One Piece, Where’s Waldo? Collaboration Featured in Next Shonen Jump

As the One Piece manga by Eiichiro Oda approaches its 24th anniversary, it was revealed the series will be celebrating with a collaboration with Where's Waldo?

According to Shonen Jump News, the crossover will be included in the release of the upcoming Weekly Shonen Jump Issue 33/34. Little has been revealed regarding what the special visual spread will consist of, such as whether it will tie-in to the latest arc of the manga. The announcement did include an image depicting Luffy in the signature style of the Where's Waldo? books, giving fans a preview of what the final illustration will look like.

The Where's Wally? series was created by English illustrator Martin Handford, which was retitled to Where's Waldo? when the books were released in North America. The series' trademark illustrated puzzles, in which the iconic Waldo/Wally is hidden within a visual collage of characters, could play to one of One Piece's strengths: since the manga debuted in 1997, Oda has included over 1000 canon characters in the story. Oda utilizes an iconic art style has stood out among his anime and manga contemporaries, so the creators of this new collaborative illustration have plenty of unique and interesting-looking characters to fill the scene out with. The current events in the manga have already featured many panels filled with an innumerable number of characters taking part in the War of Onigashima.

It was not made entirely apparent whether viewers would need to locate Waldo or Luffy in the upcoming illustration, although the official announcement teases that Waldo has "wandered into the world of One Piece." The use of color was also not specified, as although the manga is mostly printed in black and white, the puzzle series relies on color to help readers identify the illusive Waldo.

Source: Twitter