Read 'One Piece' Manga From The Beginning With Chapter 1 and Revisit Monkey D. Luffy's Origins

One Piece opens at the execution of the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger, who sets off a new era of piracy by telling the assembled crowd of his hidden treasure. "It's yours if you can find it," he says. "But you'll have to search the whole world!"

A village boy named Monkey D. Luffy is inspired by the King of the Pirates' last words. One Piece is his adventures.

There are 975 issues of One Piece, as of the time of this article's publication. But it's not just the manga series—which Oda Eiichiro has written and drawn since 1997—One Piece is also a 20 season anime series, 14 animated movies, novels, a theme park and restaurants, a CCG trading card game and an upcoming live-action Netflix series.

One Piece is daunting.

So we're starting from the beginning.

One Piece Chapter 1: "Romance Dawn—The Dawn of Adventure"

With the first page of its first issue One Piece establishes a clear goal: to find the treasure hidden, somewhere in the world, by the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger. We know nothing about this king, yet, except that Roger is still smiling when unknown authorities execute him (there's even a speech bubble emanating from beneath his English-style mustache, reading simply "SMIRK").

More important to One Piece is who we meet next, a small boy named Monkey D. Luffy, who stands on the bowsprit of a pirate ship docked in his seaside village harbor, where he attempts to impress the pirates with his toughness by stabbing himself in the face with a stubby sword.

"I wanna be a pirate too!!!" Luffy says, "I'm not the least bit afraid of getting hurt!!"

But while the pirates are horrified, they are also impressed, and bring Luffy along to the village tavern, where they toast his courage. But while he's won over the crew, Pirate Captain "Red-Haired" Shanks just laughs at the boy, who, we learn, can't even swim.

While we're only at the very beginning of a long saga, there's a lot in the first issue of One Piece, "The Dawn of Adventure," that's likely to animate the manga series moving forward. I haven't read ahead, but the first issue contains clear, appealing goals and a character with obvious and enduring attributes. Luffy D. Monkey is enthusiastic, determined, unflagging and unembarrassed about declaring exactly what he wants and his determination to get it.

It's not just Luffy's character that comes across in the first issue of One Piece, it's also the meaning of piracy to these characters. Instead of a crime of desperation, as it is in its modern day realities, piracy in One Piece means freedom, exploration, having a good time, camaraderie and the power to create for yourself a colorful new identity—a life apart from the circumstances of your birth. Other pirate duties, we learn, include "pillaging, hostage-taking, heavy drinking and swimming."

We're not breaking new ground here—this is classic swashbuckling, distilled to manga form—but it's obvious from the start that One Piece is conscious of these specific appeals, rather than just picking them up incidentally in the process of telling an adventure story. It will be interesting to see if piracy ever becomes more than symbolically liberating. Specifically, whether or not One Piece will ever address how much piracy depends upon victimizing other people. In "The Dawn of Adventure," the pirates even pay their bar tab—the proprietor, Makino, is happy to serve them and lug up fresh barrels of beer.

But where "Red-Haired" Shanks wears a straw hat right out of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and treats waitstaff well, Higuma the Bear, leader of the mountain bandits, is downright louche, with bedroom eyes and a ratty goatee (and he keeps touching his face!), who resorts to threats of violence as soon as he shows up at the tavern. He brags of killing 56 people and an 8,000,000 "berries" bounty on his head. But even after taking a sword swing at Shanks, the pirate captain responds with apologetic submission, leaving Luffy unimpressed and in search of a new role model.

This is where One Piece gets weird.

When Shanks tries to convince Luffy that there's more to piracy and being a man than "needless killing" he grabs Luffy's arm, but Luffy keeps on walking and the limb stretches like a rubber band behind him. Looking for a snack, Luffy had eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit Shanks and his pirates captured from an unnamed enemy ship.

We learn that this fruit is "the fruit of the devil" and "one of the secret treasures of the sea." The person who eats it becomes like rubber and, for some reason, will never be able to swim. While Shanks is furious, Luffy is ecstatic, showing off his new stretchy powers at the fish market and refusing to give up his dreams of piracy ("If I sink like an anchor, then I'll just be a pirate that never falls overboard!").

Soon enough, Luffy is taking on the mountain bandits singlehanded, at least until Red-Haired and his pirates return from their latest excursion. While One Piece has, so far, felt like a narrative for children, the ensuing fight has some surprising gouts of violence. While the pirates resoundingly defeat the mountain bandits, Higuma escapes in a boat, with Luffy as a captive. Out on the water, he tests out whether or not Luffy can swim. But as Luffy struggles to stay above the ocean's surface, a sea monster—something like a giant moray eel—rears up from the water and chomps down on Higuma.

Shanks shows up right in time to rescue Luffy from the water, but loses an arm to the sea monster in the process. Having demonstrated true heroism, "Red-Haired" Shanks once again becomes Luffy's role model.

"One day I'll have a ship and crew better than yours, and we'll have the biggest hoard of treasure in the world!" Luffy shouts at him. "I'm gonna be King of the Pirates."

Amused, Shanks gifts Luffy his signature hat, then heads back out to sea, asking that Luffy return the hat one day, when he's become a great pirate.

"Luffy's adventure," Oda's narration tells us, "begins ten years later from this very same spot."

In the last few pages, an adult (or, at least teenaged) Luffy D. Monkey sets out in a rowboat, equipped with little more than a barrel of supplies. When the local sea monster once again rears its head, he defeats it easily, using a rubbery punching technique he's mastered: Gum-Gum Pistol.

The sea's clear for his voyage, Luffy plans to recruit a ten man crew and acquire a pirate flag. Luffy's "great voyage of destiny" has begun.

One Piece sets up a lot in its first issue, but what's most immediately clear is Oda's talent for creating characters, with cartoonish appearances that immediately reveal just about everything you might need to know. Mr. First Mate is wry and capable, but also reserved, backing up his captain with the minimum effective effort. "Red-Haired" Shanks is life-loving and adored by his crew, but already, in his confident composure, there's evidence of a tragic past we may learn about in future issues. Those well-versed in manga and anime likely see a lot in One Piece that's familiar, but even the dilettante will probably recognize Cowboy Bebop's Spike Spiegel (introduced the same year) and other effortlessly cool, but deeply troubled, characters.

So far, One Piece is operating with some standard adventure storytelling tools, including the Indiana Jone-ish passing of the hat. But there's also a lot of room for more in-depth storytelling. We know next-to-nothing, so far, about Gold Roger, or the origins of the Gum-Gum Fruit, or even the nature of the wider world Luffy is entering.

So do up your sash and hoist sail, because there's 974 more issues ahead.

What You Need To Know About One Piece Chapter 1:

• The Pirate King Gold Roger has left behind a vast treasure trove and pirates hunt for it all over the world.
• We've only met two named pirates so far: Captain "Red-Haired" Shanks and his first mate, Mr. First Mate.
• Luffy D. Monkey can't swim, but has stretchy powers thanks to the devil's Gum-Gum Fruit.

What You (Probably) Don't Need To Know About One Piece Chapter 1:

• A real pirate would never drink milk!

You can read every One Piece chapter on Viz Media's Shonen Jump site. The first three and the most recent three chapters in the manga are available to read for free. One Piece is also collected in manga tankōbon volumes. Chapter 1 is included in One Piece, Volume 1.

Up next is One Piece Chapter 2: "They Call Him 'Straw Hat Luffy.'"