Actually I think there would be a good market for increasing the value of slaves. If a master would take care and teach new skills to their slaves they would make significant profit from reselling. Abusing slaves is a net loss over all.
No idea how old this story's "country" is when we have conversations like the one in this chapter.
One game i like to reference for political changes and reformation is Victoria II where, the player intervening in their selected nation can use a few tricks to get the country to take the path...
Well, to be fair for their period, it would be pretty hard for people to get out and meet people when there was little leisure time to go meet and date others. That is especially so when travel outside of one's local area would be uncommon.
Fire ships were a thing; however, those were big floating bonfires producing enough heat they COULD set fire to a ship. If the flame burned high enough it could even reach the sails if the ship had any.
From what I can tell from the chapter, the pirates were aiming to delay one fleet while...
Louis and Gazelle made some smart comments, Yuri does not bring anything to Ed's faction, especially compared to what Iris has made for herself combined with her Duke family.
I expect the Ed faction to aim to devalue Iris, just seems like the kind of thing they'd do. Its also more dramatic. =\
Yeah, this isn't grimdark. Grimdark in manga is rare, REALLY rare. Probably could say there is no grimdark since I can't think of any off the top of my head. =\
Well, if the controversial comments were made years before the anime, how would the author know the repercussions of his tweets?
I'm all for people saying what they want; however, there are consequences out there (like losing investment opportunities).