- [Narrator] Dengeki Blue, good for creating
strangely like blue electricity,
Stealth Black, good for spying on people
in a state of undress,
and Subscribe Red, good for you to be pushing it
and subscribing to the Grand Line Review
for regular "One Piece" content
uploaded straight into your YouTube feed.
Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything "One Piece."
And today we are continuing our ongoing exploration
into the deeper relationships between the Straw Hats,
with this edition focusing on what I honestly believe
to be one of the more understated dynamics
in the series between the Captain and the Chef.
And actually to begin this one,
I think that we need to take some time to flesh out
another key relationship
to lay some very important groundwork here,
and that is the ongoing love story between Luffy and food.
You see Luffy is a simple man with supremely basic desires
in this world.
In many ways, he's kind of like a dog, really.
The three times when he is happiest,
it's going to be when he is exploring, playing or eating.
And he takes meal time every bit of serious
as a golden retriever
and he finishes his food just as quickly as one as well.
But food is nigh on everything to Luffy.
Not only is it one of his greatest pleasures,
but it gives him this almost magical energy
to continue striving towards his goal.
The link between Luffy and food is so profound
that it could probably have its own video
focusing entirely on that idea,
but with that in mind,
let's now consider the extreme importance of a chef
in the mind of Luffy.
A chef on this crew is very much Luffy's key lifeline.
Without a chef, Luffy's journey would become
an immediate disaster.
An example of which we actually briefly got to see
between the Zou and Whole Cake Island Arcs
as within a couple of days,
Luffy had managed to poison himself
with his quote unquote cooking,
and he just wasn't quite complete
until Sanji had returned to the crew.
We will get to that whole situation a little bit later,
but first up it's important to highlight that food
is not everything with this relationship.
in fact, it wasn't even the key factor
that led Luffy to scouting Sanji in the first place.
There were plenty of highly talented chefs on Baratie,
but what really locked Luffy into Sanji was seeing
his sheer kindness towards Gin,
a starving pirate who had rocked up with no money
and who was thrown out,
only to be met with a plate of Sanji's trademark
seafood fried rice.
And this was very much something of an ultimate
combination of features for Luffy.
Someone who was on his level in terms of a moral compass,
but also an individual who could prepare delicious noms,
and immediately after Luffy saw Sanji feed Gin,
he made the declaration that he had found his cook.
And from that moment on,
whether Sanji liked it or not,
he was destined to become a Straw Hat.
Although this did also lead to the ever famous
Luffy refusing Sanji's refusal to join the crew.
But despite the fact that Sanji did decline,
there was only one major obstacle stopping him
from saying yes, right then and there,
which was the debt he felt he owed to Zeff.
As opposed to other members of the crew,
specifically Zoro and Nami,
Sanji didn't really have any reservations about becoming
a pirate in and of itself.
I mean, he did possess a dislike for them,
but at the same time,
he had been practically raised by a pirate in Zeff,
and just about all of his colleagues
were former pirates or criminals.
Plus the restaurant he helped build was designed
to cater to everyone, including pirates.
So following Luffy actually presented Sanji
with a very natural path after everyone else
pushed him into it, of course.
But that doesn't even begin to touch on quite possibly
the most important thing that bonds
Luffy and Sanji together,
which are their dreams.
Now you can say this about most of the Straw Hats,
I suppose, they all come together
with their outrageous sounding dreams
and support one another in completing them.
However, with Luffy and Sanji, in particular,
they have very difficult goals to strive towards,
ones that aren't, say, as tangible as others.
For example, Zoro wanting to become
the World's Greatest Swordsman,
an incredibly difficult thing to achieve,
but something that we did have a tangible metric for.
You just need to defeat me Mihawk,
and you're done, you did it.
Congratulations, Zoro.
Or all like Nami wanting to draw a map of the world.
That one's even clearer.
You just need to literally draw a map of the world.
And in fact, even Usopp's goal of becoming brave
in general is quite easy to measure.
But with Luffy and Sanji,
their goals don't have that end point
because they were both in search of something
that may not necessarily exist.
Becoming the pirate king is a very vague path.
I mean, in theory, you just reach Laugh Tale
and then somehow, (laughs)
magically, you become the king of the pirates.
It's a very foggy goal,
especially in these early days when we didn't even know
if Laugh Tale actually existed.
