ONE PIECE Isn’t Ending Anytime Soon as Eiichiro Oda Plans to Keep the Manga Going Through 2030

If you’ve been waiting for the Straw Hat Pirates to finally reach the end of their ridiculously long voyage, you might want to get comfortable.

Eiichiro Oda has offered another update on the future of One Piece, and despite the manga charging toward its final saga, the finish line apparently remains several years away.

During this year’s One Piece Day, Oda gave fans a more specific idea of how much longer he expects the manga to continue. According to Otaku Art, the creator currently plans for One Piece to run for at least another four years, which would carry Luffy and his crew all the way into 2030.

For longtime fans, this probably isn’t much of a shock. Predictions about when One Piece will end have been floating around for years, and Oda has repeatedly found more story to tell as the Straw Hats get closer to their ultimate destination.

At this point, the manga has been running since 1997, so reaching 2030 would put it at roughly 33 years of publication. That’s an absolutely wild run, especially considering how much story is still unfolding as the series works its way through its final stretch.

The franchise’s plans outside the manga also suggest that One Piece will remain a major presence for years to come. The 17th One Piece movie, BAAD, is currently slated to arrive in 2029. If Oda’s latest timeline holds, the manga could still be running when the movie hits.

There’s alsoThe One Piece, the upcoming anime remake headed to Netflix in January 2027. Rather than asking newcomers to stare down the intimidating mountain of more than 1,000 episodes, the new adaptation will revisit the beginning of Oda’s story with a much faster pace.

The remake will adapt the opening 50 chapters of the manga into only seven episodes, giving younger viewers and curious newcomers a much easier entry point into the world of Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and the rest of the crew.

Oda has also been having some fun with the biggest mystery surrounding the entire franchise: What exactly is the One Piece?

Back in March, the creator revealed that he had written down the real meaning of the legendary treasure and had the document buried more than 600 meters underwater at a secret location.

Because apparently writing one of the biggest manga series in history wasn’t enough. Oda decided to turn the answer to its greatest mystery into an actual treasure hunt.

Naturally, One Piece fans immediately went hunting. Online sleuths quickly pieced together the clues and identified Suruga Bay in Shizuoka as the apparent location of Oda’s submerged secret.

Finding where it might be was one thing, though. Getting more than 600 meters underwater and actually recovering the document is an entirely different problem.

So far, nobody has managed to retrieve it, which means Luffy may legitimately discover the One Piece before somebody manages to pull Oda’s real-world answer out of the ocean.

With the One Piece manga potentially continuing through at least 2030, BAAD coming in 2029, and The One Piece remake launching on Netflix in 2027, fans aren’t exactly facing a shortage of pirate adventures.

The big question is whether 2030 will finally be the year Oda brings Luffy’s journey to an end, or whether we’ll reach 2029 and hear that he just needs a few more years.

At this point, One Piece fans know better than to start the countdown clock.

Via: Otaku Art