I am writing this because I see a lot of people in the community complaining that there are no deaths in One Piece and now they don’t believe in no death for now on. I don’t think that is true, neither is fair to Oda.
You should take more time analysing the panels and the narrative behind to understand the purpose of the death. When you assume, immediately without context, that the character is alive (or dead is equally bad) will take you off the enjoyment of this series, creating false expectations.
I am very sure that Ashura is dead, and it was a great scene so well paced/drawn, a really impactful scene for Ashura that is being way too underrated. We literally saw his body completely burnt next to his sword after the explosion.
On the other hand, Kanjuro, Hyogoro and Orochi, no one expected them to die, because ODA subtle gave us hints that them being alive will serve better the narrative of the story that they stay alive (for example, Hyogoro being alive made sense, to give a epic moment to Chopper ).
The sacrifice of Ashura will motivate the Scabbards even more to fight Kanjuro and Orochi… People say that there are no deaths in One Piece but, literally One Piece has 2 of the hardest deaths that I witnessed in a fiction story.
Even in Wano, we saw 2 mid and major deaths already, Yasuie and Oden, respectively (now Ashura and more to come in this war in Wano… and more in the final war). Pell was bad taste yes, but even that one can be explained and is not that really significant that he is alive or dead. ODA normally gives purpose to his deaths, so we can really assume that Pedro and Ashura, they are really dead.
*by narcasg
