One Piece has had a massive week full of announcements, starting with the end of the Wano Country arc being made official, followed by the information about the final saga of the story beginning from the month of July. At the same time, fans also got a look at some concept art and new castings for the Netflix live-action adaptation which is currently being filmed in South Africa, and finally, the major announcement that the One Piece manga is going on a month-long hiatus, starting from Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #30 up to Issue #33.
According to Oda's message, this is so he can finally plan the structure for the final saga of the series and because of other upcoming projects, such as the live-action series and Film Red. Earlier today, fans were treated with a few more announcements once again, most of which had to do with One Piece: Film Red. Interestingly, packed within all that was a major reveal about an amazing project that is heading fans' way soon, called "Road To Laugh Tale."
What Is The "Road To Laugh Tale" Project?
Since One Piece is going to be on break for four weeks from Shonen Jump Issue #30-33, Eiichiro Oda and his editors decided to make the painful wait easier for fans by giving them something very intriguing to look forward to. Road To Laugh Tale is an incredible project that will see a special booklet with the same name be published across Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #30, #31, #32, and #33 to fill in the gap left by the manga.
According to the announcement made on the live stream on One Piece's YouTube channel, this booklet is going to include quite a lot of interesting things such as the character designs of various characters who have appeared in the story over time and even the initial sketches from Oda's drafts that didn't make the final cut. While nothing has been said so far, the character sketches may provide reasons for why they were abandoned as well. Interestingly, fans can figure out quite a bit about Oda's characters from their designs and might even locate clues about certain mysterious characters, as they did with Kyoshiro in the Wano Country arc.
Even more interesting, Road To Laugh Tale will also include a bunch of scrapped plotlines and ideas that Oda had for the manga. This is something every fan should look forward to as it would give them a look at what could've been had Oda stuck with his initial ideas. At the same time, it will also be interesting to see the process that Oda went through to arrive at his final drafts and why he made the changes that he did in the first place. Things such as Ace being Roger's son were decided by the author on an impulse and if Road To Laugh Tale gives fans an idea of what the initial drafts were and why Oda changed it, it would certainly be worth the time of every single fan of the story. What's more, the booklet is likely going to include quite a lot of scrapped ideas from the Wano Country arc as well. Given that the arc has split opinion among fans, it'll certainly be interesting to see what could've been.
What To Expect From Road To Laugh Tale
Simply put, Road To Laugh Tale is quite an ambitious project that will keep fans busy during the one-month hiatus Oda takes to prepare for the final saga of his story. With new content to go through every single week to make up for the absence of the manga, it is certainly going to be much easier for the fans to wait for the final saga to kickstart. The booklet could give fans ideas on Oda's initial plans for the story, such as how One Piece was originally supposed to be a fight between Luffy and the Yonko.
Oda has previously mentioned that the Shichibukai were not supposed to be a part of the story, however, he ended up adding them, making the series quite long in the process. There are several other decisions that Oda's editors influenced him on and some others that he spontaneously made himself. There could even be some major alterations having been made to the original plot, such as Oda deciding to not write Shiki into the story when Shanks met Whitebeard, which would show up with the scrapped ideas.
While exact specifics of the Road To Laugh Tale project remain unknown, it is possible that Oda could fill up the little gaps that he has left in his manga chapters with this booklet. Oftentimes, fans feel that a particular chapter of the story was rather rushed and some minor events are skipped over that they would certainly have enjoyed experiencing themselves. Road To Laugh Tale could potentially give everyone a look at some of those, provided Oda drew them and then decide to scrap them to make the chapter more concise.
All things considered, it is an exciting time for One Piece fans with things such as Road To Laugh Tale, the live-action series, One Piece Film: Red, and most importantly, the final saga of the series all being incredibly close. While Oda takes the much-needed break after finishing the Wano Country arc, fans can start looking forward to the wonderful crafting process that he went through to create the beautiful story that is One Piece.