User blog comment:Joekido/One Piece Polling: Is the series declining? 70% said no/@comment-5398287-20160512054518

I'm not surprised that some people are growing tired of it - I'm not one of them, but it's to be expected of any long-running series. Length issues aside, one of the other complaints I've heard is that we've gone from the Straw Hats dicking around and solving problems by pure chance on the islands they visit to everything revolving around the Yonko in the New World, and while that's a valid opinion if you prefer the structure of the first half of the series, I think we all knew this was gonna happen as soon as Oda established the existence of the Yonko and their power. Sure, there's not as much surprise in who the Straw Hats will face next, but at the same time I wouldn't be able to buy the usual "land on an island, oh look there's a powerful evil guy with dastardly plans, let's kick his butt" schtick when it comes to the Yonko simply because they're so much more powerful and well-known than, say, Arlong, Enel, the Shichibukai, and so on. It makes way more sense to me for the Straw Hats to be planning ahead and growing stronger in advance for their battles with them.

Also, if we're really 39 volumes from completion, that's ~390 chapters...divided by, uh, let's say 40 chapters a year on average...that's a little less than ten more years to go. Damn. No more Dressrosa-length arcs, then.