Ever since I was in my late teens and early 20's I have always wanted to create a world building story. I remembered playing Final Fantasy 9 and always tried to imagine what would it be like if I extended it much longer then it already was.
However I had a hard time trying to take pieces and twist it to my own ideas. Then in 2004 One Piece caught my full attention since 1999 and for long was always inspired by this series. For years However I tried to create a franchise that would be similar to One Piece but I kept having problems coming up with my own ideas and not take a big chuck of One Piece as if I'm about to plagiarize it instead of using some ideas from that series and twist it to my own ideas while it may sound similar but I don't wish to carbon copy One Piece.
Oda loves Dragon Ball to death, Dragon Ball however was literally found all over One Piece but Oda manage to twist these ideas up. Star Wars however was stories that has already been told to death many times yet it was popular.
Now I'm 41 and still struggling to creating such ideas. Then I decided this: A story of a young boy found a device that transported him to a world that looks just like One Piece but has more landmass with a cluster of valleys where Red Line would be. The world is called Via, an heavily diverse world of different race, architectures, geography and culture. It is a world located in the Grand Universe inside one single galaxy called Grenda.
The boy learns that he is a Grand Guardian, group of freedom loving people to arrived to explore and fulfill destiny of their own. The Grand Guardians however are not all good guys, these people are humans with free will who can do whatever they wish. There is no limits, no getting fired from it, it's all about freedom and how you chose your path in your own desires.
Grand Guardians are known to have avaters they can summon or transform into, similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. However there are Guardians who are Incarnation of certain people from Via or any other planets in the Grenda galaxy.
This young boy however is from Vearth, a planet outside of the Grand Universe. Vearth is similar to our earth but all countries are fictional with different but similar history and no people that existed on Earth are not found on Vearth. However like the Blues outside the Grand Line that is supposed to be a normal place, Vearth is like that.
The Grand Universe is suppose to be a purely a fictional universe that is not supposed to exist but somehow came alive. The Grand Universe was created by the imagination, inspiration, dreams and desires of people on Vearth.
A young boy by the name of Yincoln E. Redwood finds out he is an Incarnation of a notorious owtlaw who can be seen as a pirate or a bandit or a marauder or other groups like that. His name is Vantius E. Bluewell.
He ends up loving Via and made friends, however like with Luffy he strove to be a notorious outlaw who will surpass pirates, bandits, marauders and terrorists (They called themselves rebels).
Like with Luffy he thought being a notorious outlaw was all about fun, just showing how simple minded he is. Like how Luffy wants to be a pirate king, Yincoln wants to be an outlaw king but unlike Luffy he does not say "I want to be Outlaw King!" Over and over again and does not care if someone else says the same thing but he is motivated to go out in the world.
He learns that Vantius' lost 13 crews is wandering the Vearth being Incarnated in 13 different and goes back to reunite with them which takes a long time to do so but he can't fulfill his goals alone nor does he wants to be alone.
Yincoln was a lonely boy much like Luffy, growing up with parents mysteriously gone, going to one relatives to another. But being a Incarnation of an Outlaw King sets him forward to explore Via.
The story premise is very similar to One Piece. Since long ago in the early 90's treasure hunting stories was my least favorite but while the story may look like a treasure hunt thing but it would eventually come to a point that it is deeper then finding a treasure at end of the line. In fact instead of looking for an lost island, they are looking for a larger landmass called the Grand Valley that disappeared long ago and the Republic attempting to keep it hidden forever.
The story however is known to explore regions or islands while the characters would make a stop to Vearth before coming back. Like how Oda like to pick inspiration, this is exactly what I would do, designing characters that is similar to characters from real life or media. Vearth represents realities we are in while the Grand Universe is a place where you'll like to go to take a break from reality.
This story is heavily inspired by One Piece and other stories such as Dragon Ball, Lord's of the Rings, Star Wars, Persona 5, Xenoblade Chronicles, Adventure Time, Final Fantasy 9, Boxcar Children, Digimon, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things and many others with varies of genres but is to target age 10 to 25 years olds.
I strove to finally tell the story already.
(2020)
Decided to post another selfie. One Piece presses on, it's not even finished and your still reading it, in the meantime everyone is aging.