I feel like Oda's not as involved in the decision making process here as we think he is. There have been several places where easy information -like fruit names- were left blank. If Oda had a big hand in this project, this sort of stuff would have been filled out easily. It could be that the vivre cards aren't really planned to be future-proof and only represent the current state of the manga.

@Monquito:

Aren't you the one regularly claiming the manga does not treats Jinbe as a SH?. because not being treated as a SH doesn't matter here, you still get to be where you're supposed to.

Jimbei was a done deal ever since the end of FI. I'm annoyed that he isn't portrayed as such in the manga, but the writing's been on the wall for a long time. The cards hardly spoiled anything by lumping him with the strawhats.

@Monquito:

if you're proposing she should have two different numbered cards, that's hardly happening, not even the main character does.

That's only because no character so far has had their status change after the cards were printed.

@Shiebs:

So When does the Carrot databook card come out? I can't wait to see who is right and who is wrong (though I doubt even that would be enough to sway her fans)

I doubt Carrot joining the crew would be announced with the cards. That's too big of a spoiler to be revealed anywhere but in the manga.

@BattleFranky69:

Noted, but he's had two years after already having made such breakthroughs (and according to Sentomaru, there are upgraded ones even beyond what were seen prior to the Time Skip), it's not a stretch to think he could have made some impressive advances even beyond that.

He's been working on Kuma for a long time. If he wasn't able to mimic his fruit then, I don't think an extra two years would be enough, especially when he didn't have access to Kuma for study that whole time.

I agree that different workarounds are possible though.

@BattleFranky69:

If Vegapunk managed to duplicate the laser ability of Kizaru, is it far-fetched to think that in the 2 years since, he might have, at least to some degree, duplicated Kuma's Nikyu ability? That doesn't mean Kuma would have to have 'died' and had his fruit recycled, but it could present an issue for the Revos trying to figure out which one is the real him if the other Pacifistas have similar abilities to the original. That is, if saving him is still in the realm of possibility, or if Kuma going through all of this wasn't just intentionally done from the start, like being a sleeper agent.

There's a diference between a scientist recreating a laser after seeing one, and a scientist recreating paws that somehow reflect literally anything (even concepts) and can create bear paw-shaped bubbles. Kizaru's power is very straightforward, while Kuma's power is super esoteric.

@Monquito:

I even went back to check out if Kuma still had his paws on his hands and damn gloves, well there's a lot of time and thankfully the Reverie plot has Kuma's fate in the eye of the huracan, so whatever happens to him, we'll get to know thrughout Wano's arc.

Kuma was using his powers in Marineford, and his alive/dead status hasn't changed since then.

@fapfapfap:

Pretty sure #12 will be a 2-sword user to round out Brook using 1-sword and Zoro using 3-swords.

I think 12 will be Tama. I don't think she'll join the crew in the story, but the whole Ace promising to let her join his crew when she's older is too juicy for Luffy not to take Ace's place in the promise. If Vivi can have a "former-strawhat" tag, then Tama can have a "future-strawhat" tag.

@.access:

Any discussion on whether Jinbe was joining or not should be dead the moment this happened: https://twitter.com/sandman_ap/status/938769055988596736?lang=en

It's not some TOEI animators who has access to Oda notes, we are talking about JUMP editors openly saying Jinbe is a SH. If there is anyone in the world who knows what Oda is doing and plans to do in this manga are those guys, if they make something like that it's a statement.
For some reason he is not treated as one within the manga itself, but for every purpose outside here we can already see him as having joined already.

I get what you're saying, but the manga trumps all. Oda still not treating him like a crewmate leaves the possibility of him not ultimately joining annoyingly open.

@Kishido:

Could you please send a link to me to the Jinbe card?

Missed a lot? And what numbering has he got?

http://www.apforums.net/showthread.php?t=49887&page=45

Its in the second hidden part of Redon's post. He's #10. Interestingly enough, Vivi was listed as a former-strawhat and is given the number 13, so naturally this gave rise to a lot of discussion about who would be #11 and #12, because previously it was thought that 12 and 13 might be the ships.