#1 gambit fan

River, They/It

[iwillnyat]

Against my better judgment, I have decided to post my speech for forensics for all to see. constructive criticism would be appreciated

I remember sitting in front of the Christmas tree when I was six and just wondering ‘why do we do this?’ I didn’t ever ask my parents why, of course, because that would just ruin the magic. But, I always wondered. Then, when I was in 4th grade and my class was forced to read Percy Jackson I thought ‘do these gods exist? Did they ever exist? Did people actually believe in this?’ and that led me down a rabbit hole of old mythologies and religions that fall under the umbrella term ‘Paganism’ and how many of those religious traditions have a striking resemblance to modern Christian holidays.

Now it is common knowledge that Christianity is one of, if not the most, influential religions in the world with many of its holidays and symbols being known and recognized worldwide, but where did those iconographies come from? In this speech I will be discussing how the Pagans of old have influenced our modern understanding of Christianity and how we can honor and acknowledge those influences in our modern society.

Let’s begin with the more well known influences, like how the placement of Christmas in the year is influenced by Yule and the Winter Solstice, or how decorating an evergreen tree and putting lights in it was originally a Yule tradition. The Christmas feast was also a tradition of Yule and was meant to bring family and close friends together for one last time since, at that time, it was a coin toss if you survived the harsh winter or not.

Next we discuss Easter, or Ostara as it was known, and its Pagan roots. The most noticeable Ostara influence on Easter is the rabbit and egg motifs. Both the rabbit and the egg were symbols of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility. We should also take into account that both Easter and Ostara are celebrated around the spring equinox.

It should also be noted that the cross was prominently featured in Pagan art long before Christianity was even conceived and, as quoted by the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “The cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures.” This was also stated in the article “Paganism in Christianity” by the United Church of God in 2024. “The Bible gives no indication that the early Church ever used the cross as a religious symbol, but several pagan religions had been doing so for centuries before Christ was born.” This is also shown in another quote from the article “While the Bible does indeed teach that Jesus was crucified, there is no record of the shape of the crucifix. At that time, Romans used various forms of upright stakes, some with crossbeams and some without.”  

The idea of the immortal soul was also first taught in ancient Egypt and Babylon and later adopted by the Greeks.

The idea of a deity being a scapegoat, or dying to be brought back, is also not an exclusively Christian way of thinking. The most famous example of a deity dying and being brought back, other than Jesus himself, is the Norse god Odin hanging himself from Yggdrasil, the World Tree, for nine days and nine nights in order to gain near infinite knowledge of runes and the ability to perform magic. Balder, another god from Norse mythology, was killed by Loki with a branch of mistletoe and was brought back to life after Ragnarok. Loki, the trickster god himself, happens to fall into the archetype of the scapegoat as he was used as a scapegoat by the Æsir for every mistake and sin that was made, whether it was his fault or not, much like Jesus dying for humanity’s sins.

“Even some Christian teachings about Jesus have origins in paganism rather than the Biblical record. Babylonian mythology regarding Ishtar claimed that she had a son named Tammuz [(ta·muhz)]. He died each year, but then would be reborn again in the spring. The Babylonian veneration of both the mother and child influenced later versions of Christianity that deified Jesus' mother Mary as much as Jesus Himself” (Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1993, p. 326)

Relating to the last topic, let's talk about the Pagan roots of Jesus and Mary. All of this information will come from the written lecture “The Pagan Roots of Jesus and Mary” by Mary C. Taylor. “Much of the Christian iconography depicting Mary nursing the infant Jesus is influenced by sculptures of Isis nursing Horus.” Next we look at this quote about an early Eastern god. “Mithras [MYTH-rass] was an Eastern god whose worship spread to Rome and took hold.  A few variant versions of his myth claimed he was born of a virgin.” This can be seen as an early version of Jesus, due to the fact that he was born of a virgin in several variations of his myth.  

It is also worth noting that one of the original languages that the bible was written in was Greek, a language that was considered to be a non-Christian language by the church as the Greeks were Hellenistic Polytheistic, not Christian.

