Sanji (サンジ)

***

group: Straw Hat Pirates

• position: Chef / Cook

• age: 19

• birthday: March 2nd

• sign: Pisces

• height: 177cm

• first appeared: Chapter 43, Episode 20

• bounty: none

• skills: cooking, kick based fighting style

• dream: to find All Blue

• character traits:

  • Strength ..............■■■■■□

  • Adventurousness .......■■□□□□

  • Curiosity .............■■□□□□

  • Style .................■■■■■■

  • Dexterity .............■■■■□□

  • Intelligence ..........■■■□□□

After convincing Usopp to join the crew and obtaining the Going Merry, Luffy and company come upon a floating restaurant named "Baratie". Here, they meet a cook and waiter named Sanji, who would become their next member. Sanji plays it cool around the "bad guys", but changes instantly and comically into an enthusiastic servant around women. This can be somewhat of a hindrance when the opponent happens to be a beautiful woman.

Over the course of the crew's forced stay at Baratie, Sanji gives food to a pirate named Gin, whom he takes pity on and feeds despite the fact that Gin doesn't have any money. When Gin returns with his captain, Don Krieg, the Krieg Pirates attack the restaurant in an attempt to take it over, but are defeated by Luffy and Sanji. When the dust settles, the cooks at Baratie realize that Sanji will never fulfill his dreams if he stays at the restaurant and pretend that they hate his cooking so that he can feel free to join Luffy's crew.

Sanji is around the same age as Zoro and, as the crew's third main fighter, has something of a rivalry with the swordsman. This becomes even more explicit when Zoro receives a bounty and Sanji shows his jealousy at being ignored by the World Government. The two spend much of their time arguing and fighting each other and at times even do so when they should be busy fighting someone else. In order to avoid injuring his hands (which are necessary for cooking), Sanji uses a fighting style he learned from Zeff involving only kicks. His dream is to find All Blue, which is an mythical sea that contains fish from all four of the Blue seas, and thus is thought to be a cook's heaven. Although Sanji acts goofy around women, he is serious about cooking and about fulfilling his dreams.

Sanji's Past

When Sanji was young, he worked as a cook's apprentice on a large ship, which was a passenger liner named The Orbit. When he confides in the other cooks his dreams of finding All Blue, they laugh at him and tell him that it doesn't exist.

During a fierce storm, the pirate Zeff the Red Leg, who is so named because of his deadly kick-based fighting style, attacks the ship where Sanji works. Although the cooks all cower in fear, Sanji stands up to the pirates, who are all amused that a small child would try to stop them. Zeff laughs it off too, but is interested when Sanji mentions All Blue. In the middle of their "fight", a large wave batters the ship and Sanji is swept overboard.

To the other pirates' surprise, Zeff jumps into the surf to save Sanji. When Sanji wakes up, he is atop an island with tall, slick cliffs and an uninviting rocky shore. Zeff informs him that both ships sank in the storm and that there was no possibility of escaping the island without a rescue. He explains to Sanji that they share the same dream of finding All Blue. He had saved Sanji for this reason. He hands Sanji a small bag of food and instructs him to go to the other side of the island and not return unless he sees a ship.

Sanji is upset because the bag of food that Zeff hands him is much smaller than his own, but since Zeff is so much more powerful than him he has to abide by his orders. At first, he is optimistic that he can make the food last until he is rescued, but as the food dwindles and there are no signs he starts to lose hope. Finally, he decides to look over at Zeff's side of the island only to see that Zeff's bag is still full. He decides to attack Zeff for the food, only to learn that the bag was full of gold. There had never been any food in it as Zeff instead gave everything edible that he had recovered to Sanji. To stave off starvation, Zeff had eaten his own leg instead, which ends his career as a pirate.

A few days after this, Zeff and Sanji are saved by a passing ship and decide to open up a restaurant on the sea so that no men should have to go hungry as they had. Sanji feels as though he owes everything to Zeff, who lost everything to save him and devotes his life to making the restaurant a success. Under Zeff's somewhat violent tutelage, Sanji picks up Zeff's fighting style and his cooking knowledge becomes first rate.