One Piece 833 – Review/Thoughts …and Sanji!

I’ve already posted some of my thoughts on this chapter HERE, but I’ll still talk about them in this review and go more into depth about things I didn’t mention. As you can probably guess this review will be long as there is sooo much to talk about. I loved this chapter, and not only because it focused on Sanji, but it was just really exciting and emotional. It even had some quite funny moments too, so basically this chapter had pretty much everything I love about One Piece in it. Not to mention it looked beautiful.

Also, first things first; I love this color spread! It’s so beautiful. I always love how Oda colors, but this one is particularly well done. The goldfish and the huge watermelons are really nice addition that really makes me think of Japanese summer. And seeing them all dressed in yukata enjoying the summer festivals is so nice, I love seeing the strawhats in all these (kinda AU) situations.

Spoilers under the cut for Chapter 833 – Vinsmoke Judge

Again, this chapter was great from start to finish, but for different reasons.

We basically start where we left off last chapter as the fight between Sanji and Judge is about to start. The soldiers of Germa 66 are very excited and curious about “this Sanji guy”. I wonder what exactly they’ve heard about him? But they mention his bounty later on, so I suppose they knew at least the basics. I must say it’s also kind of nice seeing a woman amongst the soldiers.

And their flag… Well, I don’t know the colors, but it’s pretty obvious Oda has been influenced by the Nordic countries. Oda probably saw the Norwegian (or the Icelandic) flag and just decided to use it for Germa; conquerors of the North. I thought is was kinda funny…

Then we jump to the Yonji fortress. I suppose all the siblings have one each then?

And Sanji has messed up his face, most likely using Parage shot. The notion about not thinking “things wouldn’t be much different” as he was planning on “lecturing” Sanji is the first indication we get to how they might have thought of Sanji when he still lived with them.

It’s funny though and his face looks horrible, especially from the side. But yeah, Sanji did Yonji good and he’s really surprised about it. But I’m more surprised about Yonji’s skull. What is up with his face? Why does it make metallic sounds and how can they fix it with a hammer? It’s really odd, and first I thought it might relate to him being called “Winch Green” and that being part of his special ability just like Reiju had poison. But later on we see that Ichiji has a really hard face too… It’s even weirder since it makes those kind of clanking sounds, because otherwise it might have been armament haki or something. I don’t know if they’re partly metal or something, but it’s definitely weird. Let’s wait and see what Oda is planning. Anyway, Yonji getting his face fixed was definitely the only comedic part about this chapter because then we return to the duel.

Sanji is getting a lot of praise from the Germa soldiers, and I really can’t blame them. This fight just looked great all the way through. I’ve always loved Sanji’s fighting style, and Oda really put some great effort into the moves and angles in this scene. I can’t wait to see this animated and hope that they spend some money on making this episode when it comes out. The choreography and the conversation also add even more to the excitement of the action.

I love how Sanji keeps on distancing himself from the Vinsmokes and how he calls the marriage a farce. They clearly aren’t his family, and we get the first insight into Sanji’s childhood with a flashback of him being bullied.

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The fact that cooking and kindness has always been a part of who Sanji is was great to see… Though I wonder where he got those characteristics from? Especially the cooking part; where did he first find his interest? Also, the dreaming side of Sanji, where did that come from? Did he hide away reading books, or is there a person that influenced him? I want to know more!

Worse to see is how these two things in particular seems to be a big reason to why his family doesn’t like him. He’s different and does things that royals aren’t supposed to do. Honestly, Sanji being bullied for sticking out from “what’s expected” is probably something that will resonate with a lot of readers.

Sanji tries to fight back, using his hand to punch Ichiji. But as we can see, his face is hard enough to hurt Sanji’s hand… We learn that Sanji basically grew up “a weakling”. Honestly, this just puts so much more depth into Sanji’s character and specifically his understanding of the weak trio. His relationship with Usopp in particular and his speech of encouragement in Enies Lobby seems even more impactful now. I love how Oda does this and it’s my personal belief that he’s been especially planting these moments with Sanji throughout the whole story having his past clearly in his mind. Sanji’s understanding for those that are powerless just breaks my heart now, knowing his own experience of it, but it also adds a lot of realism to his character.

They continue with beating him up, and just keep on kicking him as he lies down crying. This was already making me sad, but this is stuff I somehow could maybe still forgive, especially since they are children. (But by the end of the chapter I definitely can’t forgive them.)

