ℂ𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕕𝕕𝕪𝕪𝕪❀

So keep in mind that I wrote this like at 1 am and I'm tired. If it feels like I'm repeating myself or if something seems off, that's why. Do not go after people mentioned in the links.

While I was scrolling on Twitter/X on one random evening (last night) and I encountered this post: https://x.com/EtherionMaster/status/2068066518840058251 and the comment section was full of people referring Yamato to feminine pronouns. This user caught my attention and well let’s just say that 2 users had some disagreement over Yamato’s gender. https://x.com/marcyline_/status/2068158986835136596 There’re other not so nice comments attacking her for her views of Yamato’s gender because she uses masculine pronouns for Yamato. (please don’t be like those people) You would think that this post would probably be from a year or two ago, right? Wrong. The original post was posted on June 19th and the argument was the following day. In the argument this person referred to the vivre card as proof that Yamato’s a girl, so I decided to do some digging, and guess what? I fell into a rabbit hole.

And that’s why I wanna write this because even to this day the one piece community does not have a collective view on Yamato’s gender, whether using male or female pronouns. For the sake of this, I’m putting aside my biases and since I’m curious about others opinions and viewpoints, I have collected evidence (from reddit and manga) about both sides to the argument, for why Yamato’s a woman and why Yamato’s a man. But I would like to mention that I’ll be bringing up the vivre card, then the female argument. the male one, and what conclusion i drew from this. Please put aside your biases you have for the other side and just hear each side out. If you’re unwilling to compromise your opinion because of pride, feel free to leave or comment down saying how stupid this is. Regardless I’ll see what you say, positive or negative.

Vivre Card isn’t Reliable:

To put it simply, the vivre card isn’t exactly verified by Oda himself nor his staff, rather it’s promotional material and considered merchandise, so few mistakes are bound to be made, though the accuracy is around 90% of the time, so it shouldn’t be considered as a piece of evidence. But I would like to bring it up because it is often used as evidence that Yamato is a woman. However it only refers to her biological gender and not Yamato’s gender identity. If you want a closer look to why the vivre card shouldn’t be used to determine Yamato’s identity, refer to this: 

Why the vivre card is shoddy evidence for Yamato's gender

The Woman Argument: (using she/her pronouns)

The reason why Yamato is often referred by feminine pronouns within the community is because of the way Oda draws her, more specifically on the manga covers. Firstly her biological gender is a female because Oda gave her boobs and feminine features, he also drew Yamato on a color spread with female only characters. Another thing to point out that Oda has also drawn Yamato as an Oiran, the highest ranking courtesan who is always a woman. Besides manga color spreads, there’s also Yamato’s whole identity, she idolizes to be like Oden, therefore claiming to be him and acting like him. This doesn’t mean that she has to change her gender to be like Oden even though it’s not wrong to, it’s just that she chooses to go into the men bath because that’s what Oden would do if this argument were true.

The Man Argument: (using he/him pronouns)

Yamato idolizes Oden so much that he’s willing to also change his gender to be like Oden, basically he claims to be Oden and is referred to the proper pronouns. It can be interpreted that his belief is that he acts like Oden and is referred to masculine pronouns like him. It’s also really important to remember that Yamato is referred as a man and with masculine pronouns by everybody in the manga, in the dialogue, even if he does look like a woman. He is referred to Kaido’s Son and not Kaido’s daughter for a reason (kaido supports trans rights). This is also further backed up by Yamato joining the men’s bath because he sees himself as Oden, so he also sees himself as a man. Also guess who drew the men’s bath scene? Oda himself drew Yamato joining the men’s bath even if he drew Yamato on a female only cover spread.

My Conclusion:

I need to briefly discuss Sanji. I’m still currently reading Wano, so I’m not exactly sure what pronouns Sanji uses for Yamato, but he did get a nosebleed, for Yamato’s body. This is only because of Yamato’s biological gender and had nothing to do with Yamato’s identity. Because there’s people who believe that Yamato is a woman, that doesn’t mean they’re all transphobic, it’s a matter of how they interpret the manga. But if you’re asking me and for my own opinion, Yamato’s trans for one big strong reason. Because people actively use masculine pronouns for Yamato in the manga. People shouldn’t be attacked for having different opinions from you, welcome to the internet. It really makes sense why the debate has been ongoing, because Yamato’s gender identity is still kind of vague and both sides have good arguments for and against one another unlike canon trans characters like Kiku. Still, if I’m being honest, I wrote this to be more open minded and hopefully I helped? Oda handled Yamato’s gender poorly, hence the debate. I just hope I cleared things up about both sides. Neither are wrong to me.

Let’s start off with Sanji, cuz it's easier for me.

