"One Piece" author Eiichiro Oda has made a rare appearance on Japanese TV for the first time for an interview. But even though he finally went out of his secret cove to talk in public, he still requested to have his face hidden from the camera.
In the actual TV segment, Eiichiro was given a soccer jersey customized and signed by Japanese player Shinji Kagawa.
Despite affirming that he is, indeed, the author of One Piece himself, the announcer doubts this and asks him to draw Luffy just to give solid evidence to the assertion. He manages to sketch Luffy identically as the one we're accustomed to see in TV, and after receiving the Borussia Dortmund jersey, he personalizes his sketch as a form of gratitude to the Japanese soccer player.
It has been previously announced that the immensely secluded author of the best-selling manga of all time will be making an appearance to promote his upcoming film entitled One Piece: Film Gold on Fuji TV. It is said that Eiichiro very rarely makes a public media appearance, according to an article published by The One Piece Podcast.
Meanwhile, there have also been rumors that "One Piece" will be moved to a monthly timeslot due to its noticeable release pattern recently. The author has also been sleeping only two to three hours a night, according to Japanese sourced quoted by Crunchyroll as saying, and that this was going to have an effect on the manga hit's periodical release.
These rumors and hearsay about "One Piece" moving to a monthly schedule was denied by a representative of publisher Shueisha, claiming that these were all just false information being spread around. Furthermore, Eiichiro has been incredibly busy working on his upcoming film, which will be open to theaters in Japan on July 23. The author has been balancing between writing the manga and overseeing the film in the past several months.
Here is the video of the author making a public appearance in a TV segment: