 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. And today I would like to show you one of the rarest, coolest and most amazing One Piece items in existence. Because if you're an anime only watcher or a more casual fan, you may be unaware, but the series just celebrated the release of its 1000th chapter. An absolutely monumental achievement, very, very few series in manga history have ever hit such a landmark. But now that we've hit four digit chapter numbers, I think that this is a perfect opportunity to look back at the very moment in history that started at all. And to do that, I actually need to be on camera for a change so that I can show you this. An issue of Weekly Shonen Jump released on July 22nd, 1997, which contains the very first chapter of One Piece. So this magazine is almost 24 years old at this point. It's relatively well preserved what it is. And as you can see, it's covered in this delightful plastic. And that is because I've never opened it. I bought it a couple of years ago for an extortion amount of money and it's just been sitting around wherever I am ever since. But that is going to change today because we are going to crack open this issue, step back in time to 1997 and see what the very first issue of One Piece was like. Which does kind of worry me because this thing is pretty valuable and I'm very afraid of ruining it. You see, the price listed on this magazine is 210 yen, which in 1997 would have been just under $2 US. However, after becoming the highest selling manga of all time, this little size of history can be valued at quite an astonishing amount of money. Depending on their condition and that number only climbs year after year as they become harder and harder to acquire. And I would just like to point out that I did not pay anywhere near that much for this. I mean, over a thousand dollar reduces, it's just a bit too rich for my blood for a magazine, even if it is Australian dollar reduces and even if it is One Piece. But as a result, that first issue of Dragon Ball will forever just be sitting there taunting me. Despite that, apart from opening this bad boy up, we have another very special goal to achieve during this video, which will be giving Grand Line Review viewers a chance to win this piece of history. Because this is one of my most treasured items, but One Piece has given me more than enough. So I figure that it'll do one of you a lot more good than it will me. And if you want to win this glorious piece of One Piece, then all you need to do is subscribe to the Grand Line Review and leave a comment below telling me in a concise couple of sentences what your very first experience of One Piece was. Everyone who enters will be put in a draw and a winner announced in a future video. Exact details are listed in the description below. And yes, you do need to be subscribed. Don't try to cheese the system because this little red icon next to all of your comments tells me whether or not someone is or is not subscribed. And if you're already subscribed, then you are already a winner. And having cleared that first step, all you need to do is comment. Now with that out of the way, let's talk about why this is so special. For those of you who don't know, the One Piece manga is published in a magazine called Weekly Shonen Jump, which as the name implies, means that One Piece chapters are delivered to the general public on a weekly basis, usually consisting of about 18 pages of content. In addition to One Piece, Weekly Shonen Jump publishes chapters of roughly 20 series at any given time, which does explain the magazine's chunky, chunky size. All of which are geared towards the Shonen or Young Boy demographic. There's a lot of value to be had in these things and most of the greatest series of all time have come to us directly through this magazine. And this encompasses glorious classics like Dragon Ball and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to the early 2000s Marko Boom series like Naruto, Bleach and Hunter Hunter, as well as our modern day hits such as Haikyuu, Demon Slayer, and My Hero Academia. But amongst all of those, One Piece reigns supreme. But it's also the highest selling comic of all time in general by a single author. In fact, the series even holds a Guinness World Record for this, which was awarded about half a decade ago. And with every day that passes, One Piece continues to increase that record. But every great series needs to start somewhere, which would of course be here. Well, sort of. Prior to the very first chapter of One Piece, there were a couple of prototypes that were published being Romance Dawn's version one and two. Version one was published in the Jump 1996 summer special, which I do not have because it's very, very difficult to find. However, version two was released in 1996 in the mainline magazine, which I do have. And you can see the little Romance Dawn icon in the corner here. Absolutely nobody knew what this was about to become. Now, I've actually never opened up this jump either and I'll probably save that for a future video because this is not quite what we're here to talk about. These are a pain to find though, because the one shots often get overlooked by history. However, it's only because they did so well that Etra Oda was given the green light to start One Piece properly. And on the 22nd of July in 1997, this future Manga Beast Behemoth was released to the general public or perhaps unleashed on the general public. Okay, let's open this thing up. I want to reiterate that I have not touched this thing since the moment it arrived in the mail. I've been kind of terrified to open it because let's just say I'm not the greatest with detail and finesse. I'm usually very heavy handed. I mean, just like look at these fingers, these like sausage fingers. They are not made for detail and finesse, but we're going to try our best anyway. And here we go. So immediately we encounter what looks like we're jumping straight into One Piece, although we have a funky color spread thing. And you can immediately tell that this is not a modern edition of Jump. Not in the grand scheme of things anyway, because if you open them up these days, they're plastered with all sorts of ads and promotional content, various anime series and games and even other manga. But this color spread is for a series called Eyes by Masakazu Katsura. And I honestly know nothing about this series itself except that I think it's a romantic comedy maybe. But Katsura's style is immediately recognizable because he tends to push manga to this very uncanny sort of photorealistic realm. And on the back, there's some eyes related promotional stuff. That is not what we're here for, because just look at this. This is the very first page of One Piece. These three panels that started the entire journey with the words I'm sure that we're all well and truly familiar with. Wealth, fame and power. And down here are some words that are ingrained into me from the anime. Dae kaisoku jidai, the great age of piracy. My Japanese is abysmal. It's about I would say kindergarten level to be honest with you, but it is more than enough to recognize these words anywhere. But here's what's better because when we turn the page, I believe what we're going to see is our first One Piece color spread, which has the