And that is very similar to the goal
of finding the All Blue
because as far as we know,
it is a mythical existence.
I mean, narratively, we, as readers can assume
that it does or will exist,
but in this world,
the dreams of Sanji and Luffy seem actively impossible
to achieve compared to that of most of the rest of the crew.
And that creates a pretty immediate bond
because of everyone in the Straw Hats,
these are going to be the two that get told
their desires are ridiculous and impossible the most.
So while Luffy and Sanji exist
with extraordinarily different personalities,
they immediately understood each other
on that all important base level.
And not only that,
but it also creates instantaneous respect for one another,
given that they are both so willing, not only to break,
but to completely shatter the expectations
of globalized society.
And that makes them an incredibly fearsome combination,
two wildly powerful figures,
each fighting for the benefit of one another.
With that said,
they do of course have some pretty grand differences
on a more superficial standing.
One of the most fun is that Sanji realizes that Luffy
is not the sharpest of rubber knives.
And in fact,
he will frequently state quite blatantly actually
that Luffy is an idiot,
but never in a particularly like negative way,
if that makes sense?
Which isn't to say that Sanji is complimenting Luffy
but there's always this aura of the unsaid
surrounding Sanji with these statements.
It's very much like saying,
yeah, my captain is a moron,
but that's exactly what I love about him.
Sanji very much appreciates Luffy's simplicity and openness,
which sometimes results in saying dumb things
or performing stupid actions
but that is preferable to Sanji
in comparison to the most status quo mentality of the world.
And in regards to this,
Sanji is almost never shocked by any decision
that Luffy makes.
At least not in the same way that Luffy
has the ability to shock, say Nami,
with very dangerous and seemingly not at all
well thought out courses of action.
Whereas Sanji is a lot more like Zoro,
he sees Luffy's intentions
and just accepts that as his own course of action.
Although, unlike Zoro,
he doesn't just jump blindly into combat with Luffy.
And this is where Sanji probably displays
one of his more important enhancements
within this dynamic
because Luffy is the kind of man who suffers
from some pretty extreme tunnel vision.
He will be driven by a singular focus,
no matter how great or small,
which means that he very much neglects
the greater world around him.
Sanji on the other hand,
tends to see the bigger picture of any given situation
and while Luffy is away causing chaos
in that charming Luffy way he does,
Sanji quite often uses his head a bit more
to make the situation in question much more favorable
to Luffy and the rest of the crew.
And I think one of the greater examples of this
occurred during the Enies Lobby Arc
when whilst everyone else was facing off
against a legion of marines,
Sanji instead chose to find a way to close
the Gates of Justice,
which is the act that would inevitably allow
the Straw Hats to escape this ordeal alive.
And this just shows a kind of initiative
and broader utility that many Straw Hats
don't quite have
because they, like Luffy, tend to focus
on the more immediate issues at hand.
And the interesting thing is that a lot of this
is just subconscious Sanji operating, as well.
Like there are countless examples of him
acting counter to Luffy and the rest of the crew,
like when he boarded the sea train,
or found Mr. 3 hideout on Little Garden,
or focusing on destroying Enel's Ark Maxim on Skypeia.
Sanji is responsible for a lot of game changing actions
within the series
and he works in perfect balance with Luffy
who acts as the loud, powerful distraction
while Sanji vanishes and accomplishes some incredible feat.
Speaking of incredible feet though,
another great advantage Sanji has is that he can
also act as a powerful combatant alongside Luffy,
which does give Sanji quite possibly the most utility
amongst the Straw Hats
because he is a character capable of raw demolition
as well as great intelligence.
And while he's not the strongest or smartest member
of the crew,
the ability to seamlessly bounce between both worlds
is 100% integral to Luffy's success in most major arcs.
And as a result of this,
I really cannot overstate just how much trust Luffy
invests into Sanji.
To Luffy, Sanji is a pretty incredible being
who can do an absurd array of really finicky,
cool things that Luffy could never even dream of.
But at the same time,
Luffy can also trust Sanji to protect
the rest of the crew as well,
because he has that innate power.
And in this way,
Sanji very much acts as the tertiary captain
of the Straw Hats.
I say tertiary because Zoro is the natural
second in command, which I explored in his video
but that isn't to take anything away from Sanji
because when situations become extraordinarily desperate,
he is more than capable of stepping into that role
of leadership in Luffy's stead.
