Controversial One Piece is Journey to the West mixed with Biblical

[D. Plant]

The two biggest inspiration about One Piece are JTTW and Biblical. Oda wants to create his own Odyssey and so he pulls many elements from these two stories form the backbone of One Piece. After that he just pull various ideas from different part of the world to incorporate into this story backbone. I don't think you will believe if I say this and if you have never watched or read JTTW then you may not notice. The amount of references from JTTW are insane, Oda pulled over 80% of ideas from JTTW. Every now and then, you can tell it is a reference. Some ideas are very obvious while some are not. Oda doesn't want to be called a copycat right and of course no one wants to be call that way. So Oda changed the ideas by flipping, merging 2 ideas into 1, role swap, and mix and match with Biblical and others.

I'm no Christian and don't know much about Biblical, but my perspective from others whom pointed those references out had given me a meaningful understanding. The two stories are deeply intertwined. I bet if anyone knows both stories deeply, then it is easy to predict the future plots.

I'm not writing all those references out because it will be 100 pages thesis that there is no way i'm writing them.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

The two biggest inspiration about One Piece are JTTW and Biblical. Oda wants to create his own Odyssey and so he pulls many elements from these two stories form the backbone of One Piece. After that he just pull various ideas from different part of the world to incorporate into this story backbone. I don't think you will believe if I say this and if you have never watched or read JTTW then you may not notice. The amount of references from JTTW are insane, Oda pulled over 80% of ideas from JTTW. Every now and then, you can tell it is a reference. Some ideas are very obvious while some are not. Oda doesn't want to be called a copycat right and of course no one wants to be call that way. So Oda changed the ideas by flipping, merging 2 ideas into 1, role swap, and mix and match with Biblical and others.

I'm no Christian and don't know much about Biblical, but my perspective from others whom pointed those references out had given me a meaningful understanding. The two stories are deeply intertwined. I bet if anyone knows both stories deeply, then it is easy to predict the future plots.

I'm not writing all those references out because it will be 100 pages thesis that there is no way i'm writing them.

You should go indepth for sure. But yes, one piece has both JTTW, Biblical and even Hanuman influences sprinkled throughout the series. He borrows from alot of cultures as a whole.

Hell, "Joy Boy" is from West African/Caribbean Folklore:

"Joyboy is traditionally depicted as a smiling figure who carries a drum and drumstick. When he plays an irresistible rhythm, it compels people to dance, sing, and cast off despair, healing the sorrows and troubles of humanity."

Its obvious to me that Oda planned to just stick with this and the cartoon physics, but had another idea and pulled in Hanuman Nika in Elbaf (IMO caved into the white form on its own, not being cool enough for his target audience)

 

[thaddeusmuir]

What parallels from Journey to the West or the Bible do you think are most accurate in the manga's final arcs?

 

[ArturCantSpeakJapanese]

It's a lot of everything. There are also very heavy shinto and buddhist references throughout

 

[MasterD]

One piece is a merge of many, many different things. Oda has a room full of books and he gets inspired by a lot of them, story wise and drawing wise as he has depicted bearly known towns and well known ones like Vince and Mount Saint Michael for water 7. He does research very heavily to find inspiration for his story.