The March 3 One Piece has reached quota of 600 million copies sold. It’s not a record, like the others. It is the threshold that made him become the best-selling comic in the world. More than Supermaneven if the comparison doesn’t hold up very well: the first copy of Superman came out in 1939serialization of One Piece began in 1997. Here we explain why it is one of the most important publishing phenomena in the world. To celebrate the milestone, and also to launch the second season of the Netflix seriesits author Eiichirō Oda lent himself to an advert that perhaps got a little out of hand.
On March 3, a video was published on a One Piece YouTube channel just over two minutes in which Oda is seen writing on a sheet of paper the answer to a question that has been floating around for years: what is One Piece. That paper was placed in a pressurized chest, taken offshore somewhere in the seas near Japan and then abandoned at the bottom of the ocean.
A brief explanation of what One Piece treasure is
Brief recap for those who have never followed the series: One Piece is the story of a group of pirates led by Monkey D. Luffy. They live on a fantasy planet, something similar to earth but with many more oceans. Technology is not as advanced as what we know. Or rather, it is not in all fields. There is no internet and there are no planes. We travel by ship.
Eiichirō Oda hid the ending of One Piece at the bottom of the sea: the photos of the chest
The One Piece is the legendary treasure collected by Goal D. Rogeronly king of pirates. Once captured by the Navy, Gol D. Roger was sentenced to death. On the scaffold he said: “My treasure…? If you want it, it’s yours… look for it! I left everything in a certain place.” The treasure is called One Piece but no one really knows what it is. Whoever finds it will become the pirate king. Oda has repeatedly explained that it is a “physical thing”, not something more abstract like friendship or the sense of travel.
Disclaimer: This is a context note for those who don’t follow the manga and don’t take into account the billion subplots that exist behind the main story.
Where is the chest with the secret of One Piece
The One Piece commercial had to be just a commercial. A way to celebrate the achievements of the work. Then the community did the rest. All over the world there is a community of fans that has been following everyone for years the developments of the workchapter after chapter. They hypothesize scenarios, try to make predictions, comment on Oda’s choices. Only the community on Reddit has 1.2 million followers. It was difficult for an advert like this to go unnoticed. A treasure hunt has begun.
The video has been inspected in every way framesto obtain all possible information on the location of the chest. The user XilLive summarized the main information in the Reddit One Piece Spoilers forum:
- The chest was left in Japanese territorial waters. The vessel used for the operation also appears to belong to the Japanese coast guard
- Information can be deduced about the position: you can’t see any land on the horizon but by crossing the position of the Sun you can imagine that the coast is behind the boat to the North East
- The chest was deposited at 651 meters deep, in the video you can see that it touches a seabed with fine sediments, not disturbed by the currents
According to XilLive, the position that manages to make all these factors coincide is Suruga Baya stretch of sea that bathes the prefecture of Shizouka. We are at South of Tokyoin the Pacific Ocean. In the video you can see that the deposit of the chest was successful.
The treasure hunt: the words of iShowSpeed
Now. Retrieve a chest a 651 meters deep it is not a simple operation. Just to understand. The most modern vessels of the Italian Navy’s submarine fleet operate at a depth just above 400 meters. Let’s talk about class submarines U212 NFS. To reach 651 meters you need bathyscaphes usually used in scientific research. The historic bathyscaphe Trieste managed to arrive in 1960 BC 10,917 meters deepat the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Yet something is moving. iShowSpeed is one of the best-known content creators in the world. Ha 47 million followers on Instagram and virtually unlimited resources for creating its content. He has already published several trips around the world live on his channels. Not only that: he’s great One Piece fan. The operations room from which he publishes his live shows has a large one wall with scenes from the manga. As soon as he saw the commercial he launched his exploration: he promised to leave in search of the One Piece and stream everything.
Despite the feasibility of the mission, another doubt is also emerging in the forums: what to do once you find the treasure? Does it really make sense to read and reveal the contents of the chest to the world? The risk, clearly, is to ruin the end of the manga for all fans. At the moment there isn’t one yet certain date for the conclusion. The calmest hypotheses speak of 5 years. However, many on social media are saying the same thing: the first one to find it must destroy it.
