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One Piece Series Gets Trading Card Game Worldwide

Bandai opened an official Twitter account and website on Monday to announce the One Piece Trading Card Game, a new game based on Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga. The card game will launch in Japan in July 2022 and in English worldwide later this year. Bandai streamed a trailer:

The TCG will feature elements of the One Piece series from the past 25 years. The game will launch with four starter decks themed after the Straw Hats, the Worst Generation, Animal Kingdom Pirates, and the Seven Warlords of the Sea. There will also be a starter deck themed after characters from the anime films. The first booster pack series will be named "Romance Dawn," which is the title of the first chapter of the One Piece manga, as well as the name of Oda's one-shots that served as early versions of his current ongoing manga. The game will also get official card sleeves.

Oda drew an illustration of Luffy summoning his Kaido card, and he shared comments to commemorate the announcement:

"A new trading card game is on the way!!! I don't know much about card games but this is something like Yu-Gi-Oh! right?! They jump out from the cards, yeah?!! I heard they're gonna use illustrations from the original work and release it worldwide. They're really going all out. And I'll see itt through 'til the end!! Let's go, One Piece Card Game!! I can't wait!

*They don't actually jump out from the cards, phew!"

Oda began serializing the One Piece manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump manga on July 19, 1997. The 57th volume had a first printing of 3 million copies, a national industry record, in March 2010. The 67th volume had a first printing of 4.05 million copies, the new national industry record, in August 2012. The manga won the 41st Japan Cartoonist Awards in 2012, and set a Guinness World Record in 2015 for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author."

The manga's 100th compiled book volume launched in Japan in September 2021, and the 101st volume shipped in December 2021. Oda published the 1,000th chapter in January 2021.

The ongoing anime adaptation premiered in 1999. The anime's 1,000th episode debuted in November 2021. The franchise also has an upcoming anime film titled One Piece Film Red that will open on August 6.

The manga is inspiring a Hollywood live-action series on Netflix.

Source: One Piece Trading Card Game's Twitter account and website