@Thousand:
What crucial story development? You're missing the point of the cover stories which is not to develop the plot but to give us a glimpse of the side-characters dealing with normal life. Take them all out and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. Coby joined the Marines? Jango and Fullbody joined with Hina? Hachi opened up a takoyaki restaurant? It's neat that when they come into the story, the events feel more natural but had Oda never done them, they would still be acceptable, non-deus ex machiney plot twists. Even that thing with Enel will probably be explained again in full when it comes to it in the story. Speaking of Enel, weren't a lot of people bitching during his cover story?
Garp's first introduction was in the coverstories - was it not?
Croc, Mr. 1, Mr. 2, and Mr. 3 being sent to Impel Down.
Either way, like I said, I don't have issues with the coverstories, I like them. So way to take what I said out of proportion. What I meant was simple. Oda separated the SHs and those are the characters (we the readers) are most connected to. He decided to use his coverstories to tell us about the whereabouts of those SH characters. When he decided to do this, it's my opinion that he should have given us a little more coverage, especially considering he did the SH + Animal covers before and after the little stories that told us a little about the SHs. To me, Oda should have either done at least four-pages for each SH, or not done any at all. If I didn't get them to start with, I wouldn't have been expecting more coverage after the initial effort. I'm not being ungrateful for what Oda did, I'm simply expressing my feelings and opinions about how he did it.
