Sanji (Sanji?) is a fictional character in the anime and manga One Piece. He is the fourth member and the chef of the Straw Hat Pirates.

Sanji is the chain-smoking chef of the Straw Hat Pirate Crew and currently holds a bounty of 77 million Beli. He has superb fighting skills that only make use of his legs, in an effort to minimize damage to his hands, which would impair his cooking skills. Sanji uses an array of powerful and varied kicking moves when he fights. His cooking skills are world class, and he was mentored in both cooking and fighting by Chef “Red Leg” Zeff of the Baratie. He was born in the North Blue, but grew up in the East Blue. According to Oda, Sanji most resembles a duck., is identified by the color blue, and smells of seafood and cigarettes.

In the original Japanese manga, the Japanese anime, and the English manga, Sanji is a chain smoker. In the English anime, Sanji instead sucks on lollipops (most likely so that kids wouldn’t try smoking).

In the English-language manga, Sanji often uses “Crap” as an adjective while speaking. This is an attempt to convey both his extremely coarse speaking style in Japanese, as well as his use of “kuso” (roughly “feces”) as an expletive; fans often translate it as “shit” because of his manner of speech. For example, he often calls Zeff “Kuso-Jiji” (roughly “shitty-geezer). In the English anime, he simply calls Zeff “old-geezer” or “old fart” (in fansubs, he is also referred to by this name), and “crap-geezer” in the English manga.

Also, in the 4Kids Dub, Sanji appears to have a nasally Brooklyn accented voice (done by David Moo).

Sanji is trash-talking and serious, and usually gruff and impatient, especially around men. This is contrasted by his “love-cook” side, as he is very amorous around women. When Sanji sees a beautiful lady, he usually loses all common sense and composure in front of them, comically swooning and making many passionate declarations of love towards the woman while cartoony hearts float in the air and appear in his eye (This is mostly displayed when being near or talking to Nami or Robin).

But in episode 184, when rescuing Nami from Enel, Sanji says to Usopp that he would gladly give his life for her. Usopp then asks Sanji if he loves her and Sanji quickly covers with “I’d gladly give your life”. This behavior has earned him the nickname “ero-cook”, or perverted cook. Around women, he is incredibly chivalrous and gentlemanly, volunteering to help them in various tasks and situations, whether they need help or not. He also never refuses a request asked by a lady, and has sworn to never let insult or injury happen to a woman while he can still stand, even if that woman is trying to kill him.

This is often problematic in his fighting as he can’t attack female opponents, and would rather die than hurt them. All this is apparently the result of a “strict upbringing”. To contradict his gentlemanly behavior, Sanji also enjoys seeing women wear skimpy clothing and can be a voyeur. For example, he asks Igaram where the women’s bath is during the Alabasta arc so he could peek at Nami and Vivi.

Sanji is the crew’s chef and and as such he looks out for the health of his crewmates. His goal in life is to find the All Blue (Great Blue in the 4Kids Dub), a legendary ocean which contains all the fish in the world, and as such would be paradise for any devoted cook. Sanji holds great respect for the tools, ingredients, and art of cooking, to the point where he never refuses food to any starving people, no matter how poor or evil they may be.

He also dislikes leftovers immensely and will show anger towards anyone who leaves them. Sanji is also very proud of the meals he makes and considers them works of art; if anyone insults them, he will promptly beat up the offender.

Sanji respects Luffy as a captain, but often gets angry at him for eating too much, showing disrespect for the aesthetics of cooking, and generally being daft and irresponsible. He is constantly in petty fights with Zoro (sometimes calling him Marimo) over each others’ traits and they have developed a rivalry, but have managed to make a devastating team together.

He is very protective of the female crewmembers and Nami likes to take advantage of him, exploiting his extreme servility. Sanji originally wanted to cook Chopper, but has come to respect him as a crewmember and friend. He’s also good friends with Usopp; they team up and interact often, and Sanji understands him quite well. In short, he cares as much for the crew as any Straw Hat should, but unlike Zoro, Sanji shows these feelings more. For example, he cried when Mr. 2 seemingly died protecting the Straw Hats from the Marines

Sanji likes to give himself nicknames in battles (such as Mr. Prince or Hunter) to hide his identity, and he often acts behind the scenes. In battles, he typically manipulates things from the background and then appears in the front lines at a very crucial moment. However, before Enies Lobby he was constantly upset that he hadn’t earned a bounty yet, which gave him a bit of a disadvantage in his arguments with Zoro since Zoro already had a very high bounty.

Even though he has a bounty now, it is still less than Zoro’s bounty (although, his first bounty is higher than Zoro’s first bounty and subsequent increase). This, combined with the fact that his wanted poster only shows a bad facial composite of him continues the running gag of him not being recognized. For example, in the Enies Lobby arc, after the Rocketman sea train flies over the second gate, Zoro and Sanji go against the Marines. During the battle, the Marines don’t recognize Sanji (who that time did not have a bounty) Zoro teases him as Pirate A (or Pirate B).

