Eiichiro Oda is one of the biggest names in the anime industry. He is the mangaka of one of the big three anime One Piece. He is also considered the best mangaka in the history of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The fandom being captured by Oda’s marvelous genius gave him the title of ‘GODA.’ However, apart from One Piece, Eiichiro Oda has published other one-shot manga as well, which are his underrated gems.
Wanted!
Wanted! is the first step by which Eiichiro Oda started his journey as a manga writer. Interestingly, he wrote this one-shot manga in 1992 while in his senior year of high school. The story of Wanted! follows a bounty hunter named Wild Joe who is searching for a wanted criminal with a huge bounty, Gill Bastar. However, things get interesting when it turns out that Gill Bastar ends up killing people while protecting himself.
Ikki Yako (Night Parade of One Demon)
Eiichiro Oda is a genius, and this one-shot is nothing less than an underrated gem. Ikki Yako can very well be considered one of the best works of Oda before One Piece and even fans hold it dear to them. The story of Ikki Yako traces a Monk named Guko who is traveling across a forest looking for a shelter to spend the night. He gets jumped by a monster, panicking, he runs to a village but the twist pours in when the villagers want him to slay the very same monster which he encountered earlier. Guko ends up taking the job and thinks of different ways to get his task done.
Monsters
Eiichiro Oda came up with the idea of Monsters a year after he published Ikki Yakō (Night Parade of One Demon). It was another of his one-shot manga that traced the story of Ryuma. One Piece fans are already familiar with this character. The manga is set somewhat back in time, and it represents Ryuma’s character in depth and goes into detail, depicting why he was famous not only throughout Wano Country but the entire world.
Romance Dawn
Romance Dawn was published by Eiichiro Oda in the Shōnen Jump 1996 Summer Special. This was the transition state of what became One Piece in the end. Several works from different young mangaka were presented in the Shonen Jump. A major part of the original One Piece manga shows similarities to Romance Dawn. Those parts were also adapted into the One Piece animation, so anyone who has read both manga can recognize those parts effortlessly.
God’s Gift for the Future
One year after Wanted! was published, Oda drew another one-shot manga, God’s Gift For The Future, in 1993. This one shot was published in the October installment of Monthly Shonen Jump Original. The absurd qualities of Eiichiro Oda are reflected in this manga as well. It was well received all over Japan and God’s Gift For The Future was reprinted in 1988 as a compilation that contained all the short stories that Oda wrote before One Piece.
