One piece was only supposed to last for 5 years and was originally supposed to focus on Luffy fighting the 4 Emperors after his battle with Crocodile.
Then he started introducing more warlords. The Supernova weren't supposed to be a big thing, until his editors told him otherwise.
The 4 Yonko Saga was supposed to have been here a LONG time ago. He very much did overbloat his story, especially after the timeskip.
No. What he did is respect the real potential of his story. Creating One Piece within 5 year would have at best created a MHA shonen. Not the kind of epic odyssey that this story need in the very core.
Also yes I know, Oda SAID that it was supposed to be 5 years, he also said that things like Law or the warlords weren't supposed to exist. So about that:
- We don't have to believe him, Oda has been known to be an unreliable source of information regarding his own process. He will often under estimate his own planning in order to keep a "modest" and "romantic" vision of the story. You will often see him overstate how much he "let his character live", while it is true in certain aspect, it is also an illusion as the guy is a big architect.
- What Oda is talking about is an estimate that Mangaka tend to give to their editors at the beginning of their story in order to plan the releases of the volumes and the planning of releases.
- 5 year was way too short even for the very first draft of the manga (let's not forget that oda had the entire crew planned, most probably Luffy's arc in Marineford since its a major turn over, most probably Wano with Big Mom and Kaido and most probably various villain such as Imu and Black Beard). This estimation, with the way Oda craft even his shortest story, was completely bonker.
- I repeat again, we need to be very careful with Oda's affirmation and interviews, most of the time we don't have the context and we tend to rigidify our understanding of Oda's process when it is really quite organic. Oda simply adapted his story to its necessities.
- The editor give him guidance. They can have ask him to add some flavor around some arcs like Sabaody but Oda (and authors in general) will eventually decide what they put in their story within the limit of what Jump can accept. In this case, its Oda who choose to developp his story that way.
And it's a good thing. The story is not "overblown",
it's simply big on purpose.
I've been saying this for years now. But Kaido and the Beast Pirates should have been the sole antagonists of the arc. Luffy, Kidd and Law should have jumped Kaido and beat him together. Big Mom should have never been there.
That would destroy a good chunk of the point of the thematic of the Yonko Saga.
This saga is completely centered around the thematic of parenting and the "taking down" of bad parental figure. Big Mom was an absolute necessity in wano and whole cake was too soon for her. Luffy beating Kaido alone was ALSO a necessitye ven if he had help at the beginning. It's the Saga where Luffy becomes biggers than a simple pirate. He becomes Yonko. Big Mom is here to highlight the gap that Luffy crossed and kaido is here to highlight the step Luffy had to overcome in order to move ahead.
Really. There is nothing uneeded here. Shorter arcs are not necessarily better. Wano needed to be an epic tale. It has some lengh of course (especially around the battle) but overall, its solid as F.