This bleeds into our next point. It is believed that early Hebrews were polytheistic rather than monotheistic. “Early Hebrew religion was polytheistic; the curious plural form of the name of God, Elohim (eh-low-heem) rather than El, leads them to believe that the original Hebrew religion involved several gods. This plural form, however, can be explained as a "royal" plural. Several other aspects of the account of Hebrew religion in Genesis also imply a polytheistic faith.” as well as “The earliest Hebrew religion was animistic, that is, the Hebrews seemed [to] worship forces of nature that dwelled in natural objects.” This leads into the next quote which states that “As a result, much of early Hebrew religion had a number of practices that fall into the category of magic: scapegoat sacrifice and various forms of imitative magic, all of which are preserved in the text of Genesis”

The last and most important point that I would like to make is the fact that Christians of the past put their new holidays around the old Pagan holidays to give Pagans an easier time adjusting to Christianity. Think about it, if you had to convert to a new religion for whatever reason with an entirely new system of worship and entirely new holidays, wouldn’t it be comforting to know that your new religion’s major holidays are around your old holidays? It provides a sense of normalcy to an otherwise completely new culture.

We can now better understand how different cultures and religions have influenced both old and modern Christianity and how we can better recognize those influences in our modern day. Now, the question is, how should we honor those influences and make sure that the cultures that they came from are properly recognized? Well, that’s for you to decide.

[catgriller]

No! .. I didn’t mean to… I don’t want to turn into……….

[raconteur-wanpi]

Collection of deeply unfunny Vinsmoke family memes to distract myself. I think I'm loosing my sense of sanity. Sorry.

[poppedbubblgum]

She would’ve loved them

[thes1llyone]

MEOWWWWWWW!!!!!!

MEOWWWWWWW :3333

[ironduuude]

[becquerel]

made yaoi alcatraz where i put two miis i want married until they fall in love

[becquerel]

there didnt used to be a bridge until one kept crying about being lonely like Maybe you should talk to the boyfriend i put in this saw trap with you. 🙄. but fine. theres a bridge now.

[becquerel]

as soon as the one who kept crying about being lonely got off of his oil rig he immediately fell in love with a mii on the outside. someone is losing bridge privileges tonight .

[becquerel]

bridge privileges restored his saw trap partner fell in love with him.

[becquerel]

i ran out of miis to force in love so i started locking all of the miis who abandon their children on the prison island except they keep asking to move in together so im like 80% sure its now just a deadbeat dad orgy spot

[becquerel]

also it now connects to the other islands by making them walk through slenderman's forest to see their children

[evil-cactus]

[li-lia-a]

Why would you look like him?

Left --> Right

Queria explorar que pasaria, si en un estado ebrio Sanji hubiese llegado a confundir el pelo verde de Zoro con el de su hermano.

[li-lia-a]

bocetos del tomodachi yey

[oxygenisachoice]

He can’t help but dream

[ladyhoneydarlinglove]

in defense of opla sanji

so there was some discussion in a discord server im part of about opla sanji and what people thought of the changes made to his character and i promised a cordial rebuttal to the people who expressed disappointment with those changes, which ended up being a full on essay that’s too long to post to the server, so im putting it here instead lol

okay so first off, the eyebrow controversy. i get why people are sad about the eyebrow but imo the reason they probably didn’t end up using it is simply due to the limitations of makeup in making it look realistic the way that it would need to in order to translate into film. because the thing about the eyebrow in the manga is that it’s technically just a single line from the main part of the brow to the curl, and so oda can shape the line however he needs to make sanji’s facial expressions and the curl will just kind of follow naturally, which works due to the simplicity of the the manga’s lineart style. in real life though, any eyebrow swirl the makeup team added onto taz wouldn’t be able to follow the muscle movement of the rest of his face and would end up looking very stagnant compared to everything else, which would probably end up looking really odd and out of place over time, especially since none of the other main cast currently have any other odd features that stand out like that (i’m assuming they also opted not to give usopp a long nose for similar reasons). that can work in small bursts like with wapol, where his mouth can’t emote like the rest of his face and so most of the facial acting is being done with the eyes, but it’d be much harder to pull of long term like you’d need to with sanji.

