During a One Piece stage event during Jump Festa 2021 on Sunday, author Eiichiro Oda let us know about his feelings on Koyoharu Gotouge’s hit manga Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba in a letter which was read aloud by Luffy’s voice actress Mayumi Tanaka.
Here is the translated version of it:
“Hello, all Jump Festa viewers! It’s been a really tough year for all of us. I feel many people have been strongly affected by the coronavirus. I would like to applaud all the people in the industry who have worked hard to keep people in high spirits, despite the situation feeling like a dream. It’s been a year.
For Jump, Demon Slayer was absolutely incredible. It was able to help many people by entertaining them and making them feel happy. Way too incredible. I wish all manga could be like this. Somehow, even I was moved!”
It’s nice to see an author of a record-breaking well-loved manga series like Eiichiro Oda praise another of the same caliber.
Both mangas, published by Shueisha, are record-breakers: One Piece is the company’s highest-selling manga, with the second position being occupied by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. One Piece, of course, is known for being the longest serialized manga—it has an astounding 990 chapters (and is still running!), and fans of this adventure series are eagerly waiting for the manga to cross 1000 chapters sometime in 2021. It has been running from 1997 in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine and is one of the best-selling media franchises of all time. Similarly, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has also broken multiple records: its 23rd (and final) volume sold more than 2.8 million copies within just one week, breaking Oricon records. Not to mention that its movie adaptation, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train film, is soon set to cross even Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in terms of being the biggest earning movie in the Japanese box office.
