>
Untrue. Nothing from their clash or the aftermath suggests that Sanji was overwhelmed.
Then why do we not have other people break bones? We have Sanji twice and Usopp once. Even with the manga levels of strength, it still reflects a significant injury. If it wasn't everyone would be breaking bones on a regular basis.
I explained the science of how bones break, so why does it not happen to others?>
Really? His clash with Page One was very one-sided, and the members of the Flying Six are implied to be strong enough to challenge the Calamities.
Then why is Page One not shown to have any lasting damage? Yes, Zoan's rapidly recover. Significant damage creates a lasting wound => Yamato's attack leaves Ulti bloodied and this was shown in recent panels as well (she denied treatment to bandage or stop the bleeding so maybe this changes things if she got treated).
If Sanji did something more than just knock Page One out, he would still have a bandage or some other visual sign of lingering damage.
Sasaki and Black Maria only. Page One is clearly on a different tier. Titles do not equate power levels, which is why I see some overlap with Doffy's execs and Kaidou/Big Mom's execs. I'm 100% sure the majority agree on the differences within the Tobi Roppou. This comment is implying they are all the same from what I'm reading.>
He’s the most fleshed out Straw Hat besides Luffy at this point - WCI was a fantastic arc for his character.
He’s showcased his ability on multiple occasions, but because there’s no flashy end panel or massive attention drawn towards it, perhaps those moments have gone under appreciated. His Observation Haki was good enough to outwit Katakuri’s future sight, and his speed and ability to read a situation have been shown on several occasions, even as recently as last chapter. He is what he always has been - dependable. When the time comes for him to have his big showdown, it’ll happen. There’s no rush.
So of course I'm not going to disagree with Sanji's best points or at least what makes me a fan of him. The science and even manga science are clearly implying a bigger deal of Sanji's clashes with people of the same tier or a tier above him.
Does Luffy break his bones in his hand or forearm punching Big Mom or Kaidou? Sanji has a worried look immediately upon Doffy easily blocking his attack (Sanji knows he can't protect the crew members below him).
If people think diverting from the main points "wins" a discussion, to each their own. I'll stick to my purpose of just putting the content's details out for people to do with it what they want.
So if belittling the extent of Sanji repeatedly not being able to match captains and execs in opposing crews is what allows you to not be mad at the series, I can respect that. And I'll take that as the implication since we keep avoiding the main points of displays of true power levels (the climax action). If you want to continue the discussion, I want to focus on the clear pattern of Sanji's max output being dramatically less than the vast majority of captains and executives. There are some who he keeps up with, the majority he is lacking.>
Additionally, Oda has told us that there has always been a tiny gap between Zoro and Sanji: Zoro always takes out the second-strongest enemy, Sanji always takes out the third-strongest. The most explicit examples of this are when Luffy, Zoro and Sanji literally fought a Mr.0, Mr.1 and Mr.2 (where the lower number indicated a stronger foe), and where Zoro fought Kaku, and Sanji fought Jabra, who were literally a single Douriki apart from each other in strength, with of course Kaku edging out.
I will 100% defend Sanji here. This is the whole manga and real world aspect of "styles make fights". The easy example is Luffy loses to any swordsman. Because of Luffy's biggest weakness (getting his limbs cut off). Zoro isn't stronger than Luffy, he is the better stylistic match-up. You say so yourself that the difference between Kaku and Jyabura is only one average human. Off the top of my head, they are in the thousands (of douriki). This is statistically irrelevant. They are equal in combat capabilities.
The Mr. 1 aspect is the same as Zoro's role, but the main point for me is that for the entire series from the start to Kuma dispersing everyone to their ideal training grounds, Sanji is statistically equal to both Zoro and Luffy. They all have their advantageous match-ups and disadvantageous match-ups. Oda purposefully goes out of his way with Jyabura to highlight this. Yes, there is still an "order" and Zoro is implied to be slightly above Sanji, but it is statistically insignificant. Sanji survives taking all of Luffy's damage (the Kuma scene in Thriller Bark). But that's Zoro's personality and his vice-captain role.>
However, this gap has grown exponentially after the time-skip, to the point where Zoro and Sanji are no longer in the same league anymore. Now, would it be fair to say, based on my position about Zoro always training and Sanji not doing so, that it follows that the difference represented here would maximise over a 2 year time-skip? Actually yeah, I think it would be fair to say that. But that still doesn't make it a necessity within the One Piece world. Oda could have made Sanji as strong/weak as he liked. But the thing that is quite frustrating is that even though he's been made so much weaker, he's still allowing the characters to go on behaving like they are similar in strength, especially in the first two arcs, where their rivalry was maintained. He's trying to have his cake and eat it too, though admittedly this has kind of dropped off in recent arcs (it might just be since they haven't seen each other very much tho, so we'll need to wait for them to interact again to be sure)j.
