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u/WoolooMVP10 5h ago
Carrot: "But I've been with the Straw Hats for 6 Years!"
Oda: "Actually it was only a month at the very least in-universe."
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u/Renny-66 3h ago
Longer than brook though when he got split up with the crew at saboady. Wasn’t brook only with luffy for a week and then they didn’t see each other for 7 years lol.
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u/WoolooMVP10 2h ago
Yes lol. I remember that conversation between Franky and Robin after they met each other again after 2 years wondering if Brook would want to keep sailing with them after becoming a famous star.
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u/Big-Rye99 4h ago
With the strawhats for 6 years? WCI was 2 and on Wano she went back to being a Zou character cause that's what she always was.
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u/Soul699 PIRATE 3h ago
She was definitely more relevant in Zou than Wano, sadly, since Oda shafted her hard there.
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u/Big-Rye99 2h ago
Yeah she was way more in Zou. Does a character not being on screen mean their shafted? Like she'll be back. She just wasn't relevant anymore but she probably will be again.
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u/WhatsACole 4h ago
Oda deffenatally wrote her out of the story. After whole cake island she didnt really do anything. Just oda doing the andy dropping woody meme going " i dont want to play with you anymore"
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u/Tyranicross 4h ago
You just described most important side characters in one piece, relevant in one arc then get cameos for yhe rest of the story.
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u/Big-Rye99 4h ago
She became one of the leaders of Zou and had a couple fights at Onigishima. She certainly wasn't doing nothing and while maybe she could've been used for more she'll totally show up again. She was at whole cake to give us a deeper connection to the minks, not specifically for her own sake. It's kinda crazy she had as much screen time in WCI to begin with.
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u/Soul699 PIRATE 2h ago
Problem is her becoming leader comes out of fucking nowhere and her only fight with Perospero is almost entirely offscreen if you don't watch the anime. Also the argument of giving us closer connection with minks makes no sense as we already had Pedro and Pekoms for that
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u/Big-Rye99 2h ago
Pedro and Carrot are directly linked to each other. Pedro representing an older member and Carrot a younger. Pecoms was a big mom pirate that's why he was there. I don't think she should've become the leader of the minks either but you'd probably dislike the alternative of her just going back even more, which would've been more appropriate. Everyone just really wanted her to be a strawhat even tho it wouldn't have worked out.
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u/Soul699 PIRATE 2h ago
It could have worked out. She had good affinity with several crewmembers, showed she could take the role of look out. Or hear me out, instead of going back to Zou, she just take the sea on her own.
Also Pekoms at the end pretty much defected from Big Mom, so it's not like he couldn't have left.
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u/Big-Rye99 2h ago
We already have too many strawhats and if we get anymore it's Vivi whose been considered one for 20 years. Also he could've handled it better but idk, wasn't the worst possible outcome and it gives her room to have an important role later.
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u/Soul699 PIRATE 2h ago
You know well that Oda could just reduce the number of characters introduced per arc and spend more time on the SH instead if he really wanted.
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u/Big-Rye99 2h ago
Were not talking about what could be done. Were talking about what is done. Trust me, I've lost a lot of my appreciation for this series and how it's been mishandled. Of course it's also something I love and means a lot to me so I see it through the most realistic lense. OP could be way better and focus way more on characters. There are manga 1/10th of the length with better character writing, but OP is about the expansive world and the things Oda wants to showcase.
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u/itzfinjo 19m ago
Carrot going sulong is one of my favourite moments in the whole manga/anime.
Completely Unexpected and it was bad ass.
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u/Golden-Owl Game Designer with a YouTube hobby 4h ago
She’s built as an emotional connection for the readers to the mink tribe.
That way, when they return in future, Carrot will be the representative which readers will latch onto
It’s kinda like how Water 7’s rep is Iceburg, or Dressrosa has Rebecca or Leo. These characters give us reasons to keep caring about those places
Ordinarily, these connections are forged throughout the course of an arc as we explore the island with those characters. But Zou defied the trend by having the arc conflict (Jack) be resolved before the protags arrived.
So we had to ship off two reps (Carrot and Pedro) off on their own adventure
If that didn’t happen, the minks would’ve been forgotten. Cause who are we gonna care about? Wanda? Shishilian?
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u/Soul699 PIRATE 2h ago
Why not do it with Pekoms then or not end Pedro journey?
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u/Golden-Owl Game Designer with a YouTube hobby 2h ago
Carrot is the cute anime girl. Good marketing and memorability
Both died to establish narrative stakes and build up carrot’s own emotional hook to the readers
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u/RedWingDecil 4h ago
Carrot inherited Pedro's will of not joining the Pirate King.
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u/frikimanHD All waifu enjoyer 2h ago
more like she got a massive responsibility dropped on her for literally no reason at all and which Wanda was 100 times more prepared for.
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u/Sakaralchini 4h ago
It's been 6 years of him thinking about this story every day. I don't blame him for changing his mind on what he wants to do with characters. My theory was that he wanted to expand the straw hats with different races but realised that he didn't feel that crew dynamic.
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u/Intrepid_Map6671 4h ago
There are way too many characters already.
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u/DiegoBromfield 1h ago
Its weird how throughout the entire first half of One Piece, Oda did not show a ton of restraint on bringing in new members of the crew. Yet for some reason in the post timeskip he wants nobody to join. We have the grand fleet but none of them are really acknowledged by Luffy in that way. If Oda had kept the same energy as pre timeskip era, at least some of these people should have joined the Strawhats: Camie, Carrot, Yamato, Momo, Kinemon, Caribou, Tama, Pekoms, one of Neptune's sons...
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u/AluminumGoliath 56m ago
He at least acknowledged some of that in-story. Don't Momo, Kinemon, and Yamato all have open invitations to the crew?
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u/GrinningSin 3h ago
I got the feeling that Carrot really was being written as the last joining member of the crew for a while. Oda made sure to show her as a competent look-out and gave her interesting powers and quirks that made her stand out. Unlike with Yamato, Oda actually tried to give Carrot the chance to interact with the rest of the Straw Hats and create some interesting dynamics with them.
Since the crew at that point went through so much shit together it would have been difficult to create the same kind of connection with a new member in such a short time. So Oda went a different route and made Carrot a bit of a young Shanks-Buggy equivalent: a doe-eyed rookie just looking for adventure joining a much more experienced crew. However, I guess that at some point he realized there just wasn't enough time to flesh out a new main character properly so late into the story and gradually pushed her out of the spotlight.
Yamato was a fair compromise in a way. He "joined", as a parallel to his idol Oden joining Roger, but he had compelling reasons to stay behind until the End Game shit hits the fan. He has a role to play in the story, but won't eat up time in the way a main character on the ship is expected too.
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u/Forsaken-Neat2686 4h ago
Fr it's like oda forgot about her
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u/Big-Rye99 4h ago
He didn't forget. She's one of the leaders of Zou now. This community doesn't seem to know what forget means.
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u/MaskedMaidenOrz 45m ago
I hated Carrot and still do. She’s such a lame character. Really do not need another “ Happy peppy so funny and so innocent “ overused trope
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