We also learn that 1, 2, 3 and 4 are quadruplets. I feel kinda bad for their mother, who is glaringly missing by this point. But I assume Oda is leaving that surprise for later. I must say that having them all be the same age just makes it even more clear that Sanji is left out specifically for his personality traits.

In Japan the order of birth is really significant though, even amongst twins and such (I’m a twin myself and always had to refer to myself as the older sister when I was in Japan even though I’m only one minute older), so we see that Ichiji gets a special color on his clothes compared to the other three. And then their father and Reiju shows up…

I had to include the whole page, because it’s just so heart-breaking. His siblings seemingly do this a lot and Sanji even cries out for help here, but all he gets is something that probably hurts much more than the punches he’s just received. Here we have the people that should care for and love Sanji more than anyone else, and because he’s weak they treat him like crap. He’s not worthy of them. He’s a stain and a disgrace. His father does nothing because Sanji is not worth the trouble. Right there we probably got to see the reason behind so much of who Sanji is. Still now, many years later, even as he’s been living away from the Vinsmokes for a long time and found a new family (first with Zeff and later with the Srawhats), Sanji still doesn’t think he’s worth the trouble. It has been so deeply engraved into his mind that he’s useless that he to some extent still believes it. He always has to work hard and be useful, he does whatever small tasks he can think of because he needs to earn his place within the crew (it kinda reminds me of Baby5 honestly).

When Zeff saves him, without getting anything in return, he doesn’t understand why. Which adds to his warped sense of debt, which is probably made even worse since Sanji took away Zeff’s power; the one thing that Sanji himself lacked and was a big reason for his ill treatment. Furthermore, many times when we’ve seen Sanji in danger he doesn’t seem to think he’s worth the effort to save him. Or at least he’s surprised when people, even his nakama, actually do care, like in Baratie, Fishman Island and probably even now when he left Zou. It’s just incredibly sad how Sanji even to this day partly believes those words and that he’s “useless”, even though he’s clearly become quite the formidable fighter. Don’t get me wrong though, he knows he’s strong and capable, but I think he’s probably still very concerned with “earning love” instead of receiving it unconditionally. I could go on about this forever… Let’s move on.

This moment also made me really sad and I wonder how much physical abuse he had to go through? His brothers are all ganging up on him and it looks like they’re hurting him pretty bad. Even the wall breaks. Also again, with Yonji’s head being so hard it’s interesting that Oda chose to have him charge head first into Sanji.

Back to the fight, and Judge mentioning haki like this when Sanji blocked him makes it seem like it could be armament haki, but we still don’t know for sure. I really need for Oda to give us a clear answer here, because though it makes sense that Sanji would have it, we still don’t have any real evidence like we’ve gotten with Zoro. I don’t know, it just kinda irks me.

And then the comment about Sanji being trained with a sword… I wonder if this really has something to do with Sanji’s relationship with Zoro? For all we can see Zoro is very alike the warrior Sanji’s father probably wanted him to become. So if that somehow has made Sanji feel inadequate (probably not to a very high degree though) when he’s compared to Zoro it could make sense that it’s difficult to hear Zoro’s comments about being better than him. It could partly explain why they end up fighting so much, and why they are rivals, but they definitely don’t hate each other so it’s probably not that bad.

Also Sanji fighting with sharp weapons is something I would love to see again, but it feels like it won’t happen. Sanji fighting Wanze was really cool and we saw how Sanji picked up knifes when he was on the Orbit, so it’s would be great to see more. It would be even more awesome if his nakama got to see him fight with a sword. Sanji as a proper swordfighter, even just once, would be epic! It makes sense that he had some training, but it also kinda makes me a little confused. Because we just had Judge say that Sanji would never become a good warrior. Does this mean that he trained Sanji but he was really bad at it (at least compared to his siblings) or does it mean that Sanji continued on to train after the scene we saw earlier and actually became somewhat stronger while he was still with the Vinsmoke? Who knows, but maybe we’ll get some more glimpses in the future that explains it better.

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Sanji you idiot!! Why does he feel the need to tell them his hands are so important? I mean, obviously they’ll use this against you. Though I like how he got that policy from Zeff and this is a nice throwback to that, it just isn’t very smart. Especially since Judge seems to hate the fact that he cooks. With this chapter the possibility of Sanji actually getting his hands damaged just increased dramatically.

Meanwhile Reiju is sitting on the sideline watching them, throwing some compliments to Sanji that doesn’t sit very well with me. (She’s just giving me very false vibes.)

