@electricmastro:

While appreciating the Yamato showcase, I still find it interesting they didn't feature a main character on there for the promotion.

Well it's the panel where she says she's going to sea with Luffy so I guess they want to imply she's a main character.

The idea that Wano is ending in 20 chapters is hysterical. Doflamingo vs. Luffy was like ten chapters and that was after a flashback, not to mention Scabbard Avenger's list of lingering plot points isn't even complete. I didn't really interact with the online fandom until last year, was it always filled with people arguing for off-screening things/rushing things or did this only happen after Oda's perpetual five year plan started?

I figured the final war was already starting with the Celestial Dragons vs. Revolutionaries and the great cleansing stuff and that finding the One Piece would just kind of be dousing fire on the war and signaling the straw hats entrance into it.

It'll probably be like the Laugh Tale thing and show some interesting info about Shanks that will be reconfirmed/expanded upon in the manga.

@Jin:

Maybe a litte late to the party here, but your japanese here seems to be missing a couple of words: The sentence is: "やめるっていうか、ルフィの冒険の一番面白い部分、One Pieceって何なの？の物語が完結するから、終わります。", which, according to my (admittedly limited) knowledge of japanese, should mean something like: "Rather than stopping, the story of the most interesting part of luffy's adventure, the question of 'what is the One Piece?', will conclude, so it (probably referring to the series) will end". Now, My japanese is far from fluent so I will wait for the official translation before drawing any definite conclusions about this, but it seems to me at least like Oda intends to try to end the series in five years.

Shit, thanks, guess I was jumping between typing between Kanji too fast on a lower quality scan and just completely missed it (been referring to my own type-out sense then).

@Luca:

Whats your personal interpretation?

I have no idea honestly. Greg pointed out that he may have used the clarification speak (the "teiuka" that most of my first paragraph was arguing about) because of the phrase "Yameru", which while can be used as a more straight forward "to end" is more often used as to "quit" and Oda could have seen as negative phrasing (i.e. are you giving up on One Piece!?!?). If you interpret it that way you can interpret the next sentence as "Because the story of what One Piece is will be finished, the manga will be finished". To be ultra clear for people who don't read Japanese he says finish twice but he doesn't introduce a new subject in between that. "One Pieceって何なの？ / One Piece te nan na no" is literally "What is One Piece" with no margin of error. "の物語が完結する / no monogatari ga kanketsu suru" is the story (monogatari) will (ga) end (kanketsu suru) with no margin of error. He then adds a comma and just says "終わります. / owarimasu" which is just another way of saying end, or to be more specific kanketsu suru would usually be translated as something like "conclusion" where owari would usually be translated to "end". The double statement makes it sound like he is talking about something more dramatic like the end of the series and I can get why Greg and Arthur think that. To me though it's still weird that, given that anyone reading Volume 97 knows that One Piece is an actual physical object and has been foreshadowed to be something that will start a great war by Whitebeard, he choose to specify "what One Piece is" as being what ends instead of just saying the manga will be finished. I remember him saying that One Piece has a secret meaning in an interview before so maybe the twist will be that secret meaning and he'll still go to Laugh Tale before the final war concludes. Or maybe he really will go to Laugh Tale at the very end, though that seems weird not just because of the aforementioned foreshadowing but just from a narrative perspective beating the world government and then getting some final information epilogue as the end of the series would be kind of anti-climatic. I noticed One Piece wiki added a translation of the SBS to everything but this question, unfortunately this isn't really something you can get a definitive conclusion on with the way it's worded. People who want to believe that One Piece will be ending in five years upon landing on Laugh Tale will, people who don't won't. I do just want to clarify again that guessing how many chapters something can take is a complete crap shoot even if Oda has a giant notebook with all the details of what's going to happen next written down. As I mentioned in another thread Gintama overshot it's actual ending which was scheduled by the magazine itself that very same year with WAY WAY less juggling plot points than One Piece (it was already basically just wrapping up a few things). Trying to guess something five years in advance has a pretty huge margin of era, as in several years worth. I'd be shocked if One Piece ends before 2028. Shueisha is probably gonna bring the number up more in order to get lapsed fans back in to the volumes and hope they start subscribing to Jump to be part of the final stretch. Best just to ignore the noise and enjoy the story, sense the only things Oda has really been cutting corners on are the things he's been cutting corners on for the past ten years (secondary fights and moments that don't really add to anything but the pacing, i.e. the way it jumps from Drake walking out to being confronted in 990).

@Greg:

Actually he said '4 or 5' years not 4.5 years and that statement wasn't 'last time' as recording for the Arashi interview would have occurred after Vol.97 was submitted for printing.

Regarding 'yameru tte iuka'.

The purpose there is to redefine what the writer suggested. The writer asked are 'you quitting' which is fairly straightforward in English but may have the negative connotation of 'being a quitter' or 'leaving unfinished' in Japanese and Oda intended to make it crystal clear that he's not 'quitting' he will be 'finished'.