the main rebuttal i’ve seen to not including the eyebrow is the fact that cosplayers include the eyebrow and it works for them so why couldn’t the live action too, and there’s a couple reasons. first of all, cosplay in general is trying to mimick the source material as much as possible, and so the point of a sanji cosplay is not so much to look realistic as it is to look like he could have walked off a manga page, which is not the case with opla. for all that it has done a fantastic job with bringing much of the whimsical weirdness of one piece to life, it’s main goal is still to look like a live action production, and certain changes will need to be made in order to accommodate that. second, most of the time when i’ve seen sanji cosplayers they’re chosen to do the eyebrow by drawing it in as a thick black line, which again is in order to mimick the manga style; it works for cosplay, but irl a thick black line on taz’s face would look very odd, particularly if he can’t make it emote along with the rest of his face. and that leads into my third point, which is that the way cosplay is most often captured on camera is with still shots where a character is stagnant in a pose, whereas the live action obviously needs to be captured on film. again, the eyebrow works in cosplay because the stillness is reminiscent of a manga drawing or anime cel, but a film production requires actors to be able to move and emote in order to be pulled off successfully.

(i think it’s also worth noting that oda himself has clearly has a massive amount of influence in how all of the characters in especially the main cast are portrayed, and so i have to imagine if the eyebrow was omitted, it’s because he didn’t insist on it being included, which tells me that he likely doesn’t think the eyebrow detail is all that important so. do with that what you will.)

next, the changes made to sanji’s character vis-a-vis how angry he is. personally, i think that this is again at least somewhat due to the limitations of a live action production. one of the reasons that sanji’s anger works in the animanga without turning him into a total dickhead is that it is usually accompanied by a lot of slapstick humor (particularly with luffy and zoro) and also often contrasted with the silly fawning he does over ladies to show that he’s really just a giant dork, but the reason both of those tropes work in turn is because they’re being done in an illustrated/animated medium; the suspension of disbelief that happens when consuming something that you already know isn’t supposed to be realistic carries over to what are otherwise quite over exaggerated gags and characterizations, and the overall effect is a balancing of sanji’s character between two extremes.

however, that same effect wouldn’t work nearly as well in the live action because irl, sanji’s fawning over women would just come off as creepy and unappealing—and honestly it often does in the manga as well, which is why sanji is such a polarizing character. a lot of people simply can’t look past his lady lover schtick because they think it’s gross. but of course you also don’t want to completely eliminate the lady loving part of sanji’s character entirely because then he really wouldn’t be sanji, so the question becomes, how do you adapt that into a live action setting without making it gross? you can make him a charming flirt instead of a fawning idiot, but if he’s only directing that flirtatiousness and charm towards women, you’re still running the risk of it looking somewhat creepy to a (largely female) portion of the audience, because many of us have known incessant flirts irl and they tend to get very annoying very quickly. animanga veterans might be willing to overlook that, but new audience members (and opla is trying to draw in a new audience) are less likely to buy that because they don’t have other reasons to like the character yet. i love sanji, but his character in the animanga is undeniably a slow burn payoff, and opla simply doesn’t have the time needed to pull that off. so what did they do instead? they made him charming to everyone.

and honestly? i think that’s a shockingly brilliant update to sanji’s character. the fact that he’s charming and charismatic to everyone means that his flirting with women automatically becomes less creepy because you can chalk a lot of it up to how sanji is generally, which in turn makes the actual flirting seem more like a playful game than anything with real intent behind it. he’s sweet instead of creepy, and even if you roll your eyes at his antics you know he doesn’t mean any real harm, which is so important if you want to be able to pull off a character that loves women, particularly with a modern western audience in mind. this version of sanji is a shameless flirt, but he also feels safe, and that makes him infinitely more appealing (particularly to female viewers) because let’s be honest, how often do you find a man that feels safe to flirt with out in the real world?

the other thing about sanji’s charm in the live action is that, much like his anger and fawning in the animanga, it’s still very clearly a mask with multiple layers hidden underneath. in the animanga i think the layer of sanji’s masks tends to go anger > (attempted) charm > guilt > fear whereas in opla it seems to be charm first and then anger, but the anger (and guilt) is still unquestionably there. we see it pretty clearly in his interactions with zeff as sanji chafes at being under his roof while still not being able to bring himself to leave because of what he thinks he owes, and also in the viciousness with which he fights, particularly in the name of protecting others (like nami). but imo what really sells the idea of sanji’s charm as a mask is that we see his anger coming through the cracks when charm doesn’t work, and that happens most obviously in his interactions with zoro.

