More than 25 years have passed since Monkey D Luffy began his seemingly endless journey to become the Pirate king. Throughout the entire Grand Line, the protagonist of One Piece and all of his nakamas have ventured into different challenges, and while the level has only risen over the years, the work could have ended many years ago. .
Through a note on the Shōnen Jump, Eiichiro Oda commented that One Piece was originally going to finish in 5 years with Luffy facing off against the 4 Emperors of the Sea. However, the appearance of the shichibukais it caused the story to change course completely and caused the nakama to face up to Seven Warlords of the Sea before facing the yonkou.
“One Piece was originally intended to be a story that would end in 5 years fighting the Four Emperors. The shichibukai are the reason why OP hasn’t finished yet. They came to me by chance. I should have at least restricted it to 2 or 5 people, not 7. I regret it a little”.
Even Oda himself acknowledges that the amount of Shichibukais that introduced throughout all of One Piece was disproportionatebut unlike other works, the author used them to his advantage to make sense of an almost perfect story in which each of these warlords had an important role within the universe of the series.
Some remained as characters to beat, such as dying gecko either Donquixote Doflamingowhile others chose to join the Straw Hat Pirates, such as jinbei. In turn, many of them changed roles and even became part of the four emperors, so Oda cannot complain about the importance of the characters in her series.
In ExtraLife | Analysis of One Piece Odyssey: an absolutely essential JRPG for fans of Luffy and his hilarious nakamas
In ExtraLife | How much do you know (or remember) about Dragon Ball?