Ex:
Q: Are you quitting One Piece?
A: I wouldn't say quitting so much as due to….(Luffy's adventure)....[it's going to/I'll be be] finished.

There might have been wiggle room without his definitive use of 'owarimasu'. But it's simply not there.

"But Oda said!"

The mantra one must repeat is, "Oda says a lot of things."

Interesting, I didn't consider the possibility that Oda was rephrasing it from a negative. I still find it odd that he specifies "what One Piece is" before going on to say "will be ending, owarimasu". I suppose he could have just took into account that he would be near the ending either way and decided to go with that phrasing to give himself wiggle room though. Or maybe One Piece could have some twist re-contextualizing the war style ending (seems weird given the foreshadowing). Probably best to just wait and see at this point without worrying too much about random comments in interviews, Gintama missed it's announced ending by a volume last year and that was with way less plot points to juggle and an estimation made way closer to the actual end than Oda currently is.

@theackwardstation:

You are the one who speaks japanese between the two of us, but from what I understood from your own breakdown of the SBS I do feel like my interpretation makes sense.

It comes down to our personal interpretation of what Oda means when he talks about the end of the "monogatari/story of what One Piece is", and to me this is a much more encompassing concept than what you're giving it credit for. You're supporting the idea that this fake "end" is just a stop before the true finish line based on the assumption that discovering the truth about the Void Century and the One Piece will not be the last thing to happen in the series. That's a fine interpretation, but whatever happens after that point is still part of the "monogatari of what OP is", in my opinion.

You argue that Oda didn't need to be so ambiguous and he could have said simply that "the manga will end". Ok, sure, but it's even more contrived to make this weird distinction that Oda is talking about a metaphorical ending before the true final arc. It just makes more sense to follow the consistency and simplicity of the message that OP will end in 5 years, as Oda has been saying for some time now.

And since Oda is starting the great war as soon as Wano is over, then it's even easier to understand that OP could end in 5 years since we're already in the final saga (after Wano).

I'm not talking about a metaphorical ending. One Piece is the name of the "treasure" on Laugh Tale and is a physical object. In the SBS when asked if the manga was really ending in five years, Oda specifically stated that the story of what exactly One Piece is will be concluded as a response. Not really sure what is contrived about distinguishing between the object that exists in the story of One Piece and the actual manga series itself. As zeltrax stated above I think he's just kind of backpedaling on what was a marketing attempt on his/Shueisha's part after thinking it through more carefully.

Yeah, I don't think focusing on "most interesting" (that is literally the kanji in use so no translation error) is too meaningful. As far as I know there is no Japanese word for saying something like "the hook of the story", I think that's more of what he wanted to convey. The goal sense chapter 1 will be reached but there will still be the fallout after that (i.e. the war at Marine H.Q/Marejois/Fishman Island). Also yeah we're totally over analyzing Shueisha's marketing tactic here.

@theackwardstation:

As long as Luffy doesn't die, he'll live an adventure for the rest of his life.

But this particular story about the One Piece (and all that comes with it) is coming to an end in 5 years.

I mean again he literally avoided saying that when he could have stated it clearly. Someone should send him some more angry letters for SBS 98.

@andre:

Do you think his breakdown of the final arc, as related to Wano, implies that it will be right after Wano or after finding One Piece?

So the reason I said it was pointless is because it's kind of hard to tell even in Japanese and I can't really add much to what the translation posted a couple pages back said.

いま「ﾜﾉ国盛り上がってますけども
Right now Wano Country is heating up BUT

ﾙﾌｲｶﾞ無事ここを出航できたなら、
If Luffy safely sets sail from Wano Country

世界的展開、

Basically means a wordly development (世界=sekai=world), (的=teki=kind of means like? For instance if I added 的 to a kanji for say Japanese it would mean that something is very Japanese) and 展開=tenkai=development.

誰も読んだ事ないような大興奮、 One Piece 史上最も巨大な戦いを描く
事になります。面白いです！！
Then it's literally the most gigantic (巨大= kyodai=gigantic) battle (戦＝tatakau=to go to war) he's ever written will take place, followed by hyping it as "interesting" with two exclamation marks. The use of 戦 is kind of interesting, cause it means to wage war where something like ikusa or sensou is the more usual writing of war in my experience. Idk if there's anything really worth reading into in that or not. I tried to break down the first more important part so people could look up any phrase for themselves but I'll speed through the rest. He says he wants to readers to know that the story is properly/ ちゃんと heading towards it's conclusion, which I bring up because I think it kind of seals the deal that we're actually debating Shueisha's marketing tactics more than any finite road map in Oda's head.

To end with some more conjecture, I think it might be useful to not think of the war as on/off switch with no return and no room for other less related arcs. For all we know he could be saying that if Luffy safely left now he could be caught up in some crazy stuff, but it may be concluded (for the time being) by the time he reaches Wano and all he can do is continue his journey. Given the writing of the story I'd expect a war between the WG and Revolutionaries to happen and make some headlines but it won't be till he finds One Piece that the actual war explodes into a world war.