User blog comment:Kaido King of the Beasts/Cover Mini-Review: Solo Journey of Jinbe, Knight of the Sea/@comment-3075024-20150519212444/@comment-10543621-20150520034521

That's the whole point of the cover stories anyway. They're meant to be side stories that provide extra tidbit information but won't actually affect the main storyline in anyway. Since when has any of the cover-stories affected the main storyline significantly. Cover stories are meant to be nice extras for people who keep up with it that wouldn't matter if you've never bothered looking at them.

A couple of examples would be firstly, the Baroque works story, which really, the most important thing that ended up with was showing Mr 3 2 1 being the only ones left in Impel down. For someone who didn't pay attention to any of the cover stories, the only impact that would have had would probably be a slight after-thought of 'hey what about the rest of the baroque works agents?' Which probably wouldn't have an impact that's any greater than another similar afterthought some of us might have had along the lines of 'hey where's Arlong?'.

Second example, CP9. Sure one could argue that we just haven't seent the implication of that yet since CP9 members could very well pop up again. Yet, even if they did, was the method the members took to raise funds in order to treat Lucci really gonna affect anything? CP9 members could just as easily show up with a single line of 'we survived and now we're wanted by the government' and not difference would be present.

This cover story is no different. The details of the journey weren't that important. This was probably kinda similar to Hatchan's journey although I'll admit Hatchan's journey was more interesting. But when Hatchan showed up again, I don't think people who didn't read the cover story, or people who watched the anime would have bothered much about the details of his journey back to fishmen island. Hatchan himself did briefly mention it when he was re-introduced. Basically when Jinbe shows up again, he'll briefly mention that he found his poneglyph I expect, and no further impact will be necessary.