@Shift:
"I don't think two members who have joined the crew have fufilled the criteria to join the crew"
Yes, this sounds like a sane statement.
They have both have backstories, both have arcs focused primarily on them, both have unique designs. That's kinda what makes most straw-hats, straw-hats. Also they joined the straw-hats.
You know..if you're just here to talk about whether or not you think they're good characters, maybe start off with that? Because this sounds pretty bias.
Although apprently it begins with "fat and fifty and doesn't have boobs"…so?
Actually, you just showed why Brook and Franky fail in that regard.
Franky was basically a tack-on to an arc that was all about Robin. Yes, he had a small character arc within it. After all, he had to stop being a general jerk and he tore up the plans for the Pluton.
Which is about the same as we get from Gin, Smoker, Vivi, Dalton, Wyper, Lola, Perona, Boa, Buggy, Crocodile, Bon Clay, Mr. 3, Shirahoshi, Sabo, Rebecca or literally all of the Minks.
So what exactly makes Franky different from every other character whose backstory we are told and who get one heroic moment inspired from meeting the Straw Hats and are barely seen or heard from again?
Not much at all.
And what does he do beyond that?
Pretty much drops some random toy into the story that is used exactly once and never seen or heard about again.
If One Piece was making big sales off of models of Franky's random one-off toys, maybe that would be enough. But– it really isn't.
There is no growth for him. The closest we ever get to a rivalry or struggle for him was that drawn out, boring battle with Senior Pink in Dressarosa which hardly even figured into the overall story and didn't advance it one bit.
And what exactly was Franky's goal? Well... exactly what he'd already completed when Water 7 ended. He could have parted ways with them at that point and it wouldn't have come across any different from every other 1 arc character.
Brook is even worse. He was dropped in right before Thriller Bark, but he didn't remotely play any significant role in it. Honestly-- one could make a better argument that arc was about Lola than they could that it was about Brook. After all, she is the one whose situation, living conditions and mindset were changed by the end.
He hasn't had any significant character growth or changes. His world views have never been challenged, his abilities have never been tested. He just sort of exists. And while Oda finds some purpose for his abilities (which is more than he does for the female characters as already noted), none of those scenarios feel central to the story or things that directly advanced his character growth.
And probably most inane is that his goal is... to go see his whale friend again. But as he had 2 years being able to travel Paradise, and we can only surmise all 4 Blues, as a rock star-- if that really was such an overwhelming pressing goal in his life, then he had way more than enough time to do so. If he can't get back there using a logpost-- well, everyone else in the story seems to be able to travel from Blue to Blue easily enough-- many of them doing so as small children. He easily could have sailed back to one of the Blues and booked a voyage over Reverse Mountain and this "big dream" of his would have been entirely completed. He would have kept that promise. And likely would have had months to get back to Sabaody.
One looks at Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji and Chopper-- they started off as rather weak pirates with some unique skills facing a world that was much bigger than them. They all had pretty much insurmountable goals. The vaguest one being Usopp's-- but even his is measurable by his own father. Each of their goals fundamentally require them to go with Luffy to the end of the world.
The one one whose backstory was entirely contained and limited to their own arc was Nami's-- but arguably Nami's background informs her entire approach to the world even if we can't expect to see characters from it again in the future of the story. Sanji was given a more expanded background in Whole Cake Island in order to give it more meaning-- one can't be sure just how long that addition was planned.
Each arc their abilities have been pushed to their limits and they have grown because of the things they have endured on screen. Throughout East Blue and Paradise, they had unique challenges in every arc that they had to mentally and emotionally overcome as much as they had to physically overcome them.
When Franky or Brook has ever pulled out something new, it has seemed entirely random and without any sort of set-up.
Brook's initial introduction literally said "Yeah, I got a trash devil fruit that does nothing but bring you back from the dead exactly once and nothing else ever again."
After all, the devil fruit goes away with someone dies, right? So-- it kind of makes sense.
