I mean people say Luffy and Zoro but I feel like that’s a bit disingenuous
Nobody in the M3 besides Luffy got a powerup before Wano after the TS
The Germa awakening was believable to me because of the buildup with the Raid Suit, Queen, the torment with his family, and the moment where he said his body felt weird was a guarantee for me
When I say Luffy/Zoro, what I meant was development route particulary with regards to Haki.
There's this obsession that bcoz Sanji's haki (i.e. armament in particular) is not top notch he can't compete with the rest of the M3 and the best in the world at large and this has been the narrrative since the timeskip.
"Sanji got his shin broken by Vergo so he's armament is piss poor compared to the other members of the M3"
"Sanji hasn't shown armament hardening so his aramament is piss poor etc."
"Sanji's doesn't even have hardening so he will fight a tobi roppo on Wano etc. He's been left behind by the M3"
"Sanji doesn't have CoC so he's been left behind by the M3 and can't tango with the M3"
and so on, leading to a lot of Sanji fans becoming obssesed about Sanji getting development in that aspect and sadly conceeding to the haters narrative.
Just to give a bit of context on the above.
- Luffy's armament was bypassed by bloody Hordy Jones at the start of timeskip lol. Who is much weaker than Vergo who probably had some of the best armament gas in the series even till today.
- Dino zoan durablilty is so resiliant that even Linin's mazer cannon and Yamato's thunder bagua which is CoC coated atttack weren't able to put down Ulti for good. Hell, Dino durability was so nasty that Oda had Linlin utitlize CoC coating on little ol' P1 to take him out and that was the only time she used CoC coating in that arc even though she fought Kidd and Law in a 2 v 1. Sanji without CoC coating was able to sacrifice Queen who was the biggest Dino of all of Kaido's excutives with the combination of his germa abilities and haki which according to this fanbase is that much inferior to haki at large
Now what his powerup could be is less “set in stone” I think it’ll be CoC but the PoL also has adequate setup so there’s that too
My only issue with PoL is it’s impossible to quantify and would basically just be magic. It’s the same reason I’m not a huge fan of the Specialist category in Hunter X Hunter. It’s basically an excuse for the author to create an ability that’s straight up just magic with little to no explanation
The PoL on paper could do anything so it would be impossible to figure out what Sanji can and cannot do past this point
I'm in agreeement with you on this and this is my only reseveration on PoL as well.
Oda defo has to flesh out this ability more and properly establish what kind of ability it really is, its limitations if any and if not, at the very least I reckon will put some sort of constraint on it if there's no limit to what can be done with it.
Whatever it is though, if this is the direction Oda is set on to go with Sanji then it won't disspoint imo and frankly a "love" themed ability being the direction Oda develops Sanji in is pretty fitting tbh. I still think Sanji will awaken CoC by the way ^^.
Also Power Levels right now are going through the roof with the introduction of god tiers like Imu etc. and even Luffy who's pretty much maxed out his haki stats has Nika hax on top of that in order to allow him to be able to compete with god tiers.
Even the likes of Kaido or Lilin who were also ACoC users also had OD durability and OP devil fruits, a bit of plus alpha about them to put them at the very top of the verse so Oda developing Sanji by improving his base with his germa awakening etc, introducing this seemingly OP PoL ability is very good prospects for him with regards to his development going forwards and conversations about him being able to compete at the very top of the verse imo.