because sanji tries to be charming with zoro, but zoro clearly isn’t buying his act the same way everyone else is, and you can really start to see the frustration sanji feels about that by little garden where they spend all their time together sniping back and forth in a way sanji hasn’t done with literally anyone else except zeff because it wouldn’t fit with his charming persona. and while i wouldn’t go so far as to say they don’t like each other, there’s also clearly more friction between sanji and zoro for a longer period of time in opla than there is in the animanga, i think in part because the mask sanji wears is different. in the animanga zoro sees sanji’s anger and rises to meet it because he recognizes and understands that anger intrinsically, and so they click pretty early on (see my separate dissertation on why arlong park is a zosan arc). versus in opla, zoro sees the charm mask briefly when sanji serves them at the baratie, but he also gets to see the anger underneath that mask more clearly than the rest of the crew because he’s the one fighting alongside sanji at arlong park, and i think sanji choosing to slip the charm mask back on afterwards is what throws zoro for a loop and causes most of the friction we see between them in the front half of season two. because zoro isn’t a guy who believes in wearing masks, and so to see what sanji is like when he is and isn’t performing is confusing and annoying because he can’t understand what the point of the performance is. and in turn, sanji gets irritated with zoro far more easily than anyone else because he can’t understand why this guy isn’t buying the charm offense that has worked on literally everyone else.

(there’s more to be said on why the moment opla sanji and zoro fully click is little garden instead of arlong park, but thankfully someone’s already done a wonderful analysis of that here so i don’t have to lol)

someone on the server also mentioned specifically that they didn’t think sanji opening up about his dreams to luffy and co right away fit given how they had to pry it out of him in the manga and i kind of jokingly responded to that by saying it was because opla zeff was gay but i’m also like, sort of serious when i say that? maybe not that opla zeff is gay but opla zeff is a very different creature than animanga zeff and i think a lot of changes to sanji’s personality could be attributed to the idea that he has a more open relationship with zeff in opla than he does in the animanga. going back to the slapstick thing for moment, in the animanga zeff clearly cares about sanji but he’s also physically pretty rough (because it works from a humor standpoint) and gruff with him and so even though they clearly care about each other, their relationship ends up having a veneer of anger over it because zeff simply doesn’t know how else to communicate and sanji adapts to speak his language. in opla though, while zeff is definitely still kind of a hardass i think he’s also more openly caring than he is in the animanga, which is most prominently seen when he helps bandage up zoro after his fight with mihawk despite not knowing him, seemingly because sanji was determined to help and he wants to support his kid. extrapolate that how zeff would have interacted with sanji after taking him in and i think you get a generally more open relationship, and so while sanji still has an underlying anger to him, it ends up taking a backseat to his charm because it isn’t his sole means of communicating with zeff.

of course, much of this is just my own personal opinion and conjecture and it’s obviously not the be-all end-all say on opla sanji. personally i think opla sanji still has the same core as animanga sanji albeit in an updated package, but i can also see why people disagree with that and are disappointed with some of the character choices made and that’s totally valid; there’s always going to be differing opinions on how characters should have been adapted, particularly for something as iconic as one piece. but i hope that i’ve at least given people who are disappointed in opla sanji something to chew on in why they probably made the changes that they did, even if you still ultimately disagree with the decisions.

[oxygenisachoice]