Judge definitely doesn’t like the fact that Sanji cooks, and serves, which is basically two of Sanji’s most prominent features. I can just imagine how angry Luffy would be if he met Judge and they got into the subject of Sanji’s cooking. (Well, actually Luffy would most likely get angry for everything that Judge stands for, but still…)

Judge uses his technology to launch into the air, and then attacks Sanji with his spear. I am so curious about what exactly Sanji means when he talks about the “irony”. Is it because it’s kinda like God vs Devil with their attacks? Is it because Judge can fly? Is it because of the spear, does it mean something significant? (Just like some has been pointing out that picture from the Jaya arc…)

This looks so good I want to frame it and put it on my wall! Seriously, this fight is gorgeously drawn. I can’t believe Judge just grabs Sanji’s burning leg like that. I suppose he’s either protected by and armor or he’s using haki. He then throws Sanji into the ground.

While it’s true that war does advance technology the combination of his words and his attack makes me wonder whether that Electromagnetic Crack is based on technology or if it’s something like Sanji’s fire-based attacks. I’m not gonna lie, I would love for the Vinsmoke to have some type of natural powers that aren’t devilfruit-based! It feels like it’s not too farfetched considering Reiju also has her poison, but at the same time there would be a lot of explaining to do for Oda if they have some kind of special powers. I’ve always been really curious where Sanji’s fire came from, and it could very well have simply been haki, but getting another reason for it would thrill me to no ends. Anyways, Sanji is hit straight in the face and is flung away. He doesn’t seem all that bothered by it though, so I don’t think it actually hurt him that much. He’s actually pretty chill by the looks of it…

Then we get to another short flashback.

Now this picture is pretty haunting. I love Sanji’s questions about blood parents because it’s obviously a really big theme in One Piece in general… But once again I need to see the Japanese original text, because I’ve seen two translations that do not relay the same message. I can’t even know for sure if that is Sanji in the mask… The way he speaks of himself in third person wouldn’t be too weird if he’s already distanced himself from who he used to be. I mean, the wrong eye is covered, but otherwise everything else fits. So unless there was some other Sanji copy around, or like one of the translations imply; it’s actually Judge himself as a kid (I really hope that’s not the case though) everything should point to this being Sanji. I mean that was my initial assumption, so I’ll stick with it for now… But it’s damn confusing. Still, this is some really horrible shit to do to anyone, let alone your own son.

This is just such a haunting scene, especially with the cry for help and how it’s dark and creepy in there. And I’m sure we haven’t seen it all yet. But seeing this raises a few questions… Like why was he put there? Was it something as simple as a punishment for cooking? If we assume this follows the timeline of the flashbacks? Or is it later in time? Did he do something else? I really get a The Man in the Iron mask vibe from it all… And it wouldn’t surprise me if Oda took inspirations from it, considering he already took Duval (which also happens to be a name present in the story of the three musketeers) and named him “Iron Mask” Duval. It also begs the question of “Did this happen a lot?” and even “How long was he in that mask?” I don’t want to imagine the worst case scenarios, but like I said, I suspect Oda has only showed us the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Sanji’s past. The timeline is also somewhat unclear… But I guess as usual all we can do is wait for Oda to deliver. Either way, that image made me cry and I’m sure it will keep haunting me for quite a while.

All I can say is that I completely agree with Sanji… I hate Judge too! I really like him as a character so far, but I hate him as a person. It’s a miracle Sanji isn’t completely broken or insane and I really really want to read more about his childhood and his relationship with his so called “family”. Also, when you think you can’t hate him more…

Wall!? Why do these guys follow him so blindly? What do they gain, or is it fear? Doesn’t look like it… But yeah, Judge just plows straight through one of his own men. He really is the type of person that Luffy hates the most. He thinks himself better than everyone else and has no regard for human life. I just hope he’s proven to care deeply about his children (Sanji excluded of course) so that he at least isn’t 100% evil.

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I mean to be honest I thought this was pretty gruesome how he just goes right through his soldier to get to Sanji. We have seen a lot of quite brutal images in both Dressrosa and Zou, so I guess Oda is really feeling inspired by Game of Thrones. Makes me wonder if the anime will be censored a lot? But yeah, Judge is basically just a horrible human being.

Sanji on the other hand does not want to attack the “wall” and thus gets hit. He blocks the blow but is still sent flyting. I’m pretty sure he stops resisting right then and there, (so people who wants to call Sanji weak because of this fight can just leave) and he doesn’t even seem to be all that hurt. Sanji does not want the blood of “innocent” (or at least uninvolved) people on his hands. So instead he just stands down. I would not call it losing as much as giving up. It’s not like he was planning on leaving either way, so I have a hard time imagining he was even looking to seriously beat his dad. Not saying he wasn’t trying, just that it wasn’t even really a “serious” battle as much as a duel.

