This article contains spoilers for the One Piece series.
One Piece is the world's best-selling manga of all time, and it has consistently maintained this for quite some time now. Oda's magnum opus has been running for over 28 years, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon, even though the Final Saga has already begun. At the center of this series is, of course, the Straw Hat Pirates. Without them, One Piece wouldn't be what it is right now.
After all, Oda revealed how he had no plans for a big straw hat, and that member is Nefertari Vivi, the princess of Arabasta. Oda didn't have big plans for her at first and decided a lot for her on the spot, something that has intrigued many fans.
Oda didn't intend to make Vivi Arabasta's princess
Vivi was made a princess after drawing her hair down
One Piece fans may think that Oda always wanted Vivi to be a princess, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Although Nefertari Vivi is not currently traveling with the Straw Hat Pirates, he is in every sense part of their crew. Both Oda and fans consider her a part of the team, and many believe she will eventually take her rightful place during the Final Saga.
All this except, Vivi was almost never going to be a relevant characterwhich is quite shocking. Vivi would only be an agent for Baroque Worksprobably forgotten afterwards. But Oda began to imagine a different vision for her as he drew her with her hair down. He said it made her look like a princess. This is roughly how the Arabasta arc was created.
Vivi was introduced as an agent of Baroque Works, but I had no idea of her scheme beyond that. When I drew her with her hair down, she looked like a princess. What if she was the princess of Alabasta? That's how I started thinking about the Alabasta arc. — Eiichiro Oda
The choice Oda made then had huge repercussions in the story, especially in the Final Saga, where Vivi and the Nefertari family are incredibly important to the plotespecially when it comes to Imu and the World Government.
Oda has many parts of One Piece pre-planned, some are made on the spot
Together with Vivi, Supernova was also decided on the spot
Many One Piece fans praise Oda for his foreshadowing skills and set up future events in the series. While the praise is definitely coming, Oda has also shown how good he is at improvising on the spot.
A big example of that is Vivi's character, but it doesn't stop there. The supernova, which became quite important to One Piece after the time-skip, was a last-minute creation by Oda, and a fantastic one at that. Hopefully, Oda continues to make exciting last-minute insertions into the story going forward as well.
One Piece Chapter 1158 is out next week. As usual, One Piece will be released on Sunday. In Japan, One Piece will be released at 12pm JST on Monday. However, the vast majority of international readers will see the chapter available on August 31st. The official release date of One Piece Chapter 1158 is August 31, 2025. Fans can read the chapter for free on Manga Plus.
Source: X
- Release date
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October 20, 1999
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Directors
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Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- Author
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Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
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Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
