GODA / Hail GODA

About

GODA is a nickname for Japanese mangaka Eiichiro Oda, creator of the manga, anime and TV series One Piece. The slang nickname is a combination of God + Oda = Goda and was given by fans as a way of praising the artist. Online, photoshopped images of Oda being represented as Jesus paired with the overlay text Hail Goda have been going viral on Reddit, X and Facebook since 2018.

Origin

Eiichiro Oda's nickname "GODA" has been used online since at least as early as 2015. One of the earliest found posts mentioning the nickname was uploaded on June 15th, 2015, by the NeoGAF^[1] forum user @Pegosaurus. In the post, he praised Eiichiro Oda for joining the Guinness World Records by saying "Praise goda. Congrats to him, he deserves it" (shown below).

The same 2015 forum post is the origin of the image macro meme and photoshopped edit featuring Oda as a Jesus. The post was uploaded by user PK Gaming and uses the painting titled Christus Consolator by Carl Heinrich Bloch, swapping Jesus' face with Oda's (shown below), as well as adding the faces of mangakas Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto creator) and Tite Kubo (Bleach creator).

Spread

Over the years, the nickname was popularized among fans of the artist, typically being used to praise his work. For instance, on October 30th, 2020, Redditor^[2] u/Majudiam posted a Perfectly Balanced meme to describe Eiichiro Oda's talent (shown below, left), which amassed roughly 65 upvotes in three years.

On June 16th, 2018, Redditor^[3] u/RoronoaZoro786 posted the "GODA" image macro to praise the mangaka's work in the Reveire "arc" of the One Piece manga. The post (shown below, right) received nearly 70 upvotes in five years.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References