When it comes to telling a story, there are certain advantages that books have over comics or movies. By their very nature books are able to convey more information per page than a comic, and more direct insight into a character than a movie. A picture is more ambiguous than a description, which is how you can have a well-developed and compelling book character like Katniss Evergreen look like a block of wood in her movie counterpart. 

Comics in particular gets the short end of the stick, as they tend to have less visual information than a movie and less written information than a book. Shonen manga in particular aren’t often known for their deep characterization. Even critically acclaimed monoliths tend towards simplistic, and therefore relatable, tropes that have come to define the genre. Anyone who has read Bakuman knows that series in Shonen Jump are written specifically so that they can get popular and run forever. The industry itself cripples any story that doesn’t fit into a specific formula.

So I had intended to finish my analysis of chapter 218 of One Piece in one post, but things were starting to run a little long and I split it in two. Here’s Part 1 for those who are interested. For the rest of you, let’s jump in where we left off

In my previous post I discussed a little about how Oda uses motion to convey character. Today I want to take a look a little at how using these techniques helps really sell the transition from enemy to ally, specifically in the case of Nico Robin, and how he was less successful regarding Viola during the Dressrosa arc.

First things first, let’s meet Robin.

A bunch of beautiful one piece ladies 😌💕

On one side, long hair and dresses would look astonishing on her and I do believe she'd be more than comfortable with those. Pretty. Not because she thinks she has to be like that but because she likes it. Long hair makes her look like her mother, in her honor, and I mean, she did try dresses during timeskip and loved it (Oda when I catch you for making her reject that part of herself....). But she's smart, and logical, and would only wear those when comfortable. Her fighting style doesn't give her the chance to wear whatever she wants. Just occassionally. Personally, the best way of mixing both things would be wearing flowy overalls/pants that look like dresses or pants under her skirts. Gotta think smarter.

But even so, a traditional way of embracing femininity goes against everything her arc stands for. And I say this being a huge, huge fan of fem!Sanji wearing more traditional dresses. Don't blame me, I like pretty girls wearing flowy, blue, beach dresses. She's like a mermaid to me... But she can do that while also keeping her body hair because hell yeah, she likes it still. She wears suits also, because that's her brand and they are very gender non-conforming.

It varies depending on the interpretation, too, and all of them are valid, but I personally don't think she'd ask Iva to change her physically. I think both ways work. Maybe she chooses how her body looks in juxtaposition to Germa modifying her body. Maybe she just has the biggest dysphoria and chooses an easy, really cool path. Or maybe, she just accepts her body as it is and loves it. (But, y'know, thematically I think it suits her to keep the body she has) (I also believe her to be Genderfluid but that's something for another day).

The sexualization of transfem!Sanji is honestly a complicated discussion. Because although I do think she could dress and be slutty (because I mean, look at her), most of that sexualization with canon Sanji comes from his inherent femininity and non-conforming masculinity that makes people assume he's submissive, aka: Feminine. And I'm not saying she wouldn't like to dress that way, and all headcanons are soooo valid. But I personally believe the way Nami, for example, shows off her body isn't the same as Sanji's. My baby is a romantic princess, she's definitely not wearing a femme fatale outfit.

Not to mention my "Sanji is sooo Sabrina Carpenter coded" theory again, but she is sooo Sabrina Carpenter coded. I imagine she'd find sensuality and eroticism in traditional and fancy clothes. She could be cute in the same way Sabrina is during "Short n Sweet", or a bit more sexy in a "Man's Best Friend" type of vibe.

if sanji is a woman to you, does that mean you’re okay with his strength and fighting abilities constantly being downplayed in favor of amping up his more domestic character traits? because if the answer is yes, then logically you shouldn’t be mad when robin gets reduced down to a mother figure for chopper and her penchant for snapping people’s spines totally ignored. if sanji is a woman to you, does that mean you’re okay with his character traits being stripped away so he can be turned into a sex object for the audience (usually via zosan content)? because if so, then you can’t really get mad when gooners do the same thing to nami and treat her like basically nothing more than a pair of walking tits. if sanji is a woman to you, are you okay with him being reduced down to a damsel in distress for his love interest to save, even though he can very clearly take care of himself? then you’d probably be fine with people doing the same thing to vivi, right? just letting her sit around waiting for someone to come save her even though she canonically fought tooth and nail for her people and was willing to die for the sake of alabasta? why would you get mad at someone for mischaracterizing any of these women in these ways, when you’re apparently totally fine with it happening to sanji?

because the issue with the feminization of sanji isn’t so much the feminization part, it’s how you treat him as a character after he’s been feminized. the defense i see most often for this tendency to hyper feminize sanji is that it’s “subversive” to treat him like a woman simply because he’s a man, but the truth is that if you feminize a man and then proceed to treat that man in the same awful way that female characters get treated by media and the non-shipping focused parts of fandom at large, you have done nothing subversive or interesting with him. it’s not subversive to feminize a man if all you’re going to do with that feminization is try and force him into the same cis-heteronormative box that society tries to force all women into, fictional or not. it’s not subversive to say ‘he’s a woman to me’ and then proceed to strip him of all recognizable character traits so that all he becomes is a blank slate with a twinky waistline. and it’s definitely not subversive to try and shut down criticisms of those tendencies because “well he’s a man, so it’s fine. it doesn’t count.” because it does. it’s ultimately not all that different from what powerscalers and dude bros and gooner fans do to characters like nami and robin and vivi—stripping away everything that defines their characters so that you can do whatever you want with the hollowed out shell.

so if you want to feminize sanji, you totally can. you wanna put him in heels and a dress and makeup that slays, that’s awesome. you wanna play up his caring and nurturing side vs his hotheaded side, go right ahead. you wanna make him a fixed bottom, more power to you. hell you can do all those things at once and it doesn’t have to mess with the core of who sanji is as a character. but if you’re going to do those things at the expense of sanji himself—of ignoring all the other things that make him sanji—then i think you should also have to reckon with the fact that the doll you are playing with isn’t sanji anymore. and you’re lying to yourself if you say that it is.