One Piece Wanted
One Piece Wanted is a special volume of short stories written by Eiichiro Oda long before his work with One Piece. Some elements of these stories were later re-used by Oda in his writing of One Piece. The five stories are:
- Wanted: It tells the story of Gill Bastar, an extremely skilled gunslinger who has killed a lot of men (all of them in self defense) and now has to deal with the ghost of a vengeful bounty hunter who needs him dead.
- God's Present to the Future: Bran is a skilled pickpocketer, so incorrigible that God himself decide to kill him by dropping a meteor on him. But he writes down the name of a large shopping mall instead. So it's up to Bran to prevent a disaster and find a solution.
- Demon's Night Parade: The young monk Guko is looking for his master, a wise and powerful demon-hunting monk. However he's asked by the people of a remote village to help them against the evil Cannibal Ghoul who's infesting the woods around the village.
- Monsters: A story about the young samurai Ryuuma (a Zoro prototype.) who aims to be the strongest swordsman in the land, a mysterious knight and master fencer Cirano and a legendary horn which can summon a Dragon.
- Romance Dawn: A prototype of One Piece, where the main character (Monkey D. Luffy) has to help the young girl Anne to save her pet bird Baloon from the wicked captain Spiel the Hexagon.
Tropes used in One Piece Wanted include:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Ryuuma's sword can slice bronze statues in half.
- Anti-Hero: Gill, Bran, Guko and maybe Ryuuma as well.
- Art Evolution: The first story has low-quality drawings, but it gets better later.
- Artifact of Doom: The Notebook of Doom (sounds familiar?), owned by God himself and temporary lend to Bran. Whatever is written on it with the Pen of Doom will happen. It can be nullified only by the Eraser of Doom.
- Badass: Ryuuma and Gill.
- Badass Normal: Bran. Seriously, he managed to pickpocket GOD himself!
- Badass Grandpa: Luffy's Grandpa.
- Bad Boss: Spiel burn alive on of his members for losing to Anne.
- Berserk Button: Don't talk loudly about Spiel's head shape...
- Break the Cutie: Poor Flare....
- Canon Immigrant: Ryuuma in One Piece.
- Cassandra Truth: No one believes Bran at first.
- Composite Character: Ryuuma is part Luffy, part Zoro.
- The Dragon: A Literal one for Cirano.
- Drop the Hammer: Spiel hides a large hammer in his broom.
- Evil Sorcerer: Spiel, who apparently uses "magic" and can fly on a broomstick.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Sino Phoenix.
- Guns Akimbo: Gill.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: Ryuuma.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Gill and Sino.
- Informed Ability: The powers of the kami in Guko's story are unknown (but he said that kamis can't interfere with human business). Also Cirano's swordsmanship.
- Jerkass: Bran. Also Cirano under his facade.
- Jerkass God: God.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Ryuma has a katana.
- Monster Protection Racket
- Our Dragons Are Different: Is huge and quite fat. It gets beheaded in one hit by Ryuuma.
- Playing with Fire: Spiel.
- Psycho for Hire: Sino Phoenix, a dangerous killer, was hired to stop Gill.
- Rubber Man: Luffy, of course.
- Take a Level In Badass: Guko.
- You Killed My Father: The Cannibal ate Guko's master Koshin.