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Originally Posted by itachi-san314
Well, I'm certainly happy to move on to a new arc finally, but this one still doesn't seem over yet. It might take a few years to get back to these characters though... 
I don't share most of the sentiment here about Sanji's Arc though. I don't really think that phrase translates to him having some kind of major fight. I think it's more about his character development and we certainly got a boat load of that. Most of which I liked quite a bit. I would have liked to see him fight Smoothie but I don't think it hurts his character or anything like that. |
Thing is though, Sanji doesn't really develop. We certainly learn more about his character, but character development is about how characters grow and change, and Sanji's comes out of this arc as pretty much the same character he was before it began. This kind of echo's what OH&S was saying about Nami, Robin and Ace; the characters grew from their experiences
What did Sanji really learn through this arc and how has he changed?
His relationship with his family is still extremely poor; you could argue that its SLIGHTLY better than it was before, but that's not saying much. Sanji went from hating his family to realizing he didn't hate him enough for him to want them to die. And his family went from hating him to thinking that maybe he's not COMPLETELY worthless.
His relationship with the strawhats? Well he learned that he shouldn't its not a good idea to sacrifice himself, but that's really more do to the fact that Big Mom was gonna kill them all anyway. And really when it comes to self-sacrifice, we already heard that story before with Robin, and that story was A LOT more potent. The whole reason why Robin thought it was good idea to sacrifice herself is because she felt like her life had no value; She truly believe the straw hats would be better off and happier without her. The strawhats coming to rescue her opened her eyes and made her realize her own self worth which is what made "I want to live" such a touching moment... Sanji does not get anything close to that
What do I think should have happened... Not sure.
I mean first i think they should have dropped the self-sacrifice bit. Sanji should know from past experiences that the strawhats would never accept such a thing and he himself would never accept any other member of the crew doing it. It feels like it would have been better if he actually STUCK to the idea of getting back to his crew. The fight between him and Luffy just felt so dumb. Heck a lot of trouble could have been avoided if he only faked a fight with Luffy, long enough to slip him a message about the situation; then Luffy wouldn't have gotten himself captured forcing Sanji into an even more tight situation. I guess the ultimate lesson here would be that Sanji shouldn't try to go it on his own just because he wants to keep his friends uninvolved because he could actually cause even MORE trouble and learn to rely on his friends instead; his problems are their problems.
As for his family, I think it would have been better if they either truly acknowlegded him, or if it turned out that Sanji learned something new about his family that changed his outlook on them. I think it would have also helped if their was more depth to Judge and his ambitions. Like his desire to restore the family kingdom had somekind of sympathetic element to it which is what drove him to be so hard on his family. It could lead to Sanji seeing his father in a different light, and add that to his family learning to appreciate him... the point is that A lot of snaji's past problems feel like they are dealt with
Another Idea i had was like what if Sanji never knew how much Renju cared about him. Like what if she never took part in teasing and bullying him as a kid but also never got close to him out of social pressure and she dismissed his acts of kindness... The result is that when he ran away he inadvertently left Renju all alone with their horrible family. Not only does sanji learn things he didn't know about his family, but it could even play into what he's dealing with the strawhats; the idea that if he didn't make it back they would feel hurt, and that sometimes its best to deal with terrible situations together
Overall, I agree with detractors that this didn't feel like the year of Sanji... Sanji did get focus, but i don't think he got the development he needed for this arc to really shine. Its like a lot of really great ideas, that didn't quite stick the landing. And overall good arc, but not even close to being one of the best