Re: One Piece Mega Convo Thread
Look, you can't have a reasonable discussion without having facts - that's my opinion. Why? Well it's simple as it can be: Without basic facts - rumors, troll posts, news fakes are taken for granted and in the end, fans are again devided into masses of ones that believe in April Fools like Dragonball AF and other a minority that know that it's nothing but a fake.
I want meta discussions and discussions on predictions
based on facts with a source for official information so everyone should be able to evaluate that piece of information brought into discussion. Furthermore, predictions on the anime version may not be translated to the manga itself since there are other mechanisms needed to produce them.
Come on - you want to have another Dragonball AF myth among fans in the end? It's already hard enough - and it's way too easy to put a rumor/misinterpreted speculation into forums and blogs which readers take for granted and spread them. AF and "Toriyama is dead" are the final proof of it.
I _think_ I read it 2years ago on animeblogz.com somewhere.
Apparently that might have been a bad prediction after all based on Oda's first statements that he planned One Piece to end after 5 years.
But yeah ID Arc wasnt that "necessary" so it will take longer.
_To me_ OP comes to a climax now.
Explaining the myth of Impel Down as introduction to this climax wasn't necessary?

There have always been climaxes in the different arcs. This one isn't that different from the one Oda created back in Enies Lobby. It's simply placed into a larger scaled ambience but won't lead to any big conclusions so that we're able to determine an end of the whole story within a certain number of chapters. Sure he
could use the next 100 chapters after the current arc to conclude everything, but I don't think fans would accept such an end and Oda knows that for sure since he wouldn't be satisfied with it himself.
I don't think Oda will reveal every single secret - he'd be mad if he did and work on it for the next 50 years since he's the type of author that creates secrets and mysteries on-the-fly. Or at least he seems to do so - I can't determine if most of it was planned like Brook's entrance or comes out of a recent inspiration.
Luffy directly facing the whole Marine Force. That can hardly be topped anymore.
Actually, he's not: He's in the middle of a big fight between WB and two WG powers. They'll be busy with themselved and thus will create a gap for him to slip through. Even if the biggest heads were killed which would be very un-Oda-like there'd be other ones to replace them equally. And yes, I really expect one of the Admirals to succeed Sengoku in the next 250 chapters thus having one of the VAs being promoted.
So if there are like 500 chapters about fishmen's island / giant's island / supernovas / Yonko / Shanks / Cobi... the tension would flat out _for me_ I guess. I srsly hope that OP comes to an end within a few Arcs (2-3).
Oda stated on last years' that arriving at Red line marks the midway of the story - but that doesn't mean that there'll be 500 chapters ... Actually all mangaka seem to be bad at planning long term stores so I'd even predict it'll be 750+ chapters for that second part.
If you read a story for over a century, dont you want to know the end finally?
To me, the end would only matter if it was a bad written one - an overall well-written story is what's important to me.
(must be even hard to write such a manga... I mean that you dont get burnt out or want to switch to another theme because you have had enough - thanks to Oda that he keeps his work up that long!!

)
As it seems Oda has taken all precautions to prevent a burn-out: He has a family and many friends among the seiyuu and takes several breaks a year.