I really don’t think it’s a retcon at all:
In SBS 68 oda gave the ages of all Supernova, however specifically said that Bonneys is only based on her appearance due to her fruit. So clearly oda planned on her being a different age than her appearance since back then at least
Bonneys past also was hinted at during Marineford when she was shown crying and in distress after the Marines showcased the pacifists project.
Combine this with Bonneys words when she goes to the new world saying “This is all his fault! Let’s go to the New World and find him!” We now know she was referring to Vegapunk who killed her dad
Finally there’s the scene right before the Timeskip where Sakazuki directly mentions that Bonney escaped the World government which sent a shiver down his spine
All of this really points to most of Bonneys and kumas history was already well in the works by the Time the Timeskip happened.
See my post here about Oda’s foreshadowing/retconning style:
https://worstgen.alwaysdata.net/forum/threads/was-rocks-planned.50026/page-2#post-4885412
This is very typical of him. He throws out a bunch of vague things around “him” something being “their fault”. In an sbs he makes her age uncertain (though alluded to it being in the mid 20’s). That doesn’t necessarily mean he had anything planned- it was more likely the opposite, he was giving himself room to fill in the blanks later. Since he keeps things vague, readers look at whatever hes come up with years later and take it to be a sign of foreshadowing.
The original statements are so open ended that almost anything could fit.
All Oda likely had planned pre-ts is uncertainty around her age, and that she had beef with someone.
Akainu’s statement actually doesn’t make sense in retrospect. She had no importance other than being a hostage, no reason for her escape to even bother Akainu, let alone “send shivers down his spine” . Though Oda will probably come up with something to attempt to make that make sense.
Edit: it’s actually even more nonsensical. By that point in time, Kuma was already brainless, which was literally the only reason Bonney was being kept locked up.
There’s nothing about her age that makes sense, she was especially well versed in world affairs, completely out of line with a child locked in a church her whole life. The fanbase is now scrambling to make sense of her arguably being the strongest prepubescent in history, on par with the likes of oden and big mom, with the justification being that she’d regularly spar with “tough” fisherman.
It’s obvious she was originally a middle of the road 20-something, not an exceptional 10-12 year old.
Oda:everything according to plan
the latest stuff about Kuma quietly watching Luffy before the main story began immediately reminded me of Aizen supposedly monitoring ichigo his entire life…