Sanji’s left eye is never seen in the Manga, always covered by his hair. Some anime-frames however show it, possibly by mistake. It can also be seen in the Doctor Stop card in the One Piece CCG Set 2, Passage to the Grand Line. In Chapter 419, Sanji was seen holding a spyglass to his left eye.

Sanji was Zeff’s protégé and sous-chef, and the two had a long history together. Nine years earlier, a young Sanji was working as a cruise ship’s trainee cook in the North Blue. Even at that young age, he still dreamed of finding the All Blue, though all of the other cooks told him that the All Blue was only a myth, and only a hopeless dreamer would try to find it. He also hated eating leftover foods from customers, and didn’t understand why his fellow cooks would even consider lowering themselves to eat other people’s scraps.

One day, the pirate Red “Leg” Zeff and his crew attacked the ship. Even though he was virtually powerless against them, Sanji fought and futilely tried to kill Zeff. When the pirates beat him up, he said that he had a dream to find the All Blue, and thus wouldn’t let a bunch of pirates kill him.

This comment results in an outburst of laughter by the pirates. The chefs were simply exasperated that Sanji could still talk about a supposed myth at such a time. However, Sanji’s speech impresses Zeff, who, despite being a pirate, believed no one deserved to starve, attacked crewmates that stole food, and also secretly dreamed about finding the All Blue. When both ships sink in a sudden storm, Zeff decides to save Sanji from drowning and the two were washed onto a rock outcropping, high above the sea. They were the only survivors.

Despite their good fortune, there was little food for them: a few rations had washed onto the rock with them, but there was no vegetation, no animals, and no way to reach the water to fish. Splitting up what little rations remained, Zeff ordered Sanji to sit at the other end of the island, and look for a ship. Sanji protested that Zeff was keeping a large sack for himself, but Zeff brushed him off, saying that as an adult, his stomach was bigger.

Days passed. Sanji had no more food, but there was still no sign of a ship. Starving, he remembered his last day on the cruise ship when he had refused and thrown away leftovers and mocked his fellow cooks for eating them. Now understanding why they did so, he cried with regret at the memory. Many weeks afterward (the exact amount of time differs between the manga and anime), an emaciated Sanji decided to take a chance and kill Zeff for his food. When he slashed open the older man’s sack, however, he discovered it had no food inside, only treasure.

To his horror, he realized that Zeff had given Sanji all of his food and eaten his own leg to survive (in the anime, he lost it while saving Sanji after becoming entangled in one of the wrecked ships, and simply ate nothing). When Sanji tearfully asked why he had given all of his food to a boy who had done nothing for him and even tried to kill him, Zeff said it was because they shared the same dream of finding the All Blue. He told Sanji that his crewmates were good people, even if they didn’t believe in the All Blue, and that his dream was to sail the Grand Line with them until he found the All Blue.

Now that his crewmates were dead, however, Zeff didn’t want to be a pirate anymore, and instead planned to fulfill his other dream of creating a floating restaurant to help the starving if they ever got off the island. Wracked with guilt and gratitude, Sanji promised that if they were rescued, he would help Zeff build the restaurant on the water so those at sea would not have to go hungry.

Soon after, a ship appeared, and they were rescued. Eventually, they would build and run the Baratie, the world’s only floating restaurant. Because of this ordeal, Sanji pledges to never refuse food to a starving individual, no matter how evil or poor they may be. He also dislikes leftovers immensely and will show great anger to those who leave them.

On the Baratie, Zeff and Sanji shared an uneasy relationship, frequently getting into arguments and exchanging insults. Sanji would call Zeff an “Old Fart” or “Shitty-Geezer”, (”Crap-Geezer” and “Old Geezer” in North America) and in return, Zeff would call Sanji a “stupid eggplant” (”Under-done Eggplant” or “String Bean” in North America) and tell him his cooking was awful. He started smoking at age 10, very shortly after the Baratie was founded, in an attempt to prove his “maturity” to Zeff. This scene was cut from all versions of the anime.

Yet for all that, Sanji remained faithful to his promise nine years before, and risked his life to help defend the restaurant he helped build from the clutches of Don Krieg and his pirate armada. With the help of Monkey D. Luffy, he succeeded, but was unwilling to leave his position at Baratie to become Luffy’s cook. In the end, Zeff had to remind him of the dream they both shared: to find the legendary sea, All Blue.

Tearfully thanking the old man for everything, Sanji departed with Luffy to retrieve Nami, who had stolen the Going Merry and was making her way to the stronghold of the merman pirate, Arlong.

