I love this, Wano unlike other islands the SH visited felt so devoid of "magic" and uniqueness. Even Dressrosa at least had the toys and exaggerated Gaudí architecture. Although personally I would make kappas like a long-lost freshwater offshoot of fishmen or their own race. I know LOda doesn't like to treat the movies as part of his story (which he really should reconsider for some), but DJ Gappa felt like a good introduction to the concept.
The kid even had
webbed fingers.
And yeah, kitsunes definitely should've been a real thing too, so when the only shapeshifting fox turns out to be a devil fruit user in an SBS, well talk about wasted potential. Same goes for tanukis, which we had seen before even out in the grand line as Sea Tanukis, yet Wano only shows off one who is in the form of a pot, but then the SBS reveals its just a devil fruit that ate a tanuki fruit, which begs the question how someone in Wano was even able to make a DF object considering their isolation and that only Vegapunk conceived the method recently.
Meanwhile Alabasta was rich in weird and unique mythical animals. Although, looking back, LOda really should've had sphinxes be there since its the closest thing we have to an egypt island, and Sphinx Island looks way too small to accomodate for such large chimeras.
