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Name : Sanji
Epithet : "Love-Cook" (self), "Little Eggplant" (Zeff: Japanese versions,
English manga), "String Bean" (Zeff: English anime), "Dartboard-Eyebrow" (Zoro), "Mr. Prince" (Navy), Hunter (CP9)
Age : 19
Birthday : March 2nd
Height : 177 cm (5' 9?")
First Appearance : Manga Chapter #43, Anime Episode #20
Species : Human
Bounty : 77,000,000 Berries
Sanji is the chain-smoking cook aboard the Merry Go (Going Merry in the Japanese manga and anime), as a member of Monkey D. Luffy's Straw Hat Pirate Crew. He has superb fighting skills that only make use of the lower part of his body, in an effort to minimise damage to his hands which would impair his cooking skills. Naturally, Sanji uses an array of powerful and varied kicking moves when he fights, all with French names related to food. His cooking skills are also the best within the manga One Piece, second to only Chef "Red Leg" Zeff (or "Red Shoes" Zeff" in North America) of Baratie, the floating restaurant and Sanji's mentor.
Sanji is quite the "charmer" in a way. He tends to flirt with any attractive woman he sees, specifically the female crew members of the Straw Hat Pirates (Robin, Vivi and especially Nami) when aboard the Merry Go (something which the girls seem to encourage as it gets them special treatment), and will do anything to win adoration from them, to no avail. His lovesick attitude is not only an annoyance to most of the crew, but has actually proved dangerous before, when Sanji has faced female opponents: Just as he is chivalrous and has sworn to protect them, he will never harm them, under any circumstances. This is in a stark contrast to his usual tough, brash, trash-talking attitude. He was born in North Blue but at an older age, then later worked and lived in East Blue. He is familair with tales of "Liar Norland" whilst the rest of the crew were not.
 In Japanese Fan Polls, including the most recent one, Sanji is consistently the third most popular character. While in the recent 4Kids poll, Sanji is the second most popular character.
Sanji is the crew's chef and and as such he looks out for the health of his teammates. His goal in life is to find the All Blue, a legendary ocean which contains all the fish in the world. He is very love oriented, is constantly flirting (earning him the nickname ero-cook, or perverted cook) and swore to never let insult or injury happen to a woman while he can still stand. This is often problematic in his fighting as he can't attack female opponents. One exception happened during the Alabasta Arc when Luffy hit Vivi in front of Sanji and the others, although Sanji complained, he allowed it because he understood Luffy's purpose. However, also as a result, his fighting skills greatly increase when he is protecting a woman. Sanji also likes to swear a lot and is overall a bit of trashtalker, insulting his opponents while fighting.
Sanji respects Luffy as a captain, but often gets angry at him for eating too much and showing disrespect for the aesthetics of cooking. He is constantly in verbal fights with Zoro (sometimes calling him Marimo-san) over each others' traits and they have developed a bit of a rivalry (almost like a sibling rivalry). He is very protective of the female crewmembers and Nami likes to take advantage of him. Sanji originally wanted to cook Chopper, and continues to refer to him as their "emergency food supply" to tease him. However, he does consider Chopper a friend.
 Although Sanji never uses his hands in battle, on rare occasion, Sanji will use items like guns or kitchen knives to fight. At one occasion, Sanji points a gun at Miss All-Sunday (Nico Robin) during the escape from Whiskey Peak (One of the first of seven islands upon entering the Grand Line). Another occasion, when Sanji fought a CP7 chef, Sanji used kitchen knives to remove Wanze's battle suit but did not cut him. As he was in a a kitchen as well as fighting food, he had an excuse for using knives. Instead of letting the ramen fall to the floor he put them onto plates and stacked them on the kitchen counters.
Sanji likes to give himself nicknames in battles (such as Mr. Prince or Hunter) to hide his identity and overall likes to act in the background. However, he is also upset that he didn't earn a bounty yet, which gives him a bit of a disadvantage in his arguments with Zoro because Zoro has a very high bounty.
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. 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 Merry Go and was making her way to the stronghold of the Merman pirate, Arlong.
Sanji, Zoro, and Sogeking have re-united with Nami and Chopper in the tunnel underneath the Bridge of Hesitation, along with the sea train conductor Kokoro and her grand-daughter Chimney, but the tunnel is flooding with water and all present are in danger of drowning. But recently Kokoro has shown that she's a mermaid, which freaked out the drowning strawhats, making them open their mouths and lose their air, but Kokoro puts them in her jacket, and saves them. They finally land on the ship Franky and Robin are on. When he wakes up, he tries to hug Robin knowing she is alright but gets kicked out of the way by Chopper and, very ironically, Nami. When the 200 captains attack the strawhat crew, Sanji disappears. His whereabouts and future actions are unknown.
Sanji helped cook for the festival the Strawhats and allies were having, which incidentally drained almost all of their remaining Belly. In Chapter 435 he received his first bounty of 77 Million Belly 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 weren't able to obtain a photo of him(someone left the lens cap on the camera) and thus used a horrendous composite sketch. |
