One-Piece isn’t a manga series, it’s a business.
One-Piece is undoubtedly the most successful manga series in history. First released in 1997, this story follows the swashbuckling adventure of a young pirate who sets out to sea, in hope of finding the grand and mysterious treasure, known as, the One-Piece.
Just like many other popular literacy works. One-Piece has expanded beyond the realm of comic book sales. Harry Potter, Marvel, Star Wars. Are all creative works, that have expanded their business, by licensing their intellectual property, pursuing various business and commercial endeavours.
Movies, video Games, theme parks, trading cards, restaurants, and merchandise, are all notable examples of ventures these franchises have pursued. And, they’ve been very successful in doing so.
One-Piece is no stranger to this same business strategy. They’ve executed this strategy successfully, and as a result the franchise is worth over $20Billion.
Anime:
Just like several other manga, One-Piece started out as a manga series, and received an anime adaptation in later years.
When One-Piece was initially just a manga, it already performed very well.
In it’s first three years of solely being a Shonen jump manga, One-Piece had a total of 23.3 million volume sales. That’s an average of 7.66million volume sales, every year.
One-Piece was already successful, and when it’s anime adaptation arrived in 1999, it only got better.
Anime adaptations are great for the manga series. Anime portrays a narrative in a way like no other. Through an lively creative expression of, music, voice-acting and animation. Anime brings the story to life, in a way in which, the manga, simply cannot.
Of course this is great for the manga studio and the One-Piece franchise. Their story is marketed to a new and bigger audience of viewers.
It’s no surprise that from 1999 ( the year when the One-Piece anime first aired) to 2000. One-Piece volume sales more than doubled. Rocketing from 17 million in 1999 to 37 million in 2000.
Anime adaptations are a gateway to publicity and mass appeal. It’s a strategy that bolstered One-Piece’s popularity and prevalence.
Merchandise:
One of the most popular business avenues that almost every popular creative work exploits, is merchandise.
It makes perfect sense. Fans want to engage with the creative work, beyond the primary product being sold. In case of One-Piece, fans want more than just the manga or the anime. They desire, posters, shirts, figures, and plethora other of series related accessories.
Toei Animation ( a company that holds rights to One-Piece) thought of the perfect idea, making an exclusive One-Piece store. The store would be named the “ Mugiwara store”.
The store first opened in 2012 in Tokyo Shibuya. Over the course of the next decade, the store’s have expanded across Japan, with a total of seven current stores.
With over 10,000 items in every shop, it’s truly a One-Piece fans’s dream come to true to visit.
Beyond this establishment simply being an epic merchandise shop. It also serves as an icon for One-Piece. It’s a way of establishing the brand and story, to the public. Disney has been doing this for decades.
There’s over 300 Disney stores across the globe. It represents Disney’s immense popularity and significance in the world. It’s a symbol. It shows the world that your creative work is popular enough, to exclusively have a store that caters solely to an individual fan-base.
The Mugiwara store portrays this idea pefectly, it’s become a tourist destination for indiviudals who visit Japan.
Theme-Parks:
A popular business venture that several creative works have begun exploring, are theme parks and resorts. Physical places of series-related entertainment, that offer an interactive fan experience.
In 2015 the first One-Piece theme park was released. It was an theme park with 4 floors, and 9 different One-Piece attractions located on each floor. These included jovial areas, that featured the Straw Hat crew hanging out, with with lively music. Fans could take pictures right next to their favourite characters.
There’s a psychological reasoning behind why fans visit these attractions. It’s the desire for a deeper interaction with the fictional world, fans enjoy seeing the fictional world of One-Piece, transferred into real life. It makes visitors temporarily feel like they’re actually in the world of One-Piece.
Other theme parks like: Harry Potter world and Disneyland. Nail this perfectly. They provide this same service, a destination of excitement and fun, where customers can escape the realm of reality and enter into a world of fun.
It helps that One-Piece is a creative story, with a plethora of bizarre and fascinating elements. The theme park does a pretty good job, at bringing alive these creative elements, giving customers a wonderful experience.
Video Games:
Video games are another popular business endeavour, large franchises undertake after periods of time.
Fun and interactive, Video games are great way to explore an alternative story narrative. Since their usually non-canonical they have the luxury of becoming bizarre and wacky, with new plots and characters introduced. Which serves to expand the world of a story and offer more depth.
Franchises usually license their intellectual property to a game developer. It’s the game developers job to create the narrative for the game, and the narrative must align with the franchise’s creative direction.
One-Piece has produced a plethora of games over the years. Considering the story’s is an action-packed battle manga, stretching across an imaginative world of bizarre islands. One-Piece video games appeal to the masses. Fans and non- fans of the series, enjoying immersing themselves into a nonsensical world of thrill and adventure.
Fans enjoy the concept of being able to play as their favourite One-Piece character, and explore uncharted territories as a pirate.
It’s no surprise that’s there’s a total of 56 One-Piece video games currently out, people love playing them.
Final Thoughts:
The One-Piece is a franchise has soared into becoming into becoming one of the largest media franchises today. While many dislike the franchise’s integration into a wider scope of business, I think it’s a great example of how to grow a brand.
All of One-Piece’s subsidiary business ventures, show off how expansive the IP is. Whether it’s live-action shows, Cafe’s or trading card games, Eiichiro Oda ( author of One-Piece) has created such an fascinating story, that receives heavy buy-in from fans of the series. It’s understandable as to why Toei Animation, would exploit such a strong fan base, and venture into business projects that appeal to consumers.
All of the subsidiary projects never lose the feel of One-Piece, they feel authentic, and pay strong homage to the story. As long as that continues, I’m confident that more innovative One-Piece business endeavours, will continue to be produced.
