I'll respond properly, but gotta get ready for work and zzz now.
Post automatically merged:
Anyways, YES. I don't know how to English anymore, so know that it's sloppy:
Being jaded towards something as we grow older is normal, I think. Obviously you don't look at things the same when you're 15/25/35. One Piece has never been without flaws though, I just think it depends on what you expect and what you want out of it as a whole. I loved Dressrosa and WCI so I really can't complain about it.
But the truth is Oda's character design definitely improved, you can definitely tell that's his biggest passion now. Yonko crews and Young Master's crew now make Whitebeard's crew kinda unimaginative. I'd argue that he's also improved or at least solidly continued making amazing backstories as well. Characters like Kata or Senor Pink are completely irrelevant for the story line basically, but did he make me care a lot about them? Definitely. He used to focus on the SHs more, while now he focuses on others more, but wherever his focus was, it didn't disappoint.
Kata, sure. Doffy and Law are for me more compelling than most Straw Hats, if not all. Writing his best antagonist that down the line amazes me. Sabo is interesting despite all the Ace comparisons, he's nothing like Ace. Kid, Fujitora, Caesar, Cavendish, Barto, Drake, I want much more on them. He will not disappoint on Sakazuki/Teach/Shanks backstory either, but out of the oldies they're the only ones who are important enough for me to care. SO MANY I'm curious about, but more so in the ones he introduced in recent years. This is of course just my personal view. But ask yourself if you're chasing rose tinted glasses again and being a bit negative about it as a result.
Disclaimer: Oden is not included in interesting new characters. He's a mistake.
Still the answer, his best antagonist ever:
My point is this - Oda’s character design has certainly been a huge part of what makes OP successful, but that has declined after the timeskip in that the characters he introduces LOOK cool, but are ultimately retreads of older characters or simply not interesting to some.
Katakuri remains the exception, and honestly, I enjoyed Oden’s flashback even if my feelings about the man himself are less than positive. Doffy and Law certainly got the spotlight after the skip, but they were both known to some extent by Marineford, their story just got fleshed out in Dressrosa.
Sabo is cool and his personality is different enough from Ace that you can tell they’re not exactly the same, but his entire existence as the post-skip big brother just feels cheap. He even has Ace’s exact power; I get it narratively, but wouldn’t it be just as cool to see his fighting style as honed by years of training with Hack and Dragon? We couldn’t get to know him as an independent entity, but as Ace’s replacement in every sense of the word.
Bartolomeo is one of my favorite side characters, agree with you there as well. Cavendish and Fujitora are also great, so maybe I’m willing to call Dressrosa the exception to the rule. I hated WCI and think all the Charlotte offspring (save Kata and a few older siblings) are so ancillary that if they never existed, the story would have been just fine.
All the others you mentioned were by and large established before we jumped ahead two years, so for me, anything that happens afterward is just related to and an expansion on what we knew about them before. You’re right that the non-SHP have been Oda’s fascination for years, but I’m hoping that as we inch towards the end, we’ll get our protagonists back in the spotlight...ultimately, they’re the ones I care about the most
