@Ryuksgelus:
Assuming Shanks&Mihawk are around the same age you think Mihawk was a world famous swordsman at 15,16? He could have but it makes a little more sense that when Shanks was only a cabin boy he was a fledgling swordsman or at best a skilled upstart in his native Blue. 13 years is a lot of time for both to men to start their own journeys, gain fame&power, make it to the New World, then settle comfortably with their status.
Kenshin was essentially a world famous swordsman at 15,16… and Oda may have taken something from there. Anyways, that's just throwing random thoughts out there.
To point. When Whitebeard is speaking to Shanks about things of the past, WB mentions the duels between Shanks and Mihawk in the same line of thought. Just because Shanks started out as a Cabin boy in Roger's crew doesn't mean when the Jolly Roger pirates were disbanded, Shanks was still only a Cabin boy.
I didn't quite get your 13 years reference point...
@brennen.exe:
I would certainly say so. I always imagined the shichibukai as being a way for the Marines to get some major pirates out of the game ~~ not just giving them some extra firepower. I am not sure you really stated your point though…...or at least you lost me. What were the implications? That there were less pirates and that Roger brought the increase about and thus the Shichi came thereafter? What about the shady part?? I just want you to explain it more is all, I like the topic.
I was trying to establish an accurate hypothesis for the political and strengh/power situation in Roger's active time. If we have a general concensus for what it was originally, then we can get a decent degree of interpolation without rampant comments about canon and "no, that's wrong!" and the likes.
I plan to expand my theory, but I'm still formulating my thoughts.
And yes, I was implying that there were far fewer pirates in Roger's time and that the WG/MHQ could not stop piracy (the likes of Roger) even at that time.
@robbybevard:
As for Oda taking a week off, he's probably taking that week long break to do some or all of the following: coloring book, a pop up book, do a SJ cover, a color spread, design characters for a filler arc in the anime, organize the 4th Color Walk, work on a data book, stop by the movie studio to participate in storyboards for movie 10, do a 9 page random side story for the collections like Oba Time or Monster Time or Chopperman, 10 pages of random other stuff, do the next trade cover, or maybe go to an aquarium to get some reference images for fishman island.
Seriously folks, Oda keeps busy and does a lot more than just the main comic. LAST time he took a break, it was to design the supernovas, (I assume since the next week is when all 9 of their unique character designs appeared,) the time before that was Golden Week which everyone gets off, the time before that he was SICK, and the only time before that I can recall was over a year earlier to design the Sunny Go. (Where he was on a break for a week, obviously spending time studing ships and designing Sunny.) I don't think he took a single break during the ENTIRE Enies Lobby arc, and Thriller Bark was pretty much a solid run too.
So, a sick week, a development week, and a company wide holiday. This sounds like its his first actual week off in the last three years, and he's probably not even really taking the whole thing off.
Really, in general he only takes 3 or 4 weeks off (counting Golden week non publication week that EVERYONE at Jump gets) over the entire year. 48 chapters a year is pretty damn good, especially when its at the quality and level of detail that Oda takes. Compared to Naruto and Bleach which are headshot fests, or Berserk which takes 3 months for every chapter (which looks great, but it does take three months) or Hunter X Hunter which takes 16 week hiatuses every 10 weeks, Oda skipping a single week is NOTHING. Particularly when he's probably not even entirely taking the vacation he deserves, but working on behind the scenes stuff that takes time to develop. Man is a workaholic.
I honestly like to think that when Oda takes a week off, he's really getting a week off. At present, the poor man probably doesn't even get vacation. I'm really hoping that these breaks are times when he isn't doing any work at all. Oda has already told us through the SBS that he's generally about 2-3 chapters ahead (i.e. working on chapter 403 when 400 is released).
Also, I thought Oda has assistants that help him with some of the drawing and generally the assumption for little screw-ups like Croc's hands, and the Rocketman missing it's face.