One Piece Diaries #69: Return To Sabaody Arc

One Piece is one of the most beloved anime in history, but at over 1,000 episodes, it’s tough for those who haven’t been watching from the start to jump on board. One Piece Diaries tracks one writer’s experience with this daunting rite of passage. With hype for the highs and critique for the lows, this column will help you decide whether to take your own One Piece journey – or let you relive the one you’re already on. It will be updated biweekly every other Thursday.

Episodes Watched: 517 – 522

Well well well, look who’s back in a timely fashion! It’s me! Why? Because I watched this mini-arc in two viewing sessions immediately after writing my last review, that’s why!

Before we talk about anything that happened in the arc, I want to talk about the characters’ revamped designs.

Most of them are pretty cool. Chopper’s new hat is adorable. Franky’s new robot form is hilarious — I’m looking forward to seeing all of his new hairstyles, and I love that he has extra tiny hands to do detail work. Sanji looked better without the beard, but it’s fine. I love Brook’s new outfit. Usopp’s longer hair looks good on him.

You probably guessed as much if you’ve been following this column for a while, but I did not enjoy Nami and Robin’s new designs.

Are they hot? Yes. Does Nami’s new hairstyle look awesome? Yes. But here’s the problem. Both of them are half naked. Both of them have enormous breasts. Both of them have waists too skinny to contain human organs. I know it’s stylistic, but their identical bodies make it clear that it’s not about who they are, it’s about the fact that they look sexy. I can deal with Nami’s massive body change — she was young enough that it’s not totally unrealistic. But Robin’s massive breast growth makes no sense unless she gained more weight elsewhere or had implants. Obviously, this doesn’t matter. Oda has said explicitly that he did this because big breasts are hot. So, objectification. Again.

More complaining: I’ve heard that after the time skip, some of the characters’ traits get severely exaggerated. I heard right. Both Chopper and Sanji were massively exaggerated and oh boy did I not love it.

Chopper’s wasn’t as drastic, but it was still a little irritating. Despite being generally intelligent, he was, for some reason, completely oblivious to the obvious fact that his friends were being impersonated. I know they hadn’t met in two years, but unless you have some kind of memory or facial recognition disorder you’re going to be able to recognize your close friends even if it’s been a while. This was mildly irritating at first, but then it just got depressing — I really didn’t need to see Chopper sobbing because his friends had become so cruel that they didn’t care about “Robin” being kidnapped. I’m glad he figured it out soon enough, but damn.

Then there was Sanji. Oh Sanji Sanji Sanji. After spending two years in the Kamabakka Kingdom, he’s apparently so starved for attention from “real ladies” that seeing literally any biological female tends him into a tailspin – and seeing Robin and Nami has him gushing blood from his nose and passing out.

This was way over the top, but I would have just written it off as “visual exaggeration of the same thing he always does” if not for the whole thing about “real women.” I don’t know how the denizens of the Kamabakka Kingdom actually identify, but if they’re anything like the real people they’re crudely based on, some of them see themselves as men who like indulging in feminine things, some are non-binary, and some are trans women. There are other options, of course, but those are the basic categories. The ones who are trans women are real women, whether or not Sanji finds them attractive.

I can’t blame him for not being interested in them specifically, since they’re bizarre caricatures of actual people who completely ignore all things consent…but I don’t really think that that Sanji’s opinion would change if that weren’t the case. The point, for him, isn’t that he feels mistreated – it’s that they’re not “real women” in his transphobic mind.

All that nonsense aside, it really is nice to see the Straw Hats reunite. I loved watching them dive into the water on their coated ship, and I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing what they experience on Fishman Island. See you next time, and hopefully I don’t have to talk so much about how gross Sanji is

~~