There's been "around the world" chapters all throughout this arc, and we've just had 3 in a row. I think what Oda's going to try to do is actually show all of these characters' experiences during the flood. We'll get these sorts of chapters semi-regularly, whenever there's some news to segue into them, and it'll be like getting 30 cover stories at once. And all these stories are going to converge on the only safe places we know about: Water 7, Wano and Mariejois + the Red Line more broadly. The WG's next target with the Mother Flame will be Water 7. Wano too, if they don't want Pluton or the poneglyph.
For example in East Blue we're going to see all the town leaders organise an exodus. Some people are not going to want to leave behind what they have, e.g. Nojiko might not want to leave the tangerine orchard. We'll see Baratie feed the refugees. There'll be a traffic jam at Reverse Mountain, Crocus will try to co-ordinate it. And so on throughout the rest of the final saga. By the end every character in the series that survives will be gathered together.
There's a lot of potential if Oda does go in this direction. It depends on how many chapters he'd want to commit to this, at risk of upsetting fans over pacing. But it'd allow for lots of side-stories that just couldn't fit in the manga otherwise.
For example in East Blue we're going to see all the town leaders organise an exodus. Some people are not going to want to leave behind what they have, e.g. Nojiko might not want to leave the tangerine orchard. We'll see Baratie feed the refugees. There'll be a traffic jam at Reverse Mountain, Crocus will try to co-ordinate it. And so on throughout the rest of the final saga. By the end every character in the series that survives will be gathered together.
There's a lot of potential if Oda does go in this direction. It depends on how many chapters he'd want to commit to this, at risk of upsetting fans over pacing. But it'd allow for lots of side-stories that just couldn't fit in the manga otherwise.