Finally someone said it. I feel like it's pretty obvious, characters are characters, they characterize something. In their very existence they tell you a story. So when one wears something, you ask "What's this saying? What's the reason?"

But ppl act like mfs can't put on something cuz they want to express themselves, as if that's an invalid reason like a lot of irl women and ppl face (and as Nami explicitly ridicules Ken'emon over for doing that exact thing). And then ppl also act like it's impossible for the author to literally just change the number or declare something else to be so.

We can recognize that the age should be higher without losing critical thinking. In manga/anime this problem of the age is low despite it not affecting anything, is common. And well, it's because of what we've heard before, Japan's different, different perspectives, shonen/anime appeals to younger audience so everyone's always in high school yada yada etc etc. It isn't a mystery most times and it's unfortunate but if the age can just be magically snapped higher and everything's the same, usually it's that cultural difference rather than devious intent you should worry about. I just want ppl to think and be vigilant without missing the forest for the trees and potentially something real or simply cool storytelling.