The situation which immediately comes
to mind being Dressrosa
when the crew decided to split up
and Luffy giving Sanji permission to act
against the Big Mom pirates as well as lead
half of the crew to Zou.
And while I'm certain Luffy would do this
with any other crew member,
because he trusts the entirety of the Straw Hats,
there was definitely a supreme sense of comfort
and confidence in this particular situation
because Sanji was in position to be the temporary leader
of this faction.
That factor alone meant that Luffy could give
his undivided attention to the chaos on Dressrosa
and not worry about the rest of his crew
because they're with Sanji
and being with Sanji automatically means
that they will be fine.
That is a pretty incredible degree of trust right there,
but that does, of course, lead us to the major conflict
that has occurred between the Captain and the Chef,
which happened on Whole Cake Island
after Sanji had been blackmailed to leave the crew.
Now it's very rare that Straw Hat members
face off against each other in a non comical sense
and there was something very heartbreaking
about this instance in particular.
And that's because this wasn't a situation
like Luffy vs Usopp
where two people were fighting over different ideals,
or Luffy vs Zoro which was fighting over a misconception.
In this case,
Sanji was actively fighting against Luffy
in order to protect Luffy.
And I suppose fight is a very liberal way of putting it
because Luffy didn't actually make any physical attempt
to strike Sanji.
He just stood there and took his various blows,
but the actual fight was confined to the mental realm.
Due to the extreme pressure being directed at Sanji,
he was putting on an act,
saying that he had never believed in Luffy
and had been looking down on him this entire time
and et cetera.
I say et cetera because Luffy didn't believe any of it.
Neither did we.
And when everything was said and done,
Luffy was a relentless iron wall,
breaking Sanji's facade and blatantly calling him out
as a liar, which worked,
and Sanji was forced to face the truth,
which became even more clear after the revelation
that Charlotte Pudding was also a lie.
But the truly touching moment of this whole exchange
was when Luffy admitted that he would be unable
to become the pirate king without Sanji.
And not just because he was the chef,
but because of everything that Sanji represents,
which we've already gone over.
Luffy saw Sanji retreating
and in response,
he said that he would just sit there and starve
because in his mind there was no point
in even trying to continue his journey
to become the pirate king without Sanji.
And that's kind of incredible actually
because Luffy has never made such a statement like that
about any other crew member.
And even though I have no doubt that he feels, yeah,
the same way about everyone else,
it was still really powerful to hear that out loud
because most of "One Piece" consists of the Straw Hats
making sacrifices and bold claims regarding Luffy.
So to see that happening in the other direction
was really quite something.
And eventually Luffy would break through to Sanji properly
with a trademark punch in the face hole,
and as soon as Sanji revealed his true feelings
about wanting to go back to the crew, well,
it was another one of those moments
where all of a sudden everything was okay.
Luffy reacted with a smile,
resolved to crush a wedding
and take on an emperor of the sea.
All for the sake of taking Sanji back.
And this ultimate leads us to the best part
of this relationship,
which was explored in Whole Cake Island
because when everything was said,
almost said and done,
they had an encounter
with Sanji's biological father, Vinsmoke Judge,
who proceeded to berate Sanji,
stating that he had no royal pride,
his mentality was too soft,
too easily swayed by emotions, et cetera.
And Luffy just responds by being genuinely curious
as to why Judge is listing all of Sanji's best qualities,
which is a scene that was played for comedy,
but I actually think it's one of the most telling moments
in regards to this entire dynamic
especially because it mirrors Sanji's thoughts about Luffy.
He willingly admits that Luffy is an idiot,
but that quality,
which is seen by many others as highly detrimental,
is something that Sanji truly values.
Just as how Luffy truly values all of those
Sanji features that Judge despised.
And that brings us to the very modern day
where Luffy and Sanji are both proceeding
fairly smoothly along the path
of their highly impossible dreams.
Sanji providing Luffy with the energy,
utility and that extra boost of power he needs,
whilst Luffy continues to lead Sanji
to greater and greater heights, and more importantly,
ever closer to the All Blue,
because that is the dynamic of the Captain and the Chef.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below,
or even join my discord server.
And if you'd like to see more videos like this,
then please do go and check out some of my other content
or even subscribe to the channel
for more glorious "One Piece" business
uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds.
But for now this has been the Grand Line Review,
and I'll see you next time.