@GREK:
What happen't to dragonball? I was suppose to end so many times…
"IT WAS PURE CRAP AFTER THE SECOND BOOK!!11ONEONE"
I won't deny that, after a while the long series do drone on quite a bit.
The trouble is when you get a popular mangaka, pople start making them offers, you know I'll pay you XXX money to do artwork for my series. In many respects its better to stick with one series as at least your getting reglaur pay, but the bigger money isn't on manga comics. With Oda's creatativy, I'm sure he is etching to do other works, I remember an old interview where he said he wanted to write a mecha series and I've been looking forward to it for a while now.
About all we can say is that you can expect Oda to write OP for the next 9 years since now 11 years have past. Its been an intereasting series so far, but it mean Oda will never write another long series again. Even if the endings bad, the story has left us with highlights to enjoy.
Once Oda reaches the New World though, the ending is just around the corner… Raftel could be the next any at any last point. He may only have Luffy visit half a dozen island, or twenty, regardless, Raftel is coming. I'm not saying Raftel would be the END of the story, but for us it means the series at least would be nearly over. :sad: