One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda beats huge record set by Tom Clancy

One Piece has been going for quite a while now. 27 years, in fact. And in that time, the manga has sold a lot of copies — so many, creator Eiichiro Oda is moving up the ranks in terms of global sales.

Somehow, One Piece has managed to be remarkably consistent across over 1100 chapters and anime episodes. It’s remained one of the best anime in the hearts of many ever since the premiere in 1999.

Likewise, chapters of the manga are still an event for would-be Straw Hats. One Piece Chapter 1111, for instance, has already garnered reaction thanks to the Iron Giant and Luffy’s attack against the Gorosei.

At this point, it seems like no amount of One Piece filler could slow the franchise down. Oda himself has actually been actually moving up some prestigious ranks lately, too, overtaking the likes of Tom Clancy and Stephen King in recent years.

Eiichiro is now in the top 10 best-selling fiction authors of all time, and his placement is moving. For instance, on Wikipedia, he’s currently in tenth position, two ahead of Tom Clancy, and right behind Sidney Sheldon.

The numbers compiled here are predominantly for physical book sales, so volumes of One Piece that are sold online and in stores. Meanwhile, in February of 2023, WordsRated had Oda in ninth place, over JK Rowling, with 516.5 million copies of One Piece sold.

That’s a lot of books. The consensus is clear — Oda continues to make his way up the ranks of prolific writers and creators. He has a mountain to climb to get to the top three, Barbara Cartland, Agatha Christie, and William Shakespeare, as each is in the billion-copies-sold club.

There are still several One Piece sagas to go, mind, so Oda may yet find himself in that exclusive class. Then the whole world will be a Straw Hat! For more on Luffy’s adventures, we have a guide on the strongest One Piece character, and a list of the saddest One Piece character backstories.