Reblogging to respond to a few of these points as I was one of the people in the server! This was really interesting to read :D I would also like to preface that I am an OPLA enjoyer in general, but I do have my fair share of criticisms for it. I don't want to come across as though I hated it at all because that was not the case haha On the eyebrow: You could be totally right about this—I don't know a ton about makeup first hand—but I also kind of think that's less of a limitation than it might seem at first? There is so much absolutely phenomenal work done in the special effects makeup industry, in a way that can look incredibly natural. It is not as though this edit requires limiting the movement of the face—you compared it to the Wapol jaw prosthetic, but I kind of feel that's on a whole different level of difficulty? Eyebrows are covered and reshaped all the time in drag, for example, and a HUGE part of drag is the performance and expression work. And in drag, they are often actually covering up the entire eyebrow, but in this case, that wouldn't even be necessary. They'd only have to reshape the end, and if it doesn't look totally real in close-up, the technology is there where they could touch it up in post. OPLA did this for a lot of the characters already in the series, so it was def within their skillset/capabilities? The series had the budget/abilities to come up with something, i would imagine, but they decided against it. I kind of assume it was because it would make him look a little silly, which would not have been a bad thing imo. I wouldn't even expect the spiral to be exaggerated like it is in the manga or in cosplays, just a little something or curl upwards at the end would be fine. As it is, Sanji is just kind of.. some guy lol. His other defining features (other than his blond-ness ig haha) were cut back too—like the suit. That one I do understand a lot more because those would be brutal to move in like Sanji does, so I'm not that mad, but its absence in conjunction with him having normal eyebrows just makes me kind of.. sad?? All of the things that make him different visually are gone, and now he's just kind of a pretty blond guy. Which is fine for new viewers, it's not like you would miss the weird details if you'd never known about them, but it is disappointing.

On his anger: The slapstick humor only works in the ani-manga, that is totally true, and the removal of it is fine by me. I also really agree with what you're saying about his masks, that's not what bothers me. What I do sort of have an issue with is that they made him kind of base-line polite? In my opinion, Sanji is so interesting because he is so contradictory. He dresses in a very trim and proper way, combs his hair just-so, etc. He's a gentleman. He is the kindest man you'll ever meet. He'll feed anyone who is hungry. He's also just rude as fuck. His anger is a mask in the manga (though not entirely. He is just properly hot-headed as well lol), but he's also just... not that polite of a person, even when he's not doing his whole fuming routine. He swears very casually, uses rude nicknames, has a rather cavalier attitude in general, bristles very easily, etc. OPLA Sanji isn't really allowed to be like that most of the time, I think because they didn't want him to be "unlikable." Kind of like what they did with Nami's volatility, i guess? And that is an understandable thing to consider when switching mediums, but I think that a lot of Sanji's uniqueness comes from his brattiness in combination with his kindness. When you remove that juxtaposition, he's kind of just a generically pleasant guy. Sanji's character is a very long-term setup/payoff situation, like you said, but I think that has more to do with his internal emotions, and less-so his external ones (ignoring the creepy flirting for a sec because I talk about that in the next section). I don't think that making him a bit ruder would have put anybody off, not in a story about pirates and nonconformity, where that is sort of the point.

On his charm/the thing with women: I'll be honest, I am not one of the people that hated the change about his thing with women. I'm able to look past the creepiness in the manga and still enjoy his character, but I don't begrudge anyone who can't. And, remaking the same mistakes in OPLA would have put a lot of new fans off of the character. I totally completely 100% agree with what you said about making him feel "safe" as a flirt. That was necessary and I do think that they accomplished it. However, I do have some minor issues with how they adapted his charm, which is to say that it kind of... Works Too Well?? In the live action, he is still rejected by women/not taken all too seriously, which I liked, but he is objectively a pretty decent flirt. I think that there are ways to adapt his too-much-ness from the manga without making him scary or having him cross any lines. One way would be to lean more into the "fairy-tale" perception of romance that he has in the manga. I wrote this in a comment about this topic and I'm gonna copy-paste it to avoid having to retype the whole thing lol:

"If you get rid of all the gross parts of his gag, Sanji is a daydreamer when it comes to love. He likes to imagine a fairytale ending for himself, something romantic and right out of a storybook. His flirting is never suave or cool-headed or surface level—it’s silly and passionate and over-invested. He does little spinny dances and dramatic bows while serving Nami and Robin snacks, and while they find it cute in the story, the point is that it’s unrealistic to the point where it’s socially a little bit odd how romanticized his view of romance is. I just think they could have adapted this more directly into opla in a way where it was WAY more respectful and normal than it was in the manga, but still let him keep a bit more of his silly uncool-ness"

