05 million copies sold!!

Only followed by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by 2.9 million when it was released!

Saiyan Island has compiled a list of the first print numbers for the last 12 One Piece manga volumes. As you can see, the numbers just keep on increasing!

One Piece Manga Volume 67 – 4.05 million
One Piece Manga Volume 66 – 4.0 million
One Piece Manga Volume 65 – 4.0 million
One Piece Manga Volume 64 – 4.0 million
One Piece Manga Volume 63 – 3.9 million
One Piece Manga Volume 62 – 3.8 million
One Piece Manga Volume 61 – 3.8 million
One Piece Manga Volume 60 – 3.4 million
One Piece Manga Volume 59 – 3.2 million
One Piece Manga Volume 58 – 3.1 million
One Piece Manga Volume 57 – 3.0 million
One Piece Manga Volume 56 – 2.85 million

 To date, 270 million copies of the One Piece manga series have been printed, the largest number ever by a Shueisha manga series in Japan!

Sailor Moon manga soars again in U.S bookstores! Naruto at #3

The fifth volume of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga ranked #2 in Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for May, only to be beaten by The Avengers: The Ultimate Guide to the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which took the #1 spot.

Whereas the 56th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto manga ranked at #3. The other two manga volumes in the top 20 are the 62nd volume of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece (#13) and the ninth volume of Yana Toboso's Black Butler (#16). The same volume of Black Butler had ranked at #14 in April.

source: ANN

One Piece's Eichiro Oda and Naruto's Masashi Kishimoto to redraw Kingdom manga!

AMAZING AND EPIC!!

One Piece creator Eichiro Oda and Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto are both participating in the "Social Kingdom" campaign in Japan to celebrate the upcoming television anime adaptation of Yasuhisa Hara's historical manga Kingdom.

 Manga creators, celebrities, and voice actors from the anime adaptation are contributing to the project to redraw the 26th volume of the Kingdom manga. Anyone with a Twitter or Facebook account can also participate. 

Participants select one of the about 1,000 panels from the book, redraw Hara's illustrations, and upload the art to create a new version of the manga.

Here's the link to participate:
http://socialkingdom.jp/

 Here are some samples of the redrawn panels:

 The campaign's creators plan to submit the "Social Kingdom" project to Guinness World Records as the "Manga Written by the Most People." The manga's story begins with Xin and Hyō, two boys without families in the Warring States Period when China has been embroiled in war for five centuries. Despite living like slaves, the boys strive to realize their dream of becoming warlords.

source: ANN

One Piece won the 41st Japan Cartoonist Awards

The Japan Cartoonists Association of manga creators announced the winners of the 41st Japan Cartoonist Awards on Friday. Eiichiro Oda's One Piece pirate manga (pictured right) and Kimuchi Yokoyama's Nekodarake Nice cat manga (pictured below) won this year's 500,000-yen (about US$6,000) Grand Prizes. 

The judging committee also gave a 200,000-yen (US$2,500) Special Award to the Kyoto International Manga Museum for its contributions to manga culture. Kyoto Seika University took a shuttered elementary school in the heart of Kyoto and transformed it into a museum and center for manga studies.

 The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award went to shōjo and modern science-fiction manga pioneer Keiko Takemiya in recognition for her entire body of work and her other efforts. In addition to creating such acclaimed manga as Kaze to Ki no Uta and To Terra (Terra e), Takemiya has been an instructor at Kyoto Seika University.

The Kyoto International Manga Museum used to be a school

One Piece Film Z teaser!

This 45-second teaser highlights "Z" (Zetto), the Straw Hat pirate crew's "strongest enemy yet." One Piece manga creator Eiichiro Oda personally designed Z. It will premiere in Japan on December 15.

'Kono Manga ga Sugoi' 2012 ranking lists the best manga magazine through a survey among professionals

Takarajimasha Inc. published the 2012 edition of the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook on Saturday with its list of the top titles in four categories. The lists are the result of surveys conducted among professionals in the fields of manga and publishing.

It is no surprise that HunterxHunter is among the top 10 for male readers. And Blue Exorcist is above One Piece??!

Among female readers, Chihayafuru has gained more and more popularity.

As for the top magazines, obviously Shonen Jump comes first, closely followed by Kodansha's Morning magazine. Whereas Feel Young magazine by Shodensha is the absolute leader among female readers in the industry.

The full ranking can be consulted here.

Source: ANN

One Piece, Naruto and Blue Exorcist the top selling mangas of the year 2011!

No doubt that One Piece is the KING this year, but Naruto and surprisingly newcomer Blue Exorcist don't stay far behind.

According to Oricon survey, Eiichiro Oda's One Piece pirate manga set a record for the most volumes of manga sold in one year since Oricon began posting its ranking charts in 2008. During the period of November 22, 2010 to November 20, 2011, One Piece sold 37,996,373 copies.

One Piece also took the top four spots for single manga volumes sold during the same time period. Volume 61 sold 3,382,588 copies, volume 62 sold 3,207,568 copies, volume 63 sold 3,073,175 copies, and volume 64 sold 2,652,700 copies. It is the third year in a row that One Piece volumes have taken the top four spots in that category. These four One Piece volumes were also the only manga volumes this year to sell more than 2 million copies.

In 2008, One Piece sold 5,956,540 copies, and in 2009, it sold 14,721,241 copies. Last year, it sold 32,343,809 copies.

2011's second best-selling manga series was Naruto with 6,874,840 copies, followed by Blue Exorcist's 5,223,712 copies.

One Piece volume number 64 Gets Japan's 1st 4-Million prints!!

The Japanese publisher Shueisha is producing four million copies of the 64th volume of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece pirate manga — the latest volume in the series to set a record for the most copies in its first printing in Japan.

The volume is shipping on Friday. One Piece has been setting records in first printings since volume 56, which held the manga record in December of 2009 for 2.85 million copies. Volume 57 was the first volume to hold the record for all books in Japan, since its 3-million-copy first printing topped Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix's 2.9 million.

 Since then, every volume except volume 62 (published two months after the March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster) has set a new record in first printing. As of the 64th volume, Shueisha has published over 250 million copies of the manga series; One Piece has had the highest number of copies printed of any Shueisha manga series in Japan.

 The manga follows a rubber-bodied boy named Luffy who aims to become the Pirate King by leading a motley crew, including a three-sword-wielding Zoro and the female navigator Nami. The manga has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since 1997, and the ongoing television anime series premiered in 1999.

source: ANN

New 3D One Piece Short will premiere in December!

Toei has announced that One Piece will be getting another exclusive 3D short movie.

It will last 12 minutes and it is titled 'One Piece 3D Gekiso! Trap Coaster'. This stereoscopic 3D anime film will screen at Aichi Prefecture’s Lagunasia theme park, Nagasaki Prefecture’s Huis Ten Bosch theme park, Kanagawa Prefecture’s Yokohama Landmark Tower, and Hiroshima Prefecture’s NTT CRED Hall beginning December 1. 

The first cel shaded 3D One Piece short film, “Mugiwara Chase,” was released theatrically in Japan last March.