Ein Wort zuviel im Zorn gesagt,
Einen Schritt zu weit nach vorn gewagt,
Schon ist es vorbei.
Wolfsheim - Kein Zurück
quick translation [x]
One word said too much in anger,
A step too far forward is dared,
It is already over
There are numerous songs that could describe what Sanji went through back in Whole Cake Island and in this project it was this German song Kein Zurück (by Wolfsheim). The song title can be translated in many ways but for this one, the title ended up being: No road going back.
The amv follows up the canon storyline: first verse and chorus are directly from Sanji’s point of view, him recalling the events. Basically after finding out the marriage was just an evil plot he ends up regretting how the things end up that way and then later he decides to return where it all began (the place where Luffy declared the hunger strike).
Since reaching dreams and freedom are very important themes in One Piece it was interesting to see how Sanji was put into the toughest test of his life so far. Choosing between loyalty and whether to or not to giving up on his dream chasing All Blue with his crew and trying to save everyone.
Denn wie viel von dem,
Was ich heute weiß,
Hätte ich lieber nie gesehen.
The In the Reasons to love Mugiwaras - Sanji-post is more ponders about how Sanji’s background could explain some of his behavior and personality. In WCI arc Basically Sanji gets sucked into a void because his character is put into so much pressure that even a normal person would go crazy by the weight of if and he still insisted to survive on his own in order to protect his nakama.
Deine Träume schiebst du endlos vor dir her.
Du willst noch leben, irgendwann,
Doch wenn nicht heute, wann denn dann?
Denn irgendwann ist auch ein Traum zu lange
The last verse and chorus take place on their second reunion and is more from Luffy’s perspective and I think the the quoted lyrics describe his thoughts more than well.
Before their paths parted in WCI, it’s most likely that Luffy already saw directly what Sanji didn’t: that no matter what, Sanji is always putting everyone before him. He is even ready to postpone his own dreams if it means someone else can still live on to pursue theirs. After all, all this “Germa Prince” play was just his way trying to solve the problem all by his own.
They already had this conversation back in Baratie so this was a parallel to that arc but it was about Luffy realizing Sanji being self sacrificial again and it was his job to make him stop by force since the cook can be stubborn at times.
Now to think about, most of the Straw Hats have been facing this same situation in their own arcs and their actions are reflecting to their own pasts. It reminds me of the movie quote: "How do you break free, without falling apart?" [x]
In Sanji’s case: suddenly his life turned upside down and he became the same boy who was trapped into the iron mask locked up in the jail and he was sinking into the despair after realizing his plan went all to waste.
So, this arc first took a carpet under Sanji’s feet (not in a funny way though) but then later Oda made it up for him by allowing him to finally escape from the chains of his past for good and even to tell Judge who his real dad is and it was a bittersweet moment to witness. After all, this all was the character grow Sanji really needed.
Luffy did the great job as a captain, his warm but determined presence in the moment of his nakama’s weakness was what was needed (in German he had this moment of “Verstehen”) and then giving the wake up call Sanji badly needed, that’s what made Sanji realize what things matter him the most and that this time, he doesn’t have to fight his demons alone and that he is worthy.
The ending scene was also supposed to be a parallel too: Him realizing being trapped like he was when he was a kid and wanting to break free and return to his real family, the Straw Hat pirates.
Frankly spoken one of the biggest challenges was to translate and edit subtitles for this song fitting to english speaking audience since german is a bit hard to translate word to word (especially when I haven’t spoken it for years). For some reasons the lyrics don’t show up completely (they are a bit blurry but I will later add Youtube’s subs too).
This was actually originally just be an short amv about Sanji but eventually Luffy found also his way to it too, after all, the captain was one of the key characters in this arc in order to get their cook back.
Peter Heppner wore a "Facts don't care about your feelings" shirt recently. I think he wore it to protest against all those "I don't want to wear a mask" protests going on in Germany but unfortunately it's also Ben Shapiro's (who's virtually unknown in Germany) slogan.
