You are misunderstanding the secondary characters. Law has global outreach and so does Doflamingo. They had it from the very beginning they were introduced. But someone like Denjiro, Hyou, Kawamatsu or Hiyori has no global presence.
When we see people like Law or Doflamingo in panel, the story moves quite quickly. It when you see some old-timer like Hyou, the story stagnates. But Oda gave Hyou screen time because because he wanted us to feel Wano's desperation.
Kuma and Bonney aren't secondary characters. They are primary players in the global event. When Oda focuses on them, the story moves. That is not "waste" of chapters. So them being in the story doesn't lead to reduced pace as we have seen with Hyou/Kawamatsu etcetera.
am I naive for thinking that the pace will dramatically improve after Wano? Probably. But I still feel that when the story focuses on the primary players, the story actually moves quite a lot and quite quickly. So, the pacing improves a lot. And if the pacing improves, then the previous pacing can't be used as a reference point.
Let me ask you this: why Dressrosa or Wano is so long? Is it because of Law/Doflamingo or Kaido? Or is it because of Island-specific characters?
Okay I understand what you mean, but really only halfway. Dressrosa wasn't long just because of its inhabitants. The first half of the arc dealt with Luffys tournament and characterizing the strawhat fleet, all characters with eventual global presence. On the flipside you really only have Viola, Rebecca, Kyros and Riku. Compare that to everyone else in the arc. The first half also dealt a TON with Law vs Fuji and Doffy. In fact, Kyros's plot was pretty small in comparison to Laws and Doffy's, as well as the SHF exposition. On top of this, Law has the 2nd long flashback in the series behind Oden. Doflamingo got a 2 chapter flashback, like BM did 2 arcs later.
The same with Wano, but I get what you mean more. Many of the scabbards do have world presence, but I also understand your points about some like Kawamatsu, Denjiro, etc., we did spend 70 chapters mostly on Wano's problems, but we are at a point where it still feels like we havent truly are close to the end of Wano because, as of last chapter, the arc is seemingly becoming very Kaido centric. There is still tons of exposition for his crew, his history with BM, Rocks and Yamato.
But we, for example, don't know how Vegapunk's plotline is going to go down. If, let's say, Luffy and crew visits his facility, who knows how many sode characters and secondary villains Oda decides to draw here. Hes already teasing the SSG, or the Special Science Group. Strong emphasis on GROUP, another area where Oda may spend chapters on their history. Then you have Elbaf and its citizens, similarly to everything else. Then you just have possible arcs we know nothing about if they come into fruition.
Then when it comes to many different factions colliding by the EoS war, right there you have:
- Im, Gorosei, Kong, CP-0 whomever else on the WG side
- Akainu, Fuji, Ryo, Kizaru, Vice Admirals, Garp, Sengoku, Koby, whomever else
- Hancock, Kuma, Buggy, Weevil, Mihawk, Crocodile, Moria, and their fates
- All the supernova, but especially Bonney and Urogue for future plots
- The SHF and their apparent future incident.
- Blackbeard and his crew
- Shanks and his crew
- Dragon, his commanders
- Luffy, and ALL of his possible allies of they all assemble for the final war (previous arc characters, pirates like Marco, etc)
Its not going to be small at all, no matter how we can try chalk it up to secondary arc characters or plotlines. THESE characters need finality. They need panel presense. They all need backstories (many of them havent even gotten proper presence yet in a specific arc). They need endings. And that's not even including returning allies if they all join.