So Sanji is hit, but still looks pretty unfazed. I’m sure he didn’t have any more desire to fight after seeing how Judge uses his soldiers. But for some reason the other soldier are all cheering happily as their king “win“ despite how he treat them.

And with that the fight is over and we jump to sometime later as Reiju is busy treating Sanji’s face while giving him some compliments and noting he’s so much stronger now. It’s so fresh to see Sanji’s response to her too. I mean, she’s his sister but still, he’s treating her colder than pretty much any other female we’ve seen him interact with, possibly tied with Kalifa. She tries her best to treat his basically nonexistent wounds from the fight; he more or less only got a scratch above his eyebrow. Meanwhile Sanji keeps complaining about the marriage, and I actually really like that panel with him trying to push her away. Also, she seems awfully nice now, but she’s obviously not as caring as she tries to come across as.

It’s so typical of Sanji to have held on to that small glimmer of hope that they all might have changed. Of course that’s not the case and he of course wants nothing to do with them anymore. Judge however goes into explaining that no matter what Sanji still has their blood in his veins. This makes him somewhat useful to the Vinsmoke, even if they don’t see any value in Sanji himself. Basically his only useful trait is that he shares their DNA. Did I mention how much I hate Judge?

All they want is for Sanji to cooperate, but obviously he’s not doing that, at least not enough. They need Big Mom to reach their goal to once more conquer North Blue, but Judge at the very least cares enough about his remaining children for him to not want to hand them over to a crazy person like Big Mom. Once again I really hope that this stems from fondness over his children, because it would make the character more real, if yet his treatment of Sanji even worse

Well after this speech all I wish for is for Sanji to kick his “father’s” ass. I mean, the abusive behavior obviously hasn’t stopped. That line about the dud really struck a chord in me. Really though, I already feel very protective over Sanji being called weak (thanks to some antis), especially since he obviously has a complex about it. And then Judge just goes on with how useless Sanji is and that he’s simply a means to an end. He says it in such a nonchalant way too, like he just forgot that he used to have one more son. Talk about feeling unwanted. And then he goes on with that he’ll never see Sanji as a son of his, and since he uses the word “still” we can assume that this is the way he’s thought about him for a long time. I both dread and anticipate getting to see more of Sanji’s past with the Vinsmoke. Seriously though, I hope both Sanji and Luffy beats him up good!

Now this! This is why I said you were being stupid for letting them know how much you treasure your hands. Damn it Sanji! The Vinsmoke obviously doesn’t give a damn about Sanji at all beyond his usefulness in this alliance, but specifically targeting his hands after knowing what they stand for and what they mean to him… Those explosive cuffs, that “sweet Reiju” puts on him so tenderly, just increased the probability of Sanji’s hands getting seriously damaged in this arc. I mean, Oda has been highlighting it a few times now, so I’m actually starting to get a little bit worried. Only Big Mom has the key, which is kinda interesting. Looks like Sanji either will have to go through with the wedding in some form, or they’ll have to get their hands on those keys. It’s very possible that this is a job Oda has in mind for Nami, whom we’ve seen stealing a key before. She is an excellent thief after all.

Sanji really is in deep shit now! But this storyline is so exciting, I loved everything Oda did in this chapter (with the exception of confusing me on some parts, but that might also be the translation’s fault)!

This chapter was great and now it finally feels like the year of Sanji. I just want more, because even after this short chapter it feels like we can see more clearly why Sanji is the way he is. I’m amazed by how so many of Sanji’s choices and reactions throughout the manga seem to have been drawn by Oda with his backstory in mind. I’ve always thought Sanji was a really well-written character and that Oda has paid a lot of attention to the small details in both his storyline and his reactions/actions, but this chapter just made it even clearer. I don’t know how people can say Oda hates Sanji, to me it rather looks the other way around if I’m being honest. All in all, this chapter was a great read and had me extremely excited for what’s to come. It looks like we’ll have to wait a little while before we return to Sanji again, but after reading a chapter like this I can only put my full trust in Oda. And there is no break next week either! (Which is this week… Ooops I was late again… Sorry.)

Phew… And that concludes this review, which also had a lot of ranting and analyzing in it. Sorry. I just can’t help myself because I am beyond excitement after reading the first glimpse of Sanji’s childhood.

Thank you all for reading! I hope it wasn’t too long, but I simply couldn’t help it this time. Please let me know what you thought.