Recently, Sanji helped cook for the festival the Strawhats and allies were having, which incidentally drained almost all of their remaining Beli. In Chapter 435 he received his first bounty of 77 Million Beli and is nicknamed “Black Leg”, in contrast to his old mentor Zeff, who was known as “Red Leg”.

However, Sanji is horrified to see his picture on the bounty poster. The Marines were unable to obtain a photo of him (because the photographer forgot to take off the lens cap) and thus used a horrendous composite sketch instead. Upon seeing the poster, all of the Baratie’s chefs expressed great pride that their sous-chef had become a famous pirate, and declared that from then on, they would be handing out his wanted poster to all of their customers.

He went to investigate the ghost ship with Nami and Luffy. While Brook fascinated Luffy with his strangeness and angered Nami with his pervertedness, Sanji was weirded out and furiously bombarded the skeleton with questions. He helped fight an invisible creature that was attacking the Straw Hats on the Thousand Sunny.

After he and the Straw Hats left the ship, they encountered Cerberus. Sanji calmly warned Cerberus that it should stay in hell for its own safety. Along with Zoro, Sanji later discourages Luffy from asking a couple of zombies to join their crew. While in Hogback’s mansion Sanji disappears. Later, a zombie resembling a penguin-English-bulldog cross appears and saves Nami from an attacking zombie. The zombie has Sanji’s personality, speech pattern, and fighting style; however, the zombie states that he doesn’t know who Nami is or where she came from, suggesting that Sanji has had his shadow stolen.

Sanji is later seen on the thousand sunny, with Luffy and Zoro, sleeping and was woken by Usopp of whom states that a beautiful lady swordsman carrying lots of meat had just arrived. After waking up he is told that Nami is going to get married, which angers him, he is also told the weakness of the zombies and of Brooke’s relationship with Laboon. He is currently planning an attack on Thriller Bark with the rest of the crew. He later reached the alter where Absalom was having the wedding. He proceeded to rescue Nami and then, in rage at all of the dastardly actions by Absalom (including him peeking at Nami in the shower), he began to beat up Absalom.

He even caught him with a kick while Absalom was invisible using Usopp’s salt to discover Absalom’s whereabouts. Sanji then reveals that he also has a grudge against Absalom because he has eaten the Suke Suke no Mi, a Devil Fruit. Sanji tells him that out of all the Devil Fruits he had read about he never saw any worth giving up the ability to swim except for that fruit which he would gladly give up his swimming ability for. He states that he wanted to use it to peek on girls. Sanji then defeats Absalom stating that with all the different animal parts he is comprised of that he would make a good dish. Sanji defeats Absalom in chapter 464.

Sanji is a powerful martial artist with superhuman strength, speed, and endurance. He is the third strongest member of the Straw Hat crew, after Zoro and Luffy. Sanji has mastered Red Leg, a style of combat which focuses entirely on the use of one’s legs. Sanji’s leg strength is great enough to smash through rock and defeat monstrous beasts in a single blow. He’s also shown to be very acrobatic, using flips and handstands in his fighting.

Red Leg is a fictional unarmed martial art which strictly uses the lower body and legs in combat, which Sanji takes to the extreme, often leaving his hands in his pockets while fighting. The style’s name is taken from the title of pirate “Red Leg” Zeff, Sanji’s mentor and developer of the style. Red Leg possesses a variety of special attacks, most of which are simply exceptionally powerful kicks.

These techniques are named in French, and generally refer to food puns or the part of the body Sanji is attacking. In the English anime, the attack names are changed to be funny sounding, non-existent food items that have something to do with the target area of the attack.

In addition to his normal kicks, Sanji recently revealed a potent special form named Diable Jambe , which involves rotating his leg at high speeds, heating his leg via friction until it glows red-hot. Sanji’s kicks are enhanced by the fiery heat, and any opponent who fails to dodge his attacks will be burnt to the bone, regardless of their defensive techniques.

When series author Eiichiro Oda was asked to explain why Sanji doesn’t feel the heat, he replied that Sanji’s heart burns even hotter, but this was most likely a joke on Oda’s part. Another possible explanation is that as a cook, Sanji is able to withstand high temperatures. Regardless of the cause, neither Sanji nor his clothes were burned when using Diable Jambe.

As an expert cook, Sanji is capable of preparing almost any kind of food and holding a strong sense to the aesthetics of cooking. This is also the reason for his fighting style: to avoid the hand-damage that would impair his cooking skills. Despite this, Sanji is also skilled in fighting with kitchen knives, which he used against Wanze, a chef who used ramen armour in combat.

He justified the action by saying that the fight involved a chef using food attacks and took place in a kitchen; therefore, kitchen implements were fair weapons. Finally, Sanji has a talent for strategy and can often be found working in the background separate from the rest of the crew to foil enemy plans.
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