You’d think a manga-ka as successful as Eiichiro Oda would have more of a back catalog of works that predate his mega-hit, One Piece, but, as near as I can determine, his only other book is a collection of short stories called WANTED!, originally published by Shueisha. I’m a big fan of collections of shorter works by manga-ka who are best known for their longer-form work, so I feel fairly comfortable asking someone (Viz) to publish this retroactively introductory tome.
The stories included and their years of publication are as follows:
“Romance Dawn” is the story that served as the template for One Piece, where young Luffy is inspired by local pirates to begin his own career of seafaring adventure.
The title story, which Oda created at the cadaverous age of 17, apparently won some awards and came in second for an Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, which is not even a little bit shabby.
WANTED! has been published in German by Carlsen Verlag.