One Piece has been around for more than twenty years, and its fanbase continues to grow. As young fans find the title for the first time, there are dozens of die-hard readers who have grown up with the Straw Hat crew, and their feelings towards certain characters have — um — changed over time? And that is perfectly fine with creator Eiichiro Oda.

In fact, the artist is more than okay if fans fantasize about heroines like Boa Hancock. In a previous fan Q&A, Oda reassured fans he is fine with fan-projects like hentai reimagining One Piece however they’d like.

“I feel that Nami is getting more popular,” the artist wrote to one fan who asked if their interest in the heroine was strange.

“I suppose you feel guilty about looking at my characters in an erotic way. I don’t it at all and this goes for all my characters,” Oda explained. (via Ken Xyro)

“My mentor told me that the manga universe you create is a product, and after people spend money on that product, it’s not a [professional] thing for us to complain about it. I agree with him,” the actor continued. “Please enjoy my work with any interpretation or imagination as per your liking. I’m just happy that you read my manga.”

Of course, series like One Piece are familiar with fan-works and their sometimes explicit leanings. The anime community is one which thrives online, and artists have done their part in expanding the series' popularity. Fan-made manga series based on Oda's work are easy to find, and there are a fair few which explore its heroes' sexuality. From Nami to Zoro, fans can find hentai for all of One Piece's leads, and it seems Oda is plenty okay with the genre's growth.

So, are you ready to break out some new One Piece fan-fics? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.