User blog comment:Videogamep/The Future/@comment-10543621-20150904062205

Ever since the thick of Dressrossa, I've always been waiting for something like this chapter to happen. I've brought this up before, and it seems like Oda is really going towards this direction. I mean, let's face it. For Luffy to hold any major influence in the New World to compete against the likes of the Yonkos, or even other large crews, just 9 or 10 members alone won't be enough. Luffy will need allies and underlings.

For me, I see this as an exciting start to the rest of the series. Luffy finally has the means to claim what he claimed back on Fishmen island. If he wants to be conquering islands and making them his territory, he needs to expand his crew. There's no two ways about it.

We've seen how the major crews tend to have underlings. The Yonko was definitely the case, with WB and his 13 division crews and allied pirate crew as well. BB has also been hinted to function like that. Big Mom as well, obviously has many ships and crews. With Jinbe and Fishmen pirates also functioning as her underling crew. So in a way, this should be no different from that. These 7 groups of people are just crews that now wish to fight under the Strawhat banner. In other words, we're gonna see the Strawhat jolly roger more prominently flown.

I don;t think this will change how the main strawhat crew continues their adventure. The core members are still gonna be the focus. There's no way Luffy will want them tagging along with him. Most likely, Luffy is gonna just tell them to do whatever the heck they want to cause havoc, and maybe lay down some ground rules like no harming innoents or something. Which is all good, if they separately spread their influence around the New World and spread Luffy's flag far and wide.

There shouldn't be an issue with doing something like that. I guess it's not much different from how the Sun pirates fight under Big Mom's banner, but they're pretty much still doing their own thing. Or the case with X drake and Kaido and many other examples. The only time all members of a major pirate crew will gather is probably a huge conflict like what we saw at Marineford.

Exxxccciiiiting timeeeessssss. I can't wait to see Luffy bringing even more people under his cause. With his influence spreading, I'm really excited for more people to declare that they will fight under the Strawhat banner. Jinbe and the sun pirates are obvious choices. Hancock could totally abandon her Shichibukai status if Luffy become strong enough to protect Amazon Lily. Who knows who else.

On a side note, I like how multi-racial his crew is now. With both giants and dwarves, and even a long-leg tribe member. More reason for Jinbe to join up!

Oh and on the issue of whether Luffy will accept them or not, I can totally imagining him being unhappy about this but end up going with do whatever the fuck you guys want.