I ask this question in a strict combat sense - Is Oda shaping Sanji into a stronger version of Luffy?
I am not talking about their personalities and plot purposes but solely as combatants. Let's analyze both.
1 - Body type
What is unique about Sanji's and Luffy's bodies?
Luffy has his Devil Fruit while Sanji has his Exoskeleton.
What do they get from those?
Luffy gets a rubber body that always bounces back from blunt type of damage.
Sanji gets a super-alloy body that bounces back not only from blunt damage but also from cutting-type damage.
While Luffy may handle blunt-type attacks a little better, Sanji no-sold a swing from Queen's sword.
Luffy aint doing that in a million years. Conclusion - Sanji's body tolerates damaji much better.
2 - Laser therapy
There is a recent instance where both are compared in handling something that usually cannot be handled - lasers.
While most characters, when facing lasers, are left with one option - dodging, Sanji and Luffy have another option.
Luffy has eaten a laser shot from Kizaru and reflected the light outside of his body while suffering some minor heat damaji.
Sanji, on the hand, has straight-up kicked the laser shot from Kizaru and dispersed it. Conclusion - Sanji handles lasers much better.
3 - Speed
Both Sanji and Luffy are quite dependent on the speed stat, especially movement speed. They jump all over the place, a lot.
Luffy is well known for his Speed gear, G2, while Sanji has been amping his speed alongside his heat.
While Luffy has gained some crazy long distance traveling speed with G5 jokes, Sanjino has amped his own speed with Ifrit.
While Sanji's speed feats dont have a credible tester, due to his opponents being slow clowns...
...we could all come to the same conclusion - Sanji is faster than Luffy, especially because he aint even close to done with PUs.
4 - Damage output
This is something that majority of OP fandom has been unaware of the entire time.
I always go back to Enies Lobby to show how their damage output compares when both power up at the same time.
Sanji's PU has devastated a guy with 2180 Doriki with only 2 hits while Luffy's PU needed 3(?) to devastate a guy with 820 Doriki.
In WCI, when blocking Big Mom, Sanji used DJ while Luffy used G3. That's their strongest EL hits portrayed equally...
While Luffy gained CoA PU with internal destruction, Sanji was capable of doing internal damage since Enies Lobby due to the heat.
In the present, Luffy has gathered more PUs and is ahead of Sanji but Sanji is catching up, fast.
Luffy is more or less done powering up, he has achieved his peak while Sanji is nowhere close to finished powering up.
Also note that we saw Sanji's equivalent of Gatling while we havent seen his equivalent of Bazooka, the strongest single hit.
When we draw the line to sum it all up, Luffy may have the stronger high-end finisher but on average, Sanji hits harder.
Back in EL, Sanji can spam DJ hits while Luffy's G3 is one-time thing. Conclusion - Sanji was a stronger hitter. At worst, comparable.
5 - Hakis
Sanji, too, was one of the 3 SHs who returned from time skip training with Observation and Armament hakis.
Luffy may have obtained Future Sight but Sanji is better attuned to emotions and more importantly, his uptime of CoO is higher.
We saw from Luffy how much trouble he has to calm down to observe in WCI but Sanji is also prone to anger, upsetting CoO...
As mentioned, while Luffy had to develop internal destruction due to being unable to harm the shell, Sanji has basically the same.
Heat does internal damage as well. Sanji's biggest drawback here is never showing Hardening but exoskeleton also took care of that.
Finally, Oda decided to add the secret sauce, King's haki, its infusion, to Sanji's skillset as well.
The power of equality is going to aid Sanji from now on, Luffy no longer has the advantage.
Now they can clash equally like Roger and Whitebeard.
Even if Luffy learns how to do a haki burst, it doesnt harm Sanji. It is merely a situational convenience against DF merchants.
Conclusion - while Luffy is edging Sanji out in hakis, both possess the most important power, aCoC.
6 - Symbolism
Sanji's name is written like this in Japanese - サンジ.