Thank you! Exactly. Iva seems to be astronomically underrated because of the wacky personality. He's able to fight with Kuma, who should be in contention for the second fastest or potentially fastest character behind Kizaru with his teleportation (another person astronomically underrated). The monster sized Yonkou are only as fast as Gear Fourth Luffy, and we don't get to see Shanks in any real action. Context implies he's faster, but we can only go off what we are shown. >
To me, the fact that Sanji has the raid suit is an explicit testament to the fact that he's weaker. Oda is now telling us that Sanji can no longer compete physically with Luffy or Zoro - he needs an artificial enhancement (albeit one that was custom-made for him) that gives him an extremely strong exoskeleton, massively amplifies his movement capacity, and can even turn him invisible, to be able to reach up and fight the kinds of enemies that Zoro can take on.
YES! For me, I really hope this is only temporary because Stealth Mode is completely negated by even somewhat basic kenbunshoku. Even Usopp will be able to see and at least shoot in the correct direction of Sanji. Currently Usopp would be highly sporadic, but we already see the kenbunshoku mechanics (expanded astronomically by Fujitora).
It's flashy and exciting as hell...but the implications are very negative...and that's the whole point of the thread to me. I'm never going to overlook the negative aspects. I want Oda to be able to correct them. If the Raid Suit is only temporary for Sanji, that's a perfect situation per my biases. And something we seem like we agree upon if viewed from a pro-Sanji viewpoint.>
Now, you can argue something like "Well Zoro has always been using swords to give himself an unfair advantage, how is that any different?", but firstly, this fact rarely came up when discussing the rivalry between Sanji and Zoro before the Raid Suit (usually references to swords would be countered by Sanji's Black Leg skill), so it would seem a bit disingenuous to use here, and more importantly, Zoro has been a swordsman for as long as we met him, and he's grown only in that direction, whereas Sanji's power boost from the Raid Suit has not been anything physical, nor does it represent an improvement of his Black Leg ability (in the way that a new sword for Zoro might improve his swordsmanship abilities), so Sanji's "growth" from the Raid Suit isn't really anything specific to Sanji's current skill-set, bur rather gives him a new list of features that are quite unrelated - (ignoring the fact that the suit is made for Sanji) pretty much anyone could pick up the Raid Suit and gain the benefits of strong armour, flight, and invisibility, but not anyone can pick up a brand new sword and use it like Zoro can.
I definitely agree with the overall point of the Raid Suit essentially being a "tool"/"weapon" that can be viewed as just an equivalent to Zoro's swords (that's what I got at least). I do want to point out how the "styles make fights" aspect plays a huge part in bias skewing power levels.
I don't think I ever remember Zoro using the back of his blades when clashing with Sanji. Sanji is always fast and flexible enough to counter the flat side of the blade (I don't remember any scene of them clashing after 3D2Y so busoushoku would explain Sanji not getting cut for these instances). And thus, more of the evidence of the monster trio all being statistically significant equals (with only super small differences), that is dependent on the opponents fighting style. >
(though the cracked bone thing does imply he probably would have lost had it continued)
I can go over the science of how a bone doesn't break when throwing a strike, but we agree on the overall power level aspect (or at least the resulting outcome of the fight).>
On the whole I actually kind of agree.
My stance has always been that Sanji would always lose out to Zoro, by the simple conclusion that Sanji has the added responsibility of being a chef, and is nowhere near as dedicated to optimising his raw power as Zoro is (Zoro trains in his free time; Sanji cooks and flirts). Additionally, Oda has told us that there has always been a tiny gap between Zoro and Sanji: Zoro always takes out the second-strongest enemy, Sanji always takes out the third-strongest. The most explicit examples of this are when Luffy, Zoro and Sanji literally fought a Mr.0, Mr.1 and Mr.2 (where the lower number indicated a stronger foe), and where Zoro fought Kaku, and Sanji fought Jabra, who were literally a single Douriki apart from each other in strength, with of course Kaku edging out.
However, this gap has grown exponentially after the time-skip, to the point where Zoro and Sanji are no longer in the same league anymore. Now, would it be fair to say, based on my position about Zoro always training and Sanji not doing so, that it follows that the difference represented here would maximise over a 2 year time-skip? Actually yeah, I think it would be fair to say that. But that still doesn't make it a necessity within the One Piece world. Oda could have made Sanji as strong/weak as he liked. But the thing that is quite frustrating is that even though he's been made so much weaker, he's still allowing the characters to go on behaving like they are similar in strength, especially in the first two arcs, where their rivalry was maintained. He's trying to have his cake and eat it too, though admittedly this has kind of dropped off in recent arcs (it might just be since they haven't seen each other very much tho, so we'll need to wait for them to interact again to be sure)j.
