The debate regarding Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is a recurring thing in the wide anime and manga community. The internet often witnesses a brawl between the fandoms who claim their favorite to be the best Shonen content. But quite contrary to the fans, the manga creators share a healthy rivalry. This is also proved by a statement of Oda where the creator acknowledged the importance of Naruto in his career.
Eiichiro Oda is often considered the one who fully conquered the manga industry. But the richest Manga artist in the world has acknowledged how Masashi Kishimoto’s work helped him to create One-Piece and how it will always be superior to his creation.
Eiichiro Oda hailed Naruto as the best
Even though both Naruto and One Piece have a vast fan base for their mangas and animes, it can’t be denied that the former has more fans compared to the latter. Looks like the 48-year-old Eiichiro Oda also assured that Naruto can never overtake Luffy after he admitted that the competition provided by Naruto was crucial for his success as an artist.
As a published conversation between the two top-tier artists came to light, many details came out and stated how both the mangas helped each other to grow organically by presenting a healthy competition. According to our richest Mangaka, the competition provided by Naruto was the toughest and pushed him harder to improve his work more and more.
“Of all the comics in the world, the one that made me work the hardest was Naruto, hands down. So I’m really fortunate, actually, that he made it so difficult for me. That kind of experience is rare.”
Surprising to the fans, Oda also declared that it makes him jealous that the Ninja series is more popular worldwide than his creation centered around Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates.
“Naruto is more popular than OP [One Piece] in the world. But I appreciate that it makes me jealous.”
But this conversation between Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto showed that the two artists share a great respect for each other. Responding to Oda’s comment regarding Naruto’s worldwide popularity, Kishimoto commented that he is yet to surpass the greatness of One Piece.
Also Read: 5 Unsolved One Piece Mysteries That Annoys Anime Fans
One Piece’s art style impressed Masashi Kishimoto
Both Naruto and One Piece possess unique styles of their own. Both of them having their own good and bad aspects, are widely respected by all. But the one thing about the Luffy series that impresses Masashi Kishimoto the most is the distinct art style. According to him, the use of colors by Eiichiro Oda impresses him very much.
Kishimoto wasn’t shy to admit that the art is very difficult and adds more depth to each panel. He also confessed that he could never do that.
“The way you use color in One Piece is so complicated. I could never do that. That’s your secret weapon, I think. I’ve read lots of manga, and I’ve never seen anyone use colors like you. Oda’s sense of composition and layout is great. It doesn’t matter how many characters he has in a panel, he makes it all work as a picture. You feel like each and every picture is meaningful, and has the sense of furthering the story.”
Now no matter how much friendly rivalry the artists possess, it won’t affect the fandoms anyway who are never tired of the war for the best manga or anime. Eiichiro Oda expects that the Netflix live-action remake will bring in more fans to the story of Luffy. Although the reputation of the Netflix anime adaptations isn’t very good, the involvement of Oda in it gives hope to the fans.
Both Naruto and One Piece can be streamed on Crunchyroll while the live-action One Piece series will stream on Netflix from August 31, 2023.
Source: Twitter
