Hiro Mashima and the Great Eiichiro Oda Mystery
Posted on April 2, 2008 at 2:36 pm by TriciaSo the Internet has been ablaze with enthusiasm for Fairy Tail, which has already proved itself a major force in manga in its first week of release.
But in addition to the chorus of kudos and plaudits, we couldn’t help but notice one very persistent theme in our readers’ comments: that Hiro Mashima’s “Fairy Tail” bore some resemblance to Eiichiro Oda’s “One Piece.” It was soon being supposed, both suddenly and widely, that there was a very good reason for this: “But of course! Mashima used to be Oda’s assistant.” A plausible theory–but as it turns out, like more than a few things found on the Internet, not wholly supported by the facts.
According to Mashima’s publisher, Hiro Mashima was not only never Eiichiro Oda’s assistant–he has never served as an assistant to any artist at all. Mashima has pretty much been a superstar from the beginning–and from a startlingly young age. Born in 1977, Mashima has already crammed several careers of comics creation into a short period: 35 volumes of his first blockbuster, Rave Master, the new sensation Fairy Tail, simultaneous with a new series for Kodansha’s Shonen Rival , Monster Hunter.
As it turns out, there’s a much simpler explanation for the resemblance, and it’s one of the biggest forces in manga ever: Akira Toriyama. Eiichiro Oda and Hiro Mashima are both members of a generation who grew up obsessed with Toriyama and all things Dragon Ball , and whose styles were forged by Toriyama worship. Another reminder that even masters like Mashima and Oda started out as the same thing: fans.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Wow …thanks for the clarification Tricia. I was wondering about that. Even activeanime reference One Piece in their reviews.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
But what does Toriyama have to do with the creators of Fairy Tail and One Piece?
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
To Gage:
Being one of the biggest influences on pretty much every shounen manga creator in the field today, that’s what.
Artists like Mashima, Oda, (And also Kishimoto, of Naruto fame, along with dozens of others.) were big fans of Toriyama’s work, and so their styles began to look, to varying degrees, like his. And by all looking something like his, they all looked something like each other, too.
Like how when Osamu Tezuka became such a popular artist, other, younger artists mimicked his style and we end up with a general “style” in the 60s/70s, which eventually branched out into the big beautiful spectrum of art we see today.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Not sure if anyone at Del Rey noticed, but looks like Crunchyroll is now hosting manga–looks like Negima is up and includes all the volumes Del Rey has released in North America so far:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/showmanga?cid=10172
If you’re worried about this cutting into sales, you might want to send them a take-down notice–now that they just got $4 million in venture capital funding they can’t afford to be on the wrong side of the DCMA, so the R1 anime DVD distributors have been somewhat successful at getting the stuff they have licensed taken off.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Thanks, har_mateys. We’re on it.
Dallas
April 4th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ah alright. Thank you A. Brenner!
April 17th, 2008 at 3:13 am
By artist! I’m Kaiji Arumena age 15, an Japanese web developer! Thank you A!
April 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I already knew that Oda was a big fun of the creator of Dragon Ball,but i din’t know Hiro Mashima was a fan of Toriyama too.It was to be expected anyway,both Oda and Mashima’s art style resembles Toriyama’s.I personally love the Dragon Ball seriers,and the One Piece and Fairy Tail too.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I like everyone else, when first seeing the art work of Fairy Tail thought it to be by the same person as One Piece. So I went and dug around and found not only is it not by him but its astonishingly a way better story enirely. I aprreciate you guys clairifying this up. And If I could I would love to link this on a couple of my forums where Fairy Tail is popular. Thanks so much you guys!!!!
June 9th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I think I heard somewhere or read that Mashima was actually influenced by Oda… not sure though if i read/heard right or wrong though. lol, memory is a bit fuzzy. D: