@Chrior:
I really really REALLY think people have been blowing this year of Sanji excuse out of all proportions. They use it to justify almost everything: that they don't like the treatment of Sanji because it's not the promised Year of Sanji, that Jinbe doesn't have enough spotlight because it's the year of Sanji, that now that 2016 is over Sanji will magically stop being the focus of the arc because it's no longer his year… Oda's estimation of arc lenghts is awful. What he meant by Year of Sanji was most likely that we were going to have an arc focused around Sanji. That's it. The way the arc is unfolding has nothing to do with it being published in 2016 or 2017. Sorry to answer this to you right now but I'm just really tired of seeing this all over the forum x.x
In the end, let's hope Jinbe can really come back soon enough to finally have a nice showing, maybe team up with Sanji once again (it can't be merely coincidence that Oda put them together in the Fishman Island fight and now, in an arc so related to that one, we have both of them being heavily involved) and have them rejoin in a really pleasant manner, like they deserve!
Breathe my friend.
You speak as if my post came off as upset with the way things unfolded this year. I am extremely content with the way 99% of One Piece is written and drawn. Find one post of mine where I complain about a break, missing spoilers, or the way in story events unravel. I knew from the get go an arc revolving around Sanji's wedding to an Emperor's daughter, revealing his past, and Jinbe's struggle with the same Emperor was never going to end in 30ish chapters. I was simply speaking out of a matter of fact.
Because there were so many plot lines set up before the crew even set foot on Whole Cake I assumed we were in for another Dressrosa with a ton of bouncing around with twice as much complaining. I thought for sure we would be getting both Jinbe and Sanji flash backs and development at roughly the same time. As it turned out that is hardly what happened. Looks to me Oda heard some of the criticism regarding the pacing of Dressrosa and deliberately set it up so that this year(of Sanji) much of the current plot stayed fairly focused without individual chapters jumping around to 99 different places/plot points.
Now that Oda's self proclaimed year of Sanji is over more of the focus will be shared with Jinbe and his predicament with the same group of villains. A year of Sanji never guaranteed a full conclusion to the current plot, it basically just told us that the focus would be on Sanji and it has. That same plot can now continue forward now with Jinbe getting mixed in. I mean thats basically whats happening.
So yeah, now that Oda gave such a focus to Sanji's character and predicament this year as he stated, now the other important Straw Hat will get plenty of screen time to develop. It's not that events changed or would have changed, what ever Oda has broadly planned with Sanji and Jinbe is going to come out more or less.
In 2016 we got:
Sanji Plot Points - A, B, C, D, E.
Jinbe Plot Points - A.
Where as it could have gone…
2016
Sanji Plot Points - A, B, C.
Jinbe Plot Points - A, B, C.
Now its probably going to finish a little more equally with...
2017
Sanji Plot Points - F, G, H.
Jinbe Plot Points - B, C, D, E.
Oda could have addressed Jinbe's cliff hanger at anytime this year and continued both plot lines completely separate but running parallel to one another until they merged later in 2017. Instead he didn't. Betcha because of the Year Of Sanji!