Questions & Mysteries What started Oda's obsession with the monster trio post timeskip?

[Water1415]

People have to be blind to not notice the pedestal for Sanji and Zoro is a lot higher than it used to be, none of the straw hats outside of Luffy even come close to the amount of attention Oda gives those two post timeskip, so my question is why and when did this favoritism start?

Is it when One Piece manga sells started dropping?

 

[Warchief Sanji D Goat]

Because Luffy, Zoro and Sanji are the top fighters of the crew. Then Monster Trio eventually established. Simple as that.

Is it when One Piece manga sells started dropping?

No. OP sales dropped like during 2014.

 

[Water1415]

They've been the top fighters in their crew since they were introduced, but the whole crew outside of the mc still got equal treatment pretimeskip

Alabasta they got equal screen time for their fights, while in Wano Zoro and Sanji's fights were longer.

W7 and Ennies Lobby two character arcs for Usopp, Robin, and Franky. WCI, recreation of those two arcs, only gave character development to Sanji

Etc etc

 

[Warchief Sanji D Goat]

They've been the top fighters in their crew since they were introduced, but the whole crew outside of the mc still got equal treatment pretimeskip

Alabasta they got equal screen time for their fights, while in Wano Zoro and Sanji's fights were longer.

W7 and Ennies Lobby two character arcs for Usopp, Robin, and Franky. WCI, recreation of those two arcs, only gave character development to Sanji

Etc etc

Name me a Shounen where non-MC characters that has equal or more shine than the MC themselves?

 

[mosaab]

MASSIVE PROBABLY IRRELEVANT RANT

there is no monster trio in wano.

there a lot of luffy & zoro, a lot of zoro & sanji but no luffy/zoro/sanji dynamic at all

and no luffy/sanji where they are portrayd as equals or even in the same tier.

the wings dynamic was introduced so oda can keep the right and left hand dynamic without it being about power.

Yamato and jinbe didn't jobb to admirals and yonko to make even luffy look good, you think they gonna jobb to a second tier future antagonist to make sanji and zoro look superior? I doubt it.

sanji and zoro will almost always fight the second and third antagonist, but just like Z&S have high Diff relative to luffy extreme,
jinbe&Yamato will have midd diff

IF YAMATO JOINS THAT IS.

 

[Water1415]

Name me a Shounen where non-MC characters that has equal or more shine than the MC themselves?

What? Of course the mc shines more, but Zoro and Sanji weren't MC's pretimeskip, they literally fell behind Usopp and Nami in screentime

 

[Sir Yasheen]

Because East Blue 5 are the protagonists and the Monster trio are the most focused on because they’re the crews prime fighters.

So as Oda brings in more characters, he can diminish other characters screen time but not theirs.

 

[PandaG]

The opponents they’re facing have been put on more of a pedestal compared to previous ones, so naturally it makes sense for Zoro & Sanji to be put on one also.

 

[Gol D. Roger]

I don't see Sanji anywhere near Zoro and Luffy in focus. Wano's been revolving around Luffy and Zoro.

 

[vikas]

Oda is not concentrating on the monster trio, not in wano. Though main reason they get focus is oda shifting more towards fight-related plots. We won't see much of that anyway we got jinbe too and it seems everyone is a fighter now

 

[Finalbeta]

I guess he was always into portraying those three as the strongest ones, see also Robin and the wings thing.

But it's a large mistake to think all stood on the same level necessarily.