And, that all could be nitpicky on my end, but I don't think that makes it unjustified? His charm in OPLA was quite, well, charming. And that was his base-line. But it's more complicated in the original. Sanji is a cool person in the manga/anime, especially early on. He has a jazzy battle theme, good one-liners, amazing poses, and a cool-guy demeanor. He's attractive as a character—he has a lot of moments where he makes you sit up in your seat and go "omg hell yeah look at him go." But, that "coolness" is only interesting because he also swings in the opposite direction just as regularly. He's afraid of bugs, he's a goof with women, he can be just a little bit childish and bratty. Again, he's full of contradictions. Obviously, all of that cannot fit into a trimmed-down adaptation, but the tone of his character can be adapted in a way which provides the same feeling, especially to returning viewers that do have that context from the manga. And, there were moments in season 2 that I felt the stuck the landing on this. Or, one moment, at least, that is coming to mind rn. I actually really, properly, loved the scenes where Sanji and Usopp went to go find the part replacement for the Merry in Laboon's mouth. They landed it so well—Sanji had some snark, he was a little bit silly. He picked on Usopp for a bit, then imparted some genuine advice. He was a bodacious and cocky, but was then ultimately too creeped out by the ghost-story vibes to want to touch the "skeleton." And, he had a great fight scene with some fantastic badass momentum. It was a wonderful moment where he got to be likable and keep his charm, but still got to have some of the edge that manga Sanji does. It, to me, proved that it is possible to adapt Sanji in a way that I like, which is part of what made all the scenes where they don't get him quite right feel so much more disappointing to me. I don't ask for an adaptation to be exactly one-to-one, that's just not realistic. But, I do ask for it to be parallel when it comes to the tone.

On his openness/his dream: Okay so I was the person who talked about his dream in the server. You have an interesting point about Zeff, but I ultimately think I disagree? In universe, I would potentially accept that as part of the reason (though its impacts on Sanji are still not a change that I like for his narrative personally), but I do not think that that is why the show makers made the change tbh. I think they did it because they did not have the time, which, although a reasonable explanation, is not a responsible one imo. Sanji easily got the least development out of the main characters in season one, and it flattened his character a lot. And, it's a real shame, because imo, they did have the time available if they just allocated it differently. OPLA spends a lot of time on the marines—Koby/Helmeppo/Garp in season 1, specifically. And that is fine. It's not my favorite part of the show to actively watch, but I do think that adding some extra scenes/cutaways with them can bring some new clarity to the narrative (I have a lot more thoughts about this but that is not the point of the post haha). However, these new scenes/character details should not take priority over establishing the inner workings of one of your main 5 characters. Introducing Arlong early at Baratié?? Totally fine, love it. Cutting down on the Don Krieg fight? I see why it needed to be done (though I do kinda wish that it happened with Mihawk at Baratié for reasons I won't get into here). Removing the bulk of Sanji's internal conflicts about his dream? No, it doesn't work, it's just too important.

Maybe the reason I'm so upset about this in particular is because I related to him personally in this arc, but it just guts me. That feeling of trying with all your might to let go of a passion, of a dream, but never being able to manage it is just so poignant and familiar to me. Sanji needs, emotionally, to try and find the All Blue. He can't help but need it. Yes, it's a fairy tale that no one believes in, but he needs to try. He does not want to let himself, though, because it is not a grounded desire—it is a fantastical one. He wants to stay with Zeff because he thinks he owes it to him, and trying to find something that allegedly Does Not Exist is not, rationally, a better use of his time than helping his aging adoptive father with his restaurant. Sanji wants to feel like an adult, and following a childish dream is not what a "grown-up" would do. That's why he never brings it up—he doesn't want to draw attention to it. He doesn't even want to acknowledge it as his dream. Sanji's story during the Baratié arc is about this conflict as a whole. The live action made it basically about his guilt towards Zeff. Which is a part of it, but not all of it.

