One Piece Creator Eiichiro Oda Hints At Luffy and Nami’s Romantic Relationship

One Piece is a shonen series with various elements of romance in it, but isn’t necessarily focused on romance. That said, even in the world of One Piece, there are quite a few amazing couples.

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So far, in the Straw Hat Pirates, there has been no official romance between crewmates. Some fans, however, believe the most recent One Piece spin-off hints at a romance between Luffy and Nami.

One Piece’s Official Spin-Off “One Piece In Love”

The Characters Named Luffy and Nami Are in Love

One Piece is a pretty big series, being the most-sold manga in all of history. The story has over 1140 chapters right now, with no end in sight. Given its huge popularity and immense length, it is no surprise to know that this series has a few spin-offs.

Some fans might have heard of a rather recent One Piece spinoff, known as One Piece In Love. It started as a manga series, beginning serialization in June of 2018 by Mangaka Daiki Ihara. The series is not done yet, but is on hiatus due to the mangaka Daika working on another series. The series is said to restart serialization soon, however, so fans should look forward to that.

What brought more attention to this series however is the recent anime adaptation it received. The anime for this series is actually still airing, and will continue until April 5th, which coincides with the date for the official One Piece anime’s return. The episodes are being released on YouTube, so they’re accessible for everyone to watch, and can definitely help some fans pass the time until the real anime returns.

Earlier this week, Eiichiro Oda, the mangaka of the official One Piece series, dropped a message for fans. In this message, he reveals that he considers One Piece in Love to be an official One Piece spin-off. This is what Oda had to say to be exact:

“An anime called One Piece in Love is starting so please watch it!! It’s so funny and so crazy. It’s an official spin-off. Seriously. — Eiichiro Oda

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The fact that Oda considers this an official spin-off is definitely interesting. The characters featured in the anime look different from the ones in Oda’s series, but they have the same names. What has really caught fans’ attention after this message from Oda is that in the spin-off One Piece in Love, the characters named Luffy and Nami are romantically interested in each other. This makes fans wonder if this is Oda’s way of hinting at a potential romance between Luffy and Nami in the official series. After all, Luffy and Nami have always been a very popular ship in the fandom.

Does This Mean Luffy x Nami is Canon?

The Ship Isn’t Canon

Just because Oda recognizes this spin-off as official, doesn’t mean anything that happens in there holds any weight in the real story. Oda has no control over the story of One Piece in Love, and at the end of the day, this series is simply a parody. Oda himself has said that there will be no romance between Straw Hats, even reasserting this during the creation of One Piece Live Action. If the Straw Hats are a family, then Luffy and Nami would be siblings, not lovers.

Source: X (Formerly Twitter)

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

• 

  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

• 

  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)