chapter title romanced on in English actually. And it shows us Luffy, Nami and the red hair pirates. Which actually fun fact, Nami doesn't even appear in the very first chapter of One Piece. She does appear in the first episode of the anime because they did a weird filler thing where they put her on a cruise ship, but we won't be seeing her anywhere else here. And down here, we also have the first instance of the One Piece logo, which I just learned from an interview the other day was not actually designed by Oda. It was put together by graphic designers at Shueisha with Oda's input, but I thought that would be interesting to note, especially given that there have been a multitude of theories based on the quote unquote hidden meaning of the logo. But turning the page, we have an advertisement for the PlayStation one. Oh my God. Yeah, this is definitely how I remember the 90s. There's also a Walkman and like a cassette player radio. And I'm not 100% sure, but I think those things are yo-yos. More importantly, to our right, we see another full color page introducing us to Fuchsia Village. And if we look right down here, this little squiggly victory thing, well, this I believe is Monkey D. Luffy. Will we get to see him on the next page? And no, no, we will not actually. Instead, this time we have a full page ad for the PS1, so I think we're really pushing that. But then here we see the iconic image of a young Monkey D. Luffy. Still in color actually, the cheaper color though. Something to note here is that the pages have actually changed texture. They've gone from the other glossy magazine field to a more rough paper. Easily recyclable paper actually, because these magazines are designed to be read and then pretty much just immediately thrown out. Which is why they can afford to sell weekly shown and jumped so cheaply because it's printed on this material that's quite cheap and not designed to be long lasting. And it's another reason why I'm absolutely terrified of ruining this issue because it's not made to be durable. Also fun thing here, Luffy is stabbing himself in the face, which in and of itself is not fun. Don't do that ever to yourself or anyone else. But this was originally censored in the anime. However, this is in fact the canon way by which Luffy got his scar. On the next page though, we have the introduction of shanks on the red hair pirate still in color as well. Just how much of this chapter was colored? I don't remember from the volumes, but a lot of work went into this. And I do love that the dominant aspects of these pages are framed and just flooded by shades of what may have once been red, but are now a kind of a yellowy orange. For what is the cheaper method of coloring? This stuff actually looks pretty great. And then we continue for a while, I suppose. Becoming acquainted with characters like Lucky Rue, Ben Beckman, and here's Markino, oh, and even Higuma the Bear. Eventually we do reach this point though. This is our first standard page, just pure black and white manga. And I don't know if you can tell on camera, but the printed paper has also changed to a more warm pinkish color. And the color of the paper changes a lot in the magazine. Usually they're tinted with like this light pink or green, never blue, never blue I think. And according to an editor of Weekly Shonen Jump, this is done purely to hide the bad quality of the paper or at least to attempt to, because they're not doing very well. But as we move through chapter one, we hit all of our standard story beats, including some of my favorite pages here, featuring Shanks staring down the Lord of the Coast and the revelation that gasp he has lost his arm. And I know I just said that quite flippantly, but every time I see this page, it still hits me. And of course, here it is, the all important moment when Shanks gave Luffy the straw hat. Then many moons later, Luffy sets off on his journey, smashes the Lord of the Coast in its face thing and declares that he will become the king of the pirates. And that's how chapter one ends with that powerful declaration. And almost 24 years later, Luffy still hasn't quite done that, but he's getting pretty damn close. However, I am really keen to see what else is in this jump, because like I said, there were about 20 series being published at any given time, still are I think, and I love to know what else is in here. And whoa, immediately we hit Raroni Kenshin and that is just so perfect because Etchira Oda actually worked as an assistant on Raroni Kenshin. So to have it come right after one piece is actually a pretty nice one, two Oda punch. Not surprising though, because the period between Dragon Ball ending and one piece and the other big three taking prominence, well, that was definitely Kenshin's time to shine. It did a lot of heavy lifting for weekly show and in jump during that era. After that, we have Jojo, Jojo part five actually with a color page as well featuring Juno and Mista. Pretty cool. And even some other cheaper color pages as well, which Araki's art looks so good in this style as well. But I have to be honest, I really don't recognize a lot of the other series in here, although I did find this, a chapter of Yu-Gi-Oh, which is notable because this is old school Yu-Gi-Oh when the series was based on games in general rather than just a single card game. But yeah, I don't personally recognize too many more. Coach Kame is in here obviously because that series was published for what like 40 years straight. It had an absolutely insane run. But another very important thing about this magazine, if you are so inclined to travel to some sort of eBay in order to purchase this fine item, I mean, firstly, just enter the contest because free. But if you do want a more guaranteed piece of one piece, then I would just say be wary of online sales. You can be duped quite easily if you don't know what you're looking for because this issue of jump was reprinted in 2015. I think as a way to celebrate the whole Guinness World Record thing and they are, well, the reprint, well, it looks like this, which is strikingly similar. And yeah, if you're not careful, you could end up paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for this, which is worth significantly less. However, there is a very key way that you can immediately tell the reprint apart from the real thing other than general quality because the reprint is, it's quite nice and shiny and the original is quite broken and decaying. But it's also simply by looking at the back of the magazine. So the original has an advert, Kiran Beverage is on the back whilst the reprint was left blank. So if you are buying it in person or online, make sure that you see this delightful interracial family or you may end up being scammed. There's also differences within the magazine itself, but by the time you see them, well, it will be too late. But just to reiterate, I am giving away the real one, the one with the ad. And once again, all you need to do to enter a subscribe to the ground line review, very, very important first step and then leave a concise couple of sentences telling me what your first experience of One Piece was. But what do you guys think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this and please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time.