A record 2.85 million copies of One Piece volume 56 are set to be printed by publisher Shueisha. That’s the most copies any publisher has ever printed of a single volume! This may be due to the huge popularity of the previous volume, 55, which sold 1,487,845 copies in it’s first week alone! Since 1997 when Shonen Jump first started to feature One Piece, there have been over 176 million copies printed to date.

That’s a lot of One Piece! With that in mind, Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, has confirmed that he had originally planned to end the One Piece series in five years, however, at this point in time he feels that the series is only half way finished. Oda has envisioned the final chapter already, but cites the time that it takes to create the episodes has delayed his vision from coming true.

Sources: ANN, Oricon, Asahi,.