After googling each of those characters, it doesnt seem like they have much meaning on their own but rather imitate the sounds of his English-written name. It was known that his name was supposed to be Naruto, which means Spiral, as his eyebrows but doesnt matter in the end, it ended up Sanji which most people translated as Third Son, which makes sense considering the names of his brothers but I think word play was also present when Oda was picking a name for him.
This is my theory, I think Sanji's name is a word play for Sun Devil/Demon.
Let's split his name into San and Ji. What is this a combination of?
Clearly, San is Sun while Ji is most likely Jin. Sun+Jin = Sanji.
ジン (jin) - The exact same 2 characters found in Sanji's name... Jin is btw Djinn or Jinn, meaning Demon/Devil, evil spirit...
Sun can also be written as - サン - once again, the two characters found in Sanji's name...
If Sunny Go was hiding the whole time what it is hinting at, Sanji could have been hiding its own meaning also...
Conclusion - Luffy is designed as Sun God while Sanji is designed as Sun Devil.
Remember when Sanji kicked Wadatsumi with Hell's Memories? What did Wadatsumi look like?
A giant ball of fire - the SUN!
When Sanji is in anger, he becomes hotter, increasing his heat.
Heck, for a Sun God, Luffy is nowhere close to hot enough compared to the heat Sanji outputs...
Remember the Supernovas? Editor's suggestion... Something that wasnt on Oda's mind. But why did he pick that name?
Leaving Sanji out of that group, I think the group's name was inspired by Sanji's ultimate technique - Supernova, the heat of a dying sun.
All of these make me think that Oda has big plans for Sanjino, as a combatant.
If Oda is really serious about this wings thing, the left and right hands that carry Luffy towards the Pirate King's goal, would it really be surprising if he made both wings stronger than Luffy and not just Zoro? The bragging joke from Sabaody about those 3 being #9, #7 and #1 fits well if you arent locked into >Muh MC, Muh Captain mindset.
When I make a Sanji thread, you know it will be good.
I am not talking about their personalities and plot purposes but solely as combatants. Let's analyze both.
1 - Body type
What is unique about Sanji's and Luffy's bodies?
Luffy has his Devil Fruit while Sanji has his Exoskeleton.
What do they get from those?
Luffy gets a rubber body that always bounces back from blunt type of damage.
Sanji gets a super-alloy body that bounces back not only from blunt damage but also from cutting-type damage.
While Luffy may handle blunt-type attacks a little better, Sanji no-sold a swing from Queen's sword.
Luffy aint doing that in a million years. Conclusion - Sanji's body tolerates damaji much better.
2 - Laser therapy
There is a recent instance where both are compared in handling something that usually cannot be handled - lasers.
While most characters, when facing lasers, are left with one option - dodging, Sanji and Luffy have another option.
Luffy has eaten a laser shot from Kizaru and reflected the light outside of his body while suffering some minor heat damaji.
Sanji, on the hand, has straight-up kicked the laser shot from Kizaru and dispersed it. Conclusion - Sanji handles lasers much better.
3 - Speed
Both Sanji and Luffy are quite dependent on the speed stat, especially movement speed. They jump all over the place, a lot.
Luffy is well known for his Speed gear, G2, while Sanji has been amping his speed alongside his heat.
While Luffy has gained some crazy long distance traveling speed with G5 jokes, Sanjino has amped his own speed with Ifrit.
While Sanji's speed feats dont have a credible tester, due to his opponents being slow clowns...
...we could all come to the same conclusion - Sanji is faster than Luffy, especially because he aint even close to done with PUs.
4 - Damage output
This is something that majority of OP fandom has been unaware of the entire time.
I always go back to Enies Lobby to show how their damage output compares when both power up at the same time.
Sanji's PU has devastated a guy with 2180 Doriki with only 2 hits while Luffy's PU needed 3(?) to devastate a guy with 820 Doriki.
