The artist of ‘One Piece’ sent the pirate flags to schools in stricken cities
[From Ofunato city-my stricken home town]
– East Japan Great Earthquake & Tsunami Disaster-
Children in Ofunato Elementary School gave shouts of joy to the flag
Pirate flags, appear in the popular serial comics ‘One Piece’, is given to 9 elementary and junior high schools in Rikuzen-takata and Ofunato cities. Students in these schools got excited of the flags when they saw the flag with autographs signed by their favorite characters in the story. Mr. Eiichiro Oda, the artist of the story, prepared these official goods of flags and Ms. Mayumi Tanaka, the actress specializing in dubbing films for the main character ‘Monkey D. Luffy’, put her autographs on them.
One of the members from the music band ‘MAN WITH A MISSION’ was entrusted the flags by an acquaintance to bring them into Ofunato city. The music band distributed emergency food for tsunami victims at the city hall on June 20. Ms. Sumi Ito (32) and other citizens who were participated distribution of emergency food with the music band brought these flags to each 9 schools.
On the each flag, there is a message ‘You are my good partners. I always back you up!’ And a Monkey D. Luffy’s signature made by Ms. Tanaka.
Among 9 schools, children in Ofunato Elementary School gave shouts of joy when the flag was displayed on the corridor. ‘It’s great!’ or ‘It’s cool!’
‘One Piece’ is a Japanese shonen manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. The comic has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since August 4, 1997. One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year-old boy who gains elastic abilities after inadvertently eating a Devil Fruit, and his diverse crew of pirates, named the Straw Hat Pirates. Luffy explores the ocean in search of the world’s ultimate treasure known as the One Piece and to become the next Pirate King. On his journey, Luffy battles a wide variety of villains and makes several friends.
The individual chapters are being published in ‘tankobon’ or separate volumes by Shueisha, with the first released on December 24, 1997, and the 61st volume released as of February 2011. In 2010, Shueisha announced that they sold over 230 million volumes of One Piece manga so far; volume 61 set a new record for the highest initial print run of any book in Japan in history with 3.8 million copies (the previous record belonging to volume 60 with 3.4 million copies). Volume 60 is the first book to sell over two million copies in its opening week on Japan’s Oricon book rankings.
＜Reference＞
http://www.tohkaishimpo.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/
View Ofunato Elementary School in a larger map
Loading...