Except-- nope, that notion was completely thrown out after the Time Skip and now suddenly Brook can just send his soul from his body to go scout around and can attack the souls of others directly (or at least souls that have been artificially attached to bodies they don't belong to) and whatever other hodgepodge of abilities he might be revealed to have.
And Franky just introduces a random vehicle or transformation that he was apparently working on "off screen" and was never remotely foreshadowed or set up and then used once and never seen again.
Robin falls somewhere in between here. She has hardly done anything in any arc since Water 7, and Zou pretty much revealed that the important part she was going to play in the story is no longer necessary and foreshadowed that she is going to be captured and her ability to read the ponoglyphs used by someone else. On the other hand, the fact that she uniquely wants to find and read the ponoglyphs and there are likely copies of all of them sitting at Raftel waiting for her means she actually has a reason to go to the end of the Grand Line with Luffy. So while she also doesn't have much in the way of consistent growth through the story, she also has an actual reason to make the voyage unlike Brook or Franky.
Just think of it this way.
Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin-- right before Raftel or at Raftel or in the ensuing war after Raftel, they all have big emotional catharsis moments of "This is what I wanted most in the world and I achieved this impossible goal and couldn't have done so if I were not a member of this crew since the day I was a random nobody."
There is no such catharsis moment waiting for Brook or Franky or Jinbe.
Brook could have gone and seen that whale any time he wanted. Being part of the crew has actually kept him from completing his promise.
Either the Thousand Sunny will prove good enough to make the journey, or it won't. Franky's goal will have been completed when he made the ship all that time ago. Beyond that, nothing deeply personal is at stake for him.
And Jinbe? It won't accomplish anything more for his "goal" than just sitting at home, protecting his people and helping King Neptune work out a peace with the World Government would have. In fact-- he would have done more for protecting his island had he never helped Luffy in the first place and remained somehow, inexplicably, simultaneously serving both the World Government and a Yonko. Now he has gone and made himself, and his crew as an extension, and his whole island as an extension of that a big enemy and target of both.
One could suppose his big emotional catharsis moment would be helping the Fishmen escape from the island as the Red Line comes tumbling down on their homeland with the vague ideal that with the World Goverment gone, the people of the world will suddenly be far more accepting of fishpeople than they ever have before...
But that's the same as Shirahoshi's moment-- and given the whole thing requires her abilities, it is far more her moment than it is Jinbe's.
And what exactly is Jinbe going to learn, how exactly is he going to be challenges, in what way could be be changed from this point? He is already a fully realized, fully developed character who has already hit his peak and, if anything, is now in decline. He is now less powerful, less influential and less important than he was before he initially decided to help Luffy escape Marineford.
I think the real point I am trying to make here is that when people attack others for saying that one character or another character cannot be part of the crew is that the very arguments they would make as to why a character can't be a permanent fixture of the main cast already applies to the last few people who joined the crew. And they most definitely apply to Jinbe.
Are we to suppose that Jinbe is going to come back to life sometime during Wano and be more a proper crewmate than Vivi or Kinemon or Law have been?
We literally do not have enough story left for that to be the case.
Even if he comes back, even if he "joins" in some way more official than the others, he'll only have ever been part of Luffy's team definitively for Fishman Island, Whole Cake Island and the last 2-3 stories.
3/5ths of the Yonko will have been defeated by the end of Wano. There are only 2 locations left that Luffy is scheduled to travel to after Wano, and I can't see there being more than 1 more side-quest arc in the mix there.
Since we have already had a few characters who have traveled with Luffy to that many locations and been a presence in that many story arcs, anyone who "joins the crew" at this point is simply not going to feel like they "made the journey" with Luffy.
Especially since I am sure when the final war against the World Government happens, that all of the friends and allies, probably even enemies that are none-the-less more Luffy-aligned than World Government-aligned, are going to be joining him. Luffy isn't going to fight the final war with only 1 ship. It'll probably be all the Shichibukai, all the Supernova, all the friendly Yonko forces, all the Kingdoms that support Luffy, etc.
So that basically means that the very final arc will likely include all the characters whether they are officially "Straw Hats" or not.