I have questions about One Piece's current story arc. (Spoilers abound)

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Let me get this out of the way, I love One Piece and watch it occasionally, but I never "religeously" watch it, I have never seen every single episode so I am missing out on a lot of plot developments. I just know the basics, Luffy and the overall backstory of his crew.

But backstory and his crew is the keyword here because right now the current story arc of One Piece heavily concerns about Sanji and his past and apperently this is the first time they have ever revealed this.

So Sanji is apperently royalty of the Vinsmoke family, and right off the bat his childhood life with his family was shit. His Father, Vinsmoke Judge, practically disowns him and his 3 Brothers beat and bully him. Only his mother and sister Reiju actually cared for him. And I don't know the exact reasons why but from what I assume I guess is he's the runt of the litter, the dissipointing child, that he does not meet the standards his father expects from his children so he practically treats Kid Sanji like garbage.

But my question is this, is all of this in-character to Sanji and is it contridictory to established canon prior to this? From what I know about Sanji, he is passionnant about cooking food, a huge womanizer and lover of women and would protect them like chivalrous knight, but he is also a chain smoker and has a somewhat cynical attitude. This back story shows things I never expected from this man and he had a very depressing childhood and he's royalty.

Honestly that is something I noticed about the One Piece Crew, they all had tragic backstories, especially the likes of Nami and Robin.

 

[Dansen]

Sanji is the third brother of a quadruplet set designed to be super soldiers. Sanji was considered a failure because he was born with empathy and no apparent physical powers. His brothers lacked this because Judge genetically removed it from them. Reiju was a prototype so she got to keep her empathy.

Sanji was essentially a normal boy, and believed to be useless in a combat role. The manga goes to great lengths to illustrate that Judge doesn't value anyone not of use to him.

The only positive people in his life before Zeff were women, and his love of cooking is solidified by his mother. So no, it doesn't clash with prior lore or character.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Sanji is the third brother of a quadruplet set designed to be super soldiers. Sanji was considered a failure because he was born with empathy and no apparent physical powers. His brothers lacked this because Judge genetically removed it from them. Reiju was a prototype so she got to keep her empathy.

Sanji was essentially a normal boy, and believed to be useless in a combat role. The manga goes to great lengths to illustrate that Judge doesn't value anyone not of use to him.

The only positive people in his life before Zeff were women, and his love of cooking is solidified by his mother. So no, it doesn't clash with prior lore or character.

Also San means 3 in Japanese so it actually fits with his lore a bit

 

[DeadProxy]

A little thing is that Sanji purposefully didn't tell the crew about his past or home. He never told them his last name and was vague about his hometown when he first joined the crew. It's briefly touched on in the manga at least when everything is finally out in the open and Nami has a small flashback to Sanji being vague when asked about himself.

His love of cooking, and his womanizing, while not outright explained, are probably tied to the few memories of his mom he has left. Probably a weird mix of making people happy with good food, and seeing happy beautiful women.

 

[Asita]

It doesn't contradict his backstory, no. Sanji's family had never really been touched on before, to the point that his surname was unknown until very recently, and his known history only dated back to his time with his mentor/father figure Zeff. This isn't entirely surprising, as the only crew members whose parentage was known at recruitment were Usopp (whose father was on Shanks' crew, and thus counted Luffy as a friend) and Chopper (normal reindeer).

 

[Natemans]

To answer, no, its not contradictory and actually fits well within Sanji's character. Like everyone has said, its just that we haven't known much about his family til this point. Hell, his brother even does the same reaction he does towards women.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Sanji is the third brother of a quadruplet set designed to be super soldiers. Sanji was considered a failure because he was born with empathy and no apparent physical powers. His brothers lacked this because Judge genetically removed it from them. Reiju was a prototype so she got to keep her empathy.

Sanji was essentially a normal boy, and believed to be useless in a combat role. The manga goes to great lengths to illustrate that Judge doesn't value anyone not of use to him.

And now karma has taken its course, and it took us 8 months to get to this point:

Spoiler

This arc is so far one of the better ones.

 

[Natemans]

Sanji is the third brother of a quadruplet set designed to be super soldiers. Sanji was considered a failure because he was born with empathy and no apparent physical powers. His brothers lacked this because Judge genetically removed it from them. Reiju was a prototype so she got to keep her empathy.

Sanji was essentially a normal boy, and believed to be useless in a combat role. The manga goes to great lengths to illustrate that Judge doesn't value anyone not of use to him.

And now karma has taken its course, and it took us 8 months to get to this point:

Spoiler

This arc is so far one of the better ones.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean Dressrosa was fine, but wow, the pacing of that one really started to sink under its own feet.

This current one (titled the Whole Cake Island arc), on the other hand, manages to work pretty well in terms of pacing, character depth, worldbuilding and interesting villains. Even the fight scenes have been really exciting.