The fact that Sanji wasn't even there for the Mihawk duel is just... baffling to me??? As that would not have changed much of anything production-wise. They seemingly just didn't consider it, but it's such a revealing scene when it comes to Sanji's internal workings. When Zoro continues to fight Mihawk even though he's obviously losing, Sanji yells out "Isn't it easy to give up on your ambition?!" and it is one of the first unmasked moments we get of him in the series. He is affected by the idea of someone risking it all for an "impossible" dream, as that is the exact thing he hasn't let himself do. He's ashamed, and seeing people who aren't—who callously declare that "I will become the greatest swordsman!" or "I will become the king of the pirates!" is a big thing for him. In the manga, the moment he finally, finally asks Luffy if he'd ever heard of the All Blue is the first breath of clear air he had let himself take in a long time. He's finally entertaining the concept of his ambition, letting it out to someone who dreams with the same ferocity that he does. It's a beautiful thing, to me. When Sanji asks Luffy if he's heard of the All Blue in OPLA, none of this context could be realized by the viewer, based on what they were shown. Sanji just hadn't gotten the chance through that arc.

And, as an aside about the Zeff thing, I didn't honestly read their relationship as that different emotionally between the manga and the live action, but that was just my interpretation. The scale of their aggressiveness has shifted to address the slapstick violence, like you said, but I feel that the core of their relationship is about the same. It's something that I thought was done well, actually? Neither the manga or LA pairs communicate openly and they are both still very combative with each other, but they do still truly care. I kind of think it was just chilled-out a bit to suit the medium better? But I definitely don't think that the Baratié environment was actually so volatile in the manga that it would be the reason for Sanji to feel shame about his dream/not want to talk about it. Zeff is the one person in the world who gets it in the way he does, actually. I really do think that the reason it was changed for the live action was because they needed to streamline the Baratié arc and some bits just fell to the wayside :(

Totally unrelated to what you said but something else random which really confused me about him in OPLA was the way that he wasn't bothered by Zoro wasting pomegranates while under Miss Goldenweek's trance. Like, that's his whole thing. Why didn't he care???? Why didn't he take some of them with him to make use of??? It was so strange. That scene also felt awkward because I don't think Sanji would have actually ignored Zoro asking for help like that. They bicker, sure, but the second Zoro actually asks for something seriously, Sanji is always right there with him. And it could have been explained by him being angry about the pomegranate thing, but the details were seemingly not connected?? This is what I mean about him not feeling like the same character when it comes to the tone. Was it just like a weird choice, or did they just not think about it that hard???? I dunno

But, like you said, it's all open to interpretation. He's likable to me in some ways, just as a wholly different character than his manga counterpart. And there are some new things I like too. I do love how visibly charmed he is by all of his friends/all of the people he meets—Like, damn, the guy has tangible stars in his eyes half the time, and that's such an interesting way to adapt his powerful feelings of love into the live action acting of a character. I love how he moves, too. The fight choreography is fun, and I also like how he's always standing in, like, poses. He hops up onto railing and leans against tables/walls when talking to people. He sways back and forth and does little flourishes. It's a very Sanji-esque sort of physicality to me. I also do like some of his phrasing/his accent quite a lot. The way he talks is just a bit different enough from the others that it feels like he might not be from the east blue, which is a nice detail, considering his backstory.

So, yeah, I think my general thesis here is not that OPLA Sanji isn't a fine character, it's just that he's a somewhat declawed, somewhat sanitized version of manga Sanji in a lot of respects. He's just kind of a different guy. Any one of these changes could have been looked past/appreciated on its own, but together, I think it's entirely understandable that Sanji fans would be really upset about about how, collectively, most of his attributes were either removed or shifted towards the center. I was upset by it at times, even though I was one of the people who still ended up enjoying the final product/was able to have fun watching his character.

(I'm an OPLA enjoyer, I swear)

[noraschweeps]

probably one of my favourite one piece gags

[lupinescribbler]

Obsessed with how Sanji spent two episodes completely oblivious to everything that was happening, made himself at home in a creepy house in the woods, got his ass beat by a couple of animals, rage-baited the big bad, and then had a smoke break. My guy did not have the group's allotted brain cell that day, but he really did his best.

[i-am-grell]

we were all angy at thirteen

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 |

Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98

[yourlovelydae-art]

happy pride ✨

[emtearzz]

She then proceeded to encourage the chaos.

Redraw of my most popular art piece ever because GUYS STOP SHARING THE OLD ONE IT LOOKS BADDDD 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I'm so tired of seeing it everywhere, post this one instead.

Old art from last year below ↓

[sanji-screenshots]

mr. prince.png