#for my boy who's apparently extremely important in wano but no one has any clue and they just let him leave like he was no one!

[franeridan]

tbh i think oda meant to reach wano and make it all about zoro the same way he reached whole cake and made it all about sanji. I mean like, at the very beginning, back when he made him japanese and then said "there is a country that's one piece's japan, btw, and that's not where zoro's dojo is" - I think that's why his original backstory is so simple, it was supposed to follow the same trend as luffy's and sanji's and turn into this whole grand thing once they reached wano and discovered that he's the only direct descendant of one of the last daimyo and also of the greatest samurai ever lived, those are great bases to start some form of conflict on? tbh? and also directly mirror our finding out that sanji is some form of prince himself, but then instead we got to wano and the only thing we found out on page was that kuina's relatives were from there, and everything about zoro is revealed in a sbs family tree with oda going "I don't think I'll ever say this in the manga at this point so here". Imho what happened was that oda wanted to form some kind of conflict between zoro's family rights/what was expected of him in wano and his belonging in the crew, but then the way he evolved as a character through the story made it so that his only plausible reaction to finding out all that would be some form or another of I don't care and you don't really write an arc on that, do you. zoro's so simple minded and goal oriented that it's impossible for him to have any serious drama that's not about luffy, at this point. I do prefer it like this, though? everyone in the fandom likes to draw comparisons and parallels between zoro and sanji one way or another but my favourite one is the narrative foils one and zoro's lack of a proper backstory and complications to his being part of the crew make for a great black-and-white situation with them. something like sanji's story being all about running from his past and zoro's being all about running towards his future, I love that so I'm glad this is the zoro we got in the end

still, would be cool to know what oda had planned for him exactly

#zoro and sanji are funnn characters to keep on total opposite sides of the spectrum #you can draw parallels between every aspect of them and the only things you'll find that they have in common are #their love for luffy and their dislike of each other #starting from their personalities to their designs to their fighting styles to the way oda makes them interact with the plot itself #it's fun so i love it extends to their pasts and how complex they are too #but the build up towards wano and figuring out something more about zoro had been pretty obvious for a time so when we got there #and in the end we didn't find out anything about him #and left the land with no on page explanation as for why the shimotsuki guy had zoro's exact same face #no i mean that was kinda funny and on brand for him since the start ngl but it was sorta disappointing for me anyway #as an hardcore zoro fan yk #so I'm like ???? i wonder!!!! what oda had planned!!!! #for my boy who's apparently extremely important in wano but no one has any clue and they just let him leave like he was no one! #they tried to execute him for owning a sword that was his by birthright anyway without ever knowing.......... #no it IS funny that's zoro's brand alright i just mourn the zoro focus we could have had #wano was already long and busy enough tho i get why oda let that go