To me, the fact that Sanji has the raid suit is an explicit testament to the fact that he's weaker. Oda is now telling us that Sanji can no longer compete physically with Luffy or Zoro - he needs an artificial enhancement (albeit one that was custom-made for him) that gives him an extremely strong exoskeleton, massively amplifies his movement capacity, and can even turn him invisible, to be able to reach up and fight the kinds of enemies that Zoro can take on.
Now, you can argue something like "Well Zoro has always been using swords to give himself an unfair advantage, how is that any different?", but firstly, this fact rarely came up when discussing the rivalry between Sanji and Zoro before the Raid Suit (usually references to swords would be countered by Sanji's Black Leg skill), so it would seem a bit disingenuous to use here, and more importantly, Zoro has been a swordsman for as long as we met him, and he's grown only in that direction, whereas Sanji's power boost from the Raid Suit has not been anything physical, nor does it represent an improvement of his Black Leg ability (in the way that a new sword for Zoro might improve his swordsmanship abilities), so Sanji's "growth" from the Raid Suit isn't really anything specific to Sanji's current skill-set, bur rather gives him a new list of features that are quite unrelated - (ignoring the fact that the suit is made for Sanji) pretty much anyone could pick up the Raid Suit and gain the benefits of strong armour, flight, and invisibility, but not anyone can pick up a brand new sword and use it like Zoro can.
I realise I haven't explicitly addressed the thread yet, so aside from what I've already said, I have to say I agree that Sanji wasn't easily losing out to Virgo (though the cracked bone thing does imply he probably would have lost had it continued), and I do agree with @Marco Polo that he's had the greatest character development (probably even more than Luffy) since the time-skip happened.
I like Sanji for the points brought up, so I'm in full agreement here. You actually do cover the main aspects/points of this thread...and that's the point. I personally think people are overlooking and or downplaying a very negative trend for Sanji. I said in the previous discussion that if I was a Sanji fan (and paying close attention to all of these), I'd be writing angry emails to WSJ or submitting a SBS question on why Oda is doing all of this over SOOOOOO many years of manga.
Yes, it is a necessary aspect of WCI, but Sanji only has to be weaker than Ichiji and Niji when they are in their Raid Suits. For me this, is B.S. since I cannot foresee a legitimate twist from Sanji having to be weaker than his role needs him to be. If that does happen, god damn on Oda. This tops any main plot related twist to me since those are all predictable by context.
Since the mindset of Sanji fans is what I'm most curious about, did you not mentally keep track of the pattern?>
I've also sort of covered this previously when talking to @seiryu, but the way I see the Raid Suit is like a piece of high-level equipment in an RPG. Sure, anyone could put it on (I'm pretty sure they literally can't but let's say they can for the sake of argument) but do they get the same level of benefits as Sanji would?
Luffy already tried, so it is tied to Vinsmoke genetics. We all agree on the mechanics of the "weapon". From what I'm reading Jawa and myself don't like the external power-up for Sanji. I will speak for myself that I want Sanji to only use this temporarily. I want him to become on the same level again with his own body/abilities.>
1. There's a way for him to activate Diable Jambe over the Raid Suit (his soul burns hotter than fire or whatever), we just haven't seen it yet.
2. He can't activate Diable Jambe whilst in the Raid Suit, which means he's only using the Raid Suit for stealth purposes, and he'll be without it for any major fights.
So I'm going to divert to the main discrepancy point per our differing perspectives since this directly ties to it. How much destructive power does Diable Jambe provide? Based on what we are seeing, it is now only a heat related addition. Without haki, Doffy didn't even flinch. This implies all powerhouses are unaffected by the extent of heat. Maybe this changes and Sanji's soul has another tier of fire to reach, but as of right now, I only see as much destructive power as Virgo's busoushoku infused strikes. Which are all below Pica, Doffy, and even Hodi (excluding manga spoilers).
Crap...just realized something depressing. I want your thoughts Jawahib. How do you see Sanji vs. Hody going down? I'm not going to answer now since I can't be fully objective. Yes, even Luffy needs some help to offset the poor mobility while in the water, so maybe we'll only focus on a fight within the bubble of Gyojin Island. Based on peak capabilities (the combat capabilities during the climax of climax fights), I do not have an optimistic view for Sanji right now. I should be objective viewing the fight without typing out responses prior to thinking about it.