At the Live Floor, the battle between Sanji and Queen continues. Queen transforms into his full beast form. He is able to detach his neck and tail from his torso, resulting in a snake-like appearance. Then he wraps around Sanji, trapping him.
It’s revealed that Armament Haki only protects the surface of a user and cannot protect their insides. Sanji is heavily hurt, but quickly recovers in a way similar to his siblings’ abilities.
A nervous Chopper calls to Sanji only to see him get back up on his feet, still able to move yet with all his bones broken. Sanji’s body snaps back into place and he begins to fear that he has awakened the same enhancements as his siblings.
Sanji becomes enraged by this supposed power up due to fearing he will become inhumane like his brothers, but as he thinks that, Queen, who has returned to his hybrid form, tries to strike Sanji with his sword, but only ends up shattering it against his head with Sanji only feeling minor pain.
Now many are complaining about Sanji’s latest power up and I’ll admit, I had a few at first but after considering this for awhile, I’ve come to the realization that this power-up is perfectly fine. So Sanji appears to be developing an exoskeleton like his brothers. The main complaint I’m hearing about this is that it somehow contradicts Sanji’s character arc in Whole Cake Island and that’s not true at all.
A lot of the fandom seems to be under the impression that the message from Whole Cake Island was “even though Sanji was a Germa failure, he still turned out to be a powerful fighter” and that’s not the point of Sanji’s character arc in Whole Cake Island. The whole point is that his EMOTIONS are what make him strong. His compassion is what makes him an invaluable asset to the Straw Hat Pirates crew and Oda brilliantly demonstrates this throughout the entire arc. Because of Sanji the cake which stopped Big Mom’s rampage was made, Pudding switched sides, the Germa was saved and more indirectly, Luffy achieved Future Sight. All of this because Oda was showing us that yes Sanji is a fighter but he has a different kind of “power” that’s just as strong as Luffy’s will and Zoro’s determination.
So, no, Sanji’s latest power-up in no way walks back his Whole Cake Island character arc. The reason I believe Sanji said he doesn’t want to be a monster like his brothers in Chapter 1028 is because he thinks he may lose his emotions with this ‘Awakening’ of his Germa lineage. It’s too soon to say how this will play out but unless he becomes a heartless soldier like his brothers, you should be 100% okay with this power-up.
It is long past time for the fandom to realize that Zoro and Sanji are not the same. This means that their powers-ups are going to come to them differently. Diable Jambe isn’t something Sanji really “trained” for as opposed to Zoro’s three sword style which he is been honing and perfecting since he was a kid. Even over the timeskip, the things that Sanji learned like Blue Walk and Sky Walk weren’t things he trained for, he just happened to develop them as he was running for his life.