In WCI, when blocking Big Mom, Sanji used DJ while Luffy used G3. That's their strongest EL hits portrayed equally...
While Luffy gained CoA PU with internal destruction, Sanji was capable of doing internal damage since Enies Lobby due to the heat.
In the present, Luffy has gathered more PUs and is ahead of Sanji but Sanji is catching up, fast.
Luffy is more or less done powering up, he has achieved his peak while Sanji is nowhere close to finished powering up.
Also note that we saw Sanji's equivalent of Gatling while we havent seen his equivalent of Bazooka, the strongest single hit.
When we draw the line to sum it all up, Luffy may have the stronger high-end finisher but on average, Sanji hits harder.
Back in EL, Sanji can spam DJ hits while Luffy's G3 is one-time thing. Conclusion - Sanji was a stronger hitter. At worst, comparable.
5 - Hakis
Sanji, too, was one of the 3 SHs who returned from time skip training with Observation and Armament hakis.
Luffy may have obtained Future Sight but Sanji is better attuned to emotions and more importantly, his uptime of CoO is higher.
We saw from Luffy how much trouble he has to calm down to observe in WCI but Sanji is also prone to anger, upsetting CoO...
As mentioned, while Luffy had to develop internal destruction due to being unable to harm the shell, Sanji has basically the same.
Heat does internal damage as well. Sanji's biggest drawback here is never showing Hardening but exoskeleton also took care of that.
Finally, Oda decided to add the secret sauce, King's haki, its infusion, to Sanji's skillset as well.
The power of equality is going to aid Sanji from now on, Luffy no longer has the advantage.
Now they can clash equally like Roger and Whitebeard.
Even if Luffy learns how to do a haki burst, it doesnt harm Sanji. It is merely a situational convenience against DF merchants.
Conclusion - while Luffy is edging Sanji out in hakis, both possess the most important power, aCoC.
6 - Symbolism
Sanji's name is written like this in Japanese - サンジ.
After googling each of those characters, it doesnt seem like they have much meaning on their own but rather imitate the sounds of his English-written name. It was known that his name was supposed to be Naruto, which means Spiral, as his eyebrows but doesnt matter in the end, it ended up Sanji which most people translated as Third Son, which makes sense considering the names of his brothers but I think word play was also present when Oda was picking a name for him.
This is my theory, I think Sanji's name is a word play for Sun Devil/Demon.
Let's split his name into San and Ji. What is this a combination of?
Clearly, San is Sun while Ji is most likely Jin. Sun+Jin = Sanji.
ジン (jin) - The exact same 2 characters found in Sanji's name... Jin is btw Djinn or Jinn, meaning Demon/Devil, evil spirit...
Sun can also be written as - サン - once again, the two characters found in Sanji's name...
If Sunny Go was hiding the whole time what it is hinting at, Sanji could have been hiding its own meaning also...
Conclusion - Luffy is designed as Sun God while Sanji is designed as Sun Devil.
Remember when Sanji kicked Wadatsumi with Hell's Memories? What did Wadatsumi look like?
A giant ball of fire - the SUN!
When Sanji is in anger, he becomes hotter, increasing his heat.
Heck, for a Sun God, Luffy is nowhere close to hot enough compared to the heat Sanji outputs...
Remember the Supernovas? Editor's suggestion... Something that wasnt on Oda's mind. But why did he pick that name?
Leaving Sanji out of that group, I think the group's name was inspired by Sanji's ultimate technique - Supernova, the heat of a dying sun.
All of these make me think that Oda has big plans for Sanjino, as a combatant.
If Oda is really serious about this wings thing, the left and right hands that carry Luffy towards the Pirate King's goal, would it really be surprising if he made both wings stronger than Luffy and not just Zoro? The bragging joke from Sabaody about those 3 being #9, #7 and #1 fits well if you arent locked into >Muh MC, Muh Captain mindset.
When I make a Sanji thread, you know it will be good.
