One Piece Chapter 1, page 1: Romance Dawn

An author's note page featuring a photo of Eiichiro Oda wearing an alien mask. The text reads: "I've been gathering and reading a bunch of reference materials to do this 'pirate story.' However, the pirates that I admired so much in my youth hardly ever left written records of their history. I guess they were just too busy having fun with their own adventures and they forgot to leave their stories for future generations. That's just the trouble with those darned pirates. —Eiichiro Oda, 1997". Below is a brief biography of Oda, detailing his debut with 'Wanted!' in 1992 and the launch of 'One Piece' in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997.