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Eiichiro Oda's interest in pirates began in his childhood, watching the animated series Vicky the Viking, which inspired him to want to draw a manga series about pirates.^[2] The reading of pirate biographies influenced Oda to incorporate the characteristics of real-life pirates into many of the characters in One Piece; for example, the character Marshall D. Teach is based on and named after the historical pirate Edward "Blackbeard" Teach.^[3] Apart from the history of piracy, Oda's biggest influence is Akira Toriyama and his series Dragon Ball, which is one of his favorite manga.^[4] He was also inspired by The Wizard of Oz, claiming not to endure stories where the reward of adventure is the adventure itself, opting for a story where travel is important, but even more important is the goal.^[5]

While working as an assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki, Oda began writing One Piece in 1996.^[6] It started as two one-shot stories entitled Romance Dawn^[6]—which would later be used as the title for One Piece's first chapter and volume. They both featured the character of Luffy, and included elements that would appear later in the main series. The first of these short stories was published in August 1996 in Akamaru Jump and later in One Piece Red. The second was published in the 41st issue of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1996, and reprinted in 1998 in Oda's short story collection, Wanted!.^[7] In an interview with TBS, Takanori Asada, the original editor of One Piece, revealed that the manga was rejected by Weekly Shonen Jump three times before Shueisha agreed to publish the series.^[8]

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