Yamato's character was a complete betrayal of everything the series once stood for and it's what finally broke me of any hope and optimism I once had for the story. It's what opened my eyes and made me see how burnt out Oda is and how incapable he has become of steering this massive ship he's created. This isn't me just being salty, regardless of how you feel about the character, whether you loved or hated him, it all comes down to a simple fact. A character gave up their dream to explore the world. Yamato spent a decade on that island, starving and freezing and being tortured. It is nothing but a stew of bad memories and trauma, people he cared about died trying to protect him. He was always trying to run away and explore the world so he could finally be free and emulate his idol. But when the time came to leave, Yamato was not allowed to by the flimsiest of writing excuses.
Now you can point at Brook and Jimbei and say how they didn't join immediately until they took care of certain baggage, there is a massive difference between I have to take care of x and I will join right away and I gotta stay and take care of this brat for who knows how long because despite everything that happened, he still can't take care of himself (completely undermining said character's whole arc in the process, like what was even the point of the Green Bull fight!?!) especially when Oda is clearly full steam ahead to wrap up the story as quickly as possible.
You can try and make comparisons with Vivi and I can point out that a) Vivi got to go on three arcs worth of adventures, had plenty of bonding time with the crew and we got our fill of her and will continue to do so b) she loved her goddamn country and didn't want to leave opposed to Yamato who fucking hated it there and wanted nothing more but to leave but had to stay because of RESPONSIBILITIES. You know who had responsibilities? Jimbei, he had a crew to look after but they told him to be selfish and think of his own happiness. Because first and foremost the story used to be about finding your own personal happiness.
You can say there's still a chance he'll join eventually and to that I would say please don't waste my time because joining post One Piece ending for one panel doesn't goddamn count and is an emotional cheat. I wanna be like my idol and go on the greatest adventure ever while missing out on the greatest adventure ever.
What disgusts me the most about how the character was written is how much Oda clearly didn't give a shit about him. Yamato was clearly written out of a flit of passion in order to fulfill some narrative goal and to streamline the story. There's nothing wrong with that, that's how Oda and a lot of writers work and they build on top of what they create. But the way Yamato was handled was so transparently utilitarian. You drop all these interesting character and story hooks, being a child of an Oni, wanting friendship and to be accepted, his one and only friend dying and not being there to help him, wanting to be accepted and be part of a group of people who have been ruthlessly massacred by his own father. And then you proceed to do absolutely nothing with any of these things.
Like Rebecca is probably the worst character in the story but even she felt like at least Luffy gave a shit about her. Her relationship with her father was the emotional centerpiece of Dressrosa, there was an emotional catharsis to her reunion, her happiness and joy was the final bullet point of the arc. Yamato is like who cares? He is just accepted as part of the samurai with no fanfare, his father died, his one ticket off the island as well as a chance to visit his dead friend's grave just left and all of it is just such a waste. Like all of it was an emotional goldmine if Oda cared enough to try. Like when Luffy tagged back in the fight after Yamato was holding back his dad, that was the perfect opportunity to have an emotional scene where Kaido scoffs at Yamato about not having friends and never being accepted by the samurai and Luffy shouting back at him how he's full of it and Yamato is his friend and Momonosuke shouting at him that he is the shogun and he will definitely be accepted by him. Wouldn't have needed to add anything page wise, just a few small changes would have had a major effect on how the character was handled, Yamato would have felt like an actual person with a story and not a tool of plot convenience and merchandise.
His fucking not joining was an afterthought handled in flashback. That is absolutely absurd and something that used to be unthinkable for someone of Oda's caliber of writing. Like how could you have spent so much pages and screentime on this character and then just throw them into the trash like they're a minor character?
And this isn't just salt. This isn't just me being angry a character I liked didn't get to join the crew. This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. The story used to be about giving emotional life lessons on living a good life full of fulfillment and freedom and choosing your own destiny. It used to go through painstaking depth into fleshing out every character, even the most minor, as much as it could to give them some level of depth and agency. It used to go the extra mile to mine any emotional weight it could out of a scenario because the author cared enough to try and tell a good story.
Now it's just fucking boring lore dumps and fast tracking plot threads and using up characters like they're disposable and throwing them away.
And I didn't used to be this jaded and cynical, I was the biggest let's wait and see with the Wano arc and even after the anti-climax that was the ending of that arc, I was still ready to believe that it was just a one off fluke, that it just got too big and things got away from Oda, that Oda still cared and still had his passion and wanted to tell good stories and treat his characters with a modicum of respect.
Then Oda off-screen a Strawhat not joining and that broke me.
Over 15 years of loyally watching the anime and reading the manga. Now I can't enjoy the story anymore.
This isn't me trying to be malicious or being a hater or being butthurt, this is what I honestly feel. If you can still enjoy the story, power to you, I can't get any joy out of it anymore. Big moments like OH MY GOD IT'S A ROCKS PIRATE CLONE or OH MY GOD AN ELDER STARS IS DOING SOMETHING used to freak me out with excitement. Now they just bore me.
I just wanted Oda to tell a good story but he's not interested in that anymore, he is too caught up with trying to finish his story as quickly as possible, tying up as many loose threads as he can and to cement his legacy. Sorry if you disagree, I wish I didn't feel this way either.
