The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Shokugeki no Sanji

What's It About? 

See what Straw Hat chef Sanji dishes up in his battle to win over the bellies and hearts of all he feeds, man or woman, friend or foe. This one-shot spinoff rolls all six original story chapters into one collection, concocted and served up to you by the creators of Food Wars!

Shokugeki no Sanji is a manga with a story by Yūto Tsukuda and art by Shun Saeki based on characters created by Eiichiro Oda with contributions by Yuki Morisaki. Adrienne Beck translated this volume and lettering by Eve Grant. Published by Viz Media (March 12, 2024).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I have to admit that I was hoping that this would be a Food Wars!xOne Piece crossover, but I can't say that I'm disappointed by what it was instead. Taking place over a series of different story arcs, the book tracks Sanji's journey to becoming the best chef the seas have ever known while also giving the artist the chance to draw most of the Straw Hat Pirates. Amusingly enough, Luffy himself doesn't get a full illustration until the story is over as a bonus image. We're also deprived of long-haired Nami in Shun Saeki's style, which I would have liked to have seen, though we do get a lovely Wano Arc Robin and my favorite character, Vivi. Saeki's art is, obviously, very different from Eiichiro Oda's. Still, all of the characters at the various stages of the story are immediately recognizable, and there's a real sense of the original in this tribute.

Familiarity with One Piece is a must here. The volume has chapters set before Sanji joins the crew, immediately after the Arlong Park arc, at the tale end of Alabasta, when Sanji is on Momoiro Island, and during Wano. The final chapter also acknowledges Sanji's past, so if you don't want spoilers on any of those fronts, you may want to catch up on the original series before jumping into this volume. There aren't spoiler spoilers for most of it (except the final chapter and Sanji's past), but a lot of it won't make much sense if you aren't familiar with the source material.

Including Sanji's time with the Kamas is a low point, largely because I don't find the central joke particularly funny. While it's clear that these women are meant to be humorous with their obvious masculine attributes and feminine speech and behavior, it feels like a gag that expired when this book was originally published six-odd years ago and even when Oda wrote the original storyline. It's certainly possible to skip over the chapter; the rest of the book is good without it. All of the other chapters are fairly strong, and it's amusing to see that the trademark daddy issues of Food Wars! are used in the second chapter, when the Straw Hats save a wedding banquet a father is desperate to put on for his daughter. And I fully admit that the Alabasta chapter (the third) is a favorite simply because I like that arc – the chapter's content is fine, but perhaps nothing as unique as it feels to me.

You don't need familiarity with Food Wars! to enjoy this. The foodgasms are pretty toned down, and the story is all about One Piece and Sanji's place in it. It's a lot of fun, even if he's not your favorite Straw Hat; just make sure you're up-to-date on your pirate adventures circa 2017 before diving into this one.

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MrAJCosplay
Rating:

From the artist who gave us Food Wars!, we have a spinoff manga that attempts to blend some of the best parts of that series with the world of One Piece. It is not a pairing I would've expected to happen in my lifetime, yet I find it a surprising match made in heaven. Shokugeki no Sanji is a volume that focuses on Sanji and his cooking exploits throughout the One Piece timeline. We have chapters that take place before the series starts and between or during specific arcs of the franchise, from Alabaster to Wano. Ultimately, these chapters are structured very similarly to early Food Wars! chapters, where we have a setup that requires Sanji to prepare a particular food dish, given a specific stipulation or circumstances. He ultimately comes out on top, preparing a dish that blows away any skeptical person in the immediate vicinity. Is it incredibly formulaic? Yes, but is it satisfying to read? Also yes!

Reading these chapters makes me wish there were more of them in the original Food Wars! manga before it focused on whatever plot it was trying to tell in the end. There's just something satisfying about seeing how these particular dishes are prepared and how Sanji, as a chef, tries to overcome these challenges. Cooking is like a science; sometimes, you need to be particular in how you prepare it. But when you add some of the wackier elements of the One Piece franchise, such as the unique animals or environments, suddenly it feels like the sky's the limit from a creativity standpoint. You're not bound by realism. While that limits the more general appeal of this volume since some of these dishes can't be made in real life, the explanation for how the dishes come together still seems based on real-world cooking etiquette and scientific reasoning.

There are explanations on how to utilize the fat from certain animals or how meat can sometimes mutate in sturdiness and flavor the older an animal gets. You could reread this book several times and still discover new little tricks along the way. Saeki Shun has always had a striking and appealing art style that translates well to the One Piece world. If anything, I would have liked to see more characters drawn in this art style, and it's a shame that sometimes it feels like the art is explicitly framed not to show particular characters' faces as if trying to hide how they would look. But that weird little blip aside, this is a fascinating experiment that I think largely pays off. If you're a fan of One Piece or Food Wars!, then this should be on your list of things to check out, and I would love to see more experimental side stories like this that fully show off the other characters of the franchise in different ways.