@electricmastro said in How much time do you think is left before One Piece ends?:
@Robby said in How much time do you think is left before One Piece ends?:
@electricmastro said in How much time do you think is left before One Piece ends?:
Interesting. How do you feel this will affect the next crewmate, aka Luffy's 10th person? Because I think we'd have to figure someone else will join given what's happening to various characters.
Unless he adds a viking, it's just Vivi or Yamato at this point. Vivi is getting lots of new story beats and a new mission, while Yamato is staying in Wano until it gets attacked to unleash its ancient weapon.
I think its entirely possible that after Wano, Oda just decided "juggling even one less main character permanently will cut a couple years off this thing" so this is all we're getting till the epilogue. At which point he can throw in Vivi, Yamato, Kinemon, Tama, Gaimon, whoever the hell he wants cause its just the epilogue and Luffy can have a crew of thirty and it won't matter.
I’m not quite inclined to believe Oda is willing to juggle less characters considering how Egghead in this last not only has had substantial focus on non-Straw Hat Egghead characters, but also characters outside of Egghead such as Koby and Kuzan.
Sure, but that's moving pieces around the board to set up endgame. Tying up loose ends. (And Bonney and Kuma are both loose ends.) Getting Coby into a lead position and taking Garp out of things and setting up the powers the Blackbeards have and getting them Pudding so they can do ____.. And possibly finishing of Kidd's part int he story as a major player. Getting Vivi in a position to do ____.
And those were full digression cut aways, not characters in the arc fighting for screen time.
If Yamato was there, that's one extra panel of reaction constantly. And you need , that one extra opponent or obstacle to keep that powerhouse busy. Like Rob Lucchi was brought in to keep Zoro busy, and Sanji and Jinbe are being stalled by having to escort a whole bunch of Vegapunks while fighting Warlord clones and giant robots and Luffy has an admiral to deal with.
And this is after Oda's killed off half the vegapunks, put Kaku into non-fighting shape, and off-paneled basically a full day of Egghead events while doing those cutaways.
What do you do with a near peer like Yamato? Have him also fight against the elder and get tossed aside? Add another CP0 member? Have him AND Luffy fight Kizaru? Babysit Usopp and Nami and CHopper? Get him lost inside a giant snake or stuck in a chimney?
No matter what you do, its one extra character, and a strong one that needs to be accounted for constantly. Those little bits add up. A page here, a page there, and suddenly the entire arc is 5 chapters longer because there needed to be an extra subplot and showdown fight during the 50 chapters of the arc.
And then repeat the problem at Elbaf and Laugh Tale and that's an extra half year of series because of the extra crew member, one extra page at a time. It adds up.
So spending that time on wrapping up other secondary characters and plots that need dealing with makes sense.
This is probably the same reason Jinbe was left out of the crew for a solid decade. Even the two year gap between cakeland and mid-Wano, there was no good real story reason to take him away... he just would have been one more thing to track.