Character Discussion Is Vinsmoke Sanji the best written character in One Piece?
- Thread starter Light D Lamperouge
- Start date
Sanji is a well-written character. He has ups and downs, emotional conflicts, a proper backstory, and reasonable and logical powerups unlike the other two. But his perverted nature since post-TS and constant clowning by Oda overshadows his good aspects. If there are no such qualities, he will get no. 1 in popularity, which is why Oda clowns him and makes him look like a creep.
Absolutely not. He began the flanderisation of the Strawhats well before the others- before Brook and Jinbei had even been introduced- when in EL and TB him being an attempted ladies man suddenly went into overdrive and he became a raging simp sex pest.
From the Saobody Split up until Zou he was an actual joke. Like, Oda was genuinely treating him like trash for no reason. He got the joke training, he got the joke treatment in FI, Oda had him break his leg against what is basically a totally unimportant villain like Vergo then he couldn’t even get a cool moment saving the crew without Law stealing his spotlight.
Then came Zou and Germa. I can only assume that during the two odd years that Sanji was absent in Dressrosa that Oda came up with this as a last ditch attempt to remedy the complaints about Sanji. In my opinion, he failed woefully.
After twenty odd years Sanji’s character suddenly revolved around his kindness. Sanji is, apparently, the kindest man people have ever met. Where the actual fuck did this come from? Yes, he was capable of kindness, but so is Zoro and every other Strawhat. If kindness was meant to be a defintive feature of any Strawhat I would have chosen Chopper, not Sanji.
His entire familial background came from nowhere and was a trite attempt to recapture vastly more successful stories like Nami, Robin and Law’s. Not a single interesting character was introduced as part of Germa. It did not a single intetesting thing for Sanji’s character, all it did was turn him into a crying, snivelling moron. Oda, for some bizarre reason, refused to even give Sanji much of a success at the end of the arc. Sanji ultimately needing to be saved by Germa? That’s the payoff for an eighty chapter arc about how Germa think he is a weak minded failure?
Then comes Wano. “I am never going to use the RS!”
Immediately uses the RS
“Does Luffy want a chef or an emotionless super soldier?”
What the fuck do you think, he literally told you not an arc ago that he wanted you as a chef.
Then of course there was no actual downside to wearing the RS. No emotions lost or anything, just awakening yet another powerup that comes from Judge. And this is supposed to be great character work?
No, Sanji was a great character when Oda kept things basic with him up to EL. Bad tempered cook with a soft side who turns into a bit of a fool around woman. Can come in clutch with moments where he stops to think and plan ahead. It wasn’t anything elaborate, but it worked and he was likeable. Oda took all these aspects and turned them up to 11, making him a mess. Now he’s totally deranged around woman, is so passionate he’s basically a frothing at the mouth mess at times, yet is apparently also a human saint. Also Oda’s dumped the clutch moments which were so cool.
TL;DR. Sanji has been a mess for decades and is as clear an example of more not being better than you‘ll ever see. The character peaked on the train to EL and it‘s been a schizophrenic downward spiral ever since. Oda tried to fix it but only made things worse by throwing in the terrible Germa plot.
From the Saobody Split up until Zou he was an actual joke. Like, Oda was genuinely treating him like trash for no reason. He got the joke training, he got the joke treatment in FI, Oda had him break his leg against what is basically a totally unimportant villain like Vergo then he couldn’t even get a cool moment saving the crew without Law stealing his spotlight.
Then came Zou and Germa. I can only assume that during the two odd years that Sanji was absent in Dressrosa that Oda came up with this as a last ditch attempt to remedy the complaints about Sanji. In my opinion, he failed woefully.
After twenty odd years Sanji’s character suddenly revolved around his kindness. Sanji is, apparently, the kindest man people have ever met. Where the actual fuck did this come from? Yes, he was capable of kindness, but so is Zoro and every other Strawhat. If kindness was meant to be a defintive feature of any Strawhat I would have chosen Chopper, not Sanji.
His entire familial background came from nowhere and was a trite attempt to recapture vastly more successful stories like Nami, Robin and Law’s. Not a single interesting character was introduced as part of Germa. It did not a single intetesting thing for Sanji’s character, all it did was turn him into a crying, snivelling moron. Oda, for some bizarre reason, refused to even give Sanji much of a success at the end of the arc. Sanji ultimately needing to be saved by Germa? That’s the payoff for an eighty chapter arc about how Germa think he is a weak minded failure?
Then comes Wano. “I am never going to use the RS!”
Immediately uses the RS
“Does Luffy want a chef or an emotionless super soldier?”
What the fuck do you think, he literally told you not an arc ago that he wanted you as a chef.
Then of course there was no actual downside to wearing the RS. No emotions lost or anything, just awakening yet another powerup that comes from Judge. And this is supposed to be great character work?
No, Sanji was a great character when Oda kept things basic with him up to EL. Bad tempered cook with a soft side who turns into a bit of a fool around woman. Can come in clutch with moments where he stops to think and plan ahead. It wasn’t anything elaborate, but it worked and he was likeable. Oda took all these aspects and turned them up to 11, making him a mess. Now he’s totally deranged around woman, is so passionate he’s basically a frothing at the mouth mess at times, yet is apparently also a human saint. Also Oda’s dumped the clutch moments which were so cool.
TL;DR. Sanji has been a mess for decades and is as clear an example of more not being better than you‘ll ever see. The character peaked on the train to EL and it‘s been a schizophrenic downward spiral ever since. Oda tried to fix it but only made things worse by throwing in the terrible Germa plot.
Short answer : no
There are better characters in OP : Fisher Tiger for exemple, Noland, maybe some others etc.
But among the main characters : fuck yeah
like someone said in the beginning of the thread : at least Oda tried with Sanji. At least Oda did something with him. Other SH have been so bland or bad post TS it’s a nightmare. No plot, no progression, a whole lot of nothing.
You can like or not Sanji writing and it’s far from perfect but at least it’s going somewhere.
Sanji is the only SH with a 300+ chapters plot still ongoing.
I don’t know if Sanji is amazingly written or not but he is the only one who is written at all.
There are better characters in OP : Fisher Tiger for exemple, Noland, maybe some others etc.
But among the main characters : fuck yeah
like someone said in the beginning of the thread : at least Oda tried with Sanji. At least Oda did something with him. Other SH have been so bland or bad post TS it’s a nightmare. No plot, no progression, a whole lot of nothing.
You can like or not Sanji writing and it’s far from perfect but at least it’s going somewhere.
Sanji is the only SH with a 300+ chapters plot still ongoing.
I don’t know if Sanji is amazingly written or not but he is the only one who is written at all.
Sanji is one of the monsters among straw hats heirarchy, yet so humanely. He has shown almost every known possible wheel of human emotions like love, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise, disgust, fear, etc. Oda is able to show different tangents of human behaviour through him, which does connect with his fans. Yes, he has been clowned many a times, but events related him are not mundane at all. People are empathetic towards him and care for him, thats what makes him one of the most well written character in one piece if not the best.
Until now, he's the only character among the SH who got 2 flashback/arc focused on him (Baratie-Whole Cake). That speaks a lot about it.
He's obviously one of the characters Oda cares the most in the whole manga.
Not the most well written among all, of course, but one of the few with not a superficial two dimensional characterization in One Piece, especially among the SH members.
He's obviously one of the characters Oda cares the most in the whole manga.
Not the most well written among all, of course, but one of the few with not a superficial two dimensional characterization in One Piece, especially among the SH members.
