part of why i first started reading one piece was sanji, honestly. and perhaps it was less so sanji himself but the reveal of his backstory. i've never minded with spoilers so hearing about him being a secret prince and how there was a throwaway line 500 chapters earlier that suggested that piqued my interest. for reference that line is in jaya when they're talking about noland and sanji makes an offhanded comment about how everyone growing up in the north blue knew that story meanwhile we only ever knew his backstory as being in the east blue with zeff--how does an 8 year old cross the red line??
all that to say i was pretty set up to love sanji going into this series and for the most part oda exceeded my expectations. sanji is a great balance to me of the fun of intense shonen fights with a real sense of emotion behind what he does. whether or not i agree with his emotions is another story i address to the right he always felt somewhat less cartoonish than others, and even when he did feel more over the top i enjoyed it. look, i love a cool guy being a cool guy and also being horribly lame and embarassing a page later.
both of sanji's backstories though is what makes him my favorite one of my favorite one piece characters, if not my favorite. we see him grappling with what to do with his life, in a way that i don't really think we see the rest of the strawhats. especially in east blue, zoro is convinced fairly quickly, usopp is once kuro is defeated and kaya is safe, nami takes until the end of arlong park. sanji i would argue takes much longer than baratie--again this is hindsight looking back at pre-ts with WCI knowledge. sanji is obviously committed to the crew pre-ts, but there is this sense that we're missing something, in the same way we were missing something with robin. with sanji, though, that sort of 'huh i wonder what that's about' is kept over our heads much longer and is so much more subtle that it's almost just like so intertwined with his character we don't notice something is wrong until we learn the truth.
and to WCI and wano, the two arcs that solidifed sanji as a brilliantly written character. oda lets us see sanji free and happy for 700+ chapters before throwing us to the wolves with who he is free from. what feels notably heartwrenching about sanji's backstory and the abuse he faced is that unlike others, whose tragic backstories rely on this fantasy setting, sanji's is much more rooted in reality. take away the biological modifiers his brother's have and input just strong and weak, masculine and feminine, and you have a story that is reminiscent of someone living in our world. i know others have spoken about how WCI is accidentally a queer allegory, and that's something i would love to elaborate on.
the conceit of WCI is that sanji was exiled for being different: instead of fighting and showing no emotions, he was a sensitive kid that loved to cook. he failed in nearly every expectation judge set forth for him on what being a 'man' is, and is banished from his family because of it. unfortunately, this is not a story unfamiliar to a lot of people. and i think, and i'll go into it further on the right, part of what makes sanji interesting to look at as a repressed bisexual man that while he praises femininity and admires it so passionately, can never allow himself to do the same for masculininty. because this ideal of masculinity, what his father and brothers embodied, that is what trapped him in a jail cell in the iron mask and faked death for a year. femininity--reiju, his mother--that is what set him free
until luffy, that is. and luffy is the catalyst for sanji realizing he can be free, he can make his choices, pursue the all-blue. and isn't that just so lovely to watch--someone finally chase the childhood dream they never thought they could.
all of this to say that i love sanji so much he's a cringey womanizer with a heart of gold and anytime he's in the manga i am having a good day
so i actually, unsurprisingly, have a lot of thoughts on sanji's sexuality. is it because he's a favorite character? yea. is it because zosan is a favorite ship? yea.
basically it all boils down to the fact that i don't know if sanji understands that people who embody this more 'masculine ideal' can love and be kind. in so many ways, someone can look at zoro's behavior and while it is by no means NO MEANS as extreme as any of sanji's brothers--there's a tie. just in the way they handle themselves, in the brashness, the willingness to fight, that all links them together. and i think its why, if sanji were bisexual imo he is, he would deeply cover those feelings under the similar argumentativeness and aggressiveness. so i think zosan's 'fighting is flirting' goes a bit deeper than just a fun relationship trope and further into the ways that sanji thinks masculine affection is shown (because in the end didn't sanji just hope his father and brother's abuse was their way of showing love?)
JUST REPEATING THAT I DONT THINK ZOSAN IS ABUSIVE I JUST THINK SANJI'S ABUSE INFLUENCES THE WAY HE INTERACTS WITH MEN
look theres no getting around some of sanji's behavior towards women. like, i fucking hate it at points. he treats women like princesses, sure, but also weak at the same time. like his refusal to hit a woman is only admirable when it isnt an enemy combatant that's a woman. like do not get me STARTED on his refusal to fight kalifa. this plus how his gag of being a womanizer became his entire persoanlity during fishman island was super disappointing
that being said though i think WCI gives more context as to why he acts like this so....i still dont like it but i get it.