In my hcs, Sanji’s really kinky and is turned on by a lotta stuff. but let’s start off simple.

Oral fixation cuz he smokes

Foodplay but his partners still have to eat the food, because it would break is rule of never wasting food if they let it go to waste

Breeding kink cuz sanjis built like that, but more specifically with Zoro only

Olfactophilia (scent kink; he likes Zoros sweat and smell after workouts like breathing his musk, he probably enjoys it when Zoro doesn’t shower after he works out) There is this pleasure in tasting and smelling something exotic ig?

Eproctophilia (basically farts. But to sanji its the fact that his crew mates (specifically Zoro) enjoys his cooking and gets pleasure knowing that they ate it cuz farts are one of the by products of food and gets pleasure out of being able to smell his own cooking, but in a more sexual and erotic way, if that makes sense. He is turned on by all aspects of releasing gas, the sensation, scent, and sounds cuz its hot.) (uh if it's weird to you, sorry man)

Also we know that zoro and sanji both have oral fixations cuz come on, zoro likes shoving swords in his mouth and sanji smokes.

As for Zoro, it’s definitely not as fleshed out as Sanji, but here is a few that feels right for Zoro.

Also Oral fixation like what I mentioned above

Pain kink because he wants to test his strengh and probably likes pain with pleasure (?)

A minor blood kink like whenever Sanji has a nosebleed Zoro would like lick it

He also probably has something for Sanjis legs because he fights with them, strength kink ig?

tbh i dunno if it's too explicit, i mean it's not too grpahic? if it is then lemme know.

But what if the character that's mischaracterized is your favorite character and the ship you ship with your favorite character creates a dynamic that feels off and wrong?

Enter Sanji and Zosan, the Inevitable Disappointment of Mischaracterization

First of all, how is Sanji interpreted by most of the Sanji fandom and Zosan fandom within the One Piece fandom? It can be dumbed down to this: Traumatized Twink Blonde who Cooks. This is a rough estimate to how most Sanji fans summarize him, but of course Sanji is more than that, of course everybody knows. Except, most of them get it wrong.

The ship Zosan is a broad term because it has a variety of ways to interpret the ship, but most notably people either see Sanji as flustered and Zoro as a stoic or see Sanji as a romantic and Zoro as shy. Majority people fall into the first category. Why? Because people choose to misinterpret both characters in order to ship them.

So now let's go back to the previous point, people misinterpret Sanji. How so? Because of his physique, that stupid his tiny waist that gets Sanji fans on their knees and drooling, and because of his 2 sad backstories, which brings tears to Sanji fans eyes and make us empathetic or sympathetic to him, including me. However, it's the backstories where it makes Sanji fans have the instinct to protect a fictional grown man. There is also this desire to make sure Sanji is loved since Sanji has been deprived of love from his dad and brothers. Luckily, Sanji is cared by the straw hat pirates, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Nah. We got gay ships, such as Zosan.

Ok, so how do people misinterpret Zosan? Well for starters, Zosan relies heavily based off of appearances, their role on the straw hat pirates, and how strong they are.

Let's start with their respective roles and strength. Zoro is seen training everyday with absurdly heavy weights because he's a swordsman who needs to train while Sanji is just cooking dishes in the kitchen, how hard could cooking be? It can be a labor intensive task because Sanji has to feed his crew mates plus himself, but Luffy's insatiable appetite makes the task harder for any average chef, so of course Sanji is the only one that can feed Luffy because of his exceptional skills. Cooking takes a lot more strength than it looks because you need the arm strength to carry heavy pans with food inside and some cooking appliances can be heavy too. Plus Sanji trains with his legs, which isn't something chefs need, well Sanji needs it because he doesn't want to use his hands in combat.

Ok, moving on to outward appearances. Zoro has scars on his chest and over his left eye (when thinking about it from his pov), which makes Zoro look more intimidating and he also looks buff and carries 3 swords. This makes Zoro admirable and feared by people within the One Piece world, but not to the One Piece fandom, but I digress. Sanji wears suits and ties and always present in a clean manner, but in addition to that, his suit makes Sanji's waist, arms, and legs look like a stick figure.

All these factors culminate to create Zosan. Where due to Zoro's stoicism and strength, he is seen as the top while Sanji is more of a bottom due to of his physical appearance and his sad backstory where oh no, he needs to be loved and cherished by Zoro.

So if not Zosan, what else is there? As mentioned a while ago, there is a good portion of people who see Sanji as a romantic and Zoro as shy. This alternative perspective is popularly known as Sanzo (SZ), which is the dynamic I personally ship, but even with my bias, it's a lot better than Zosan.

While I may not go over every single piece of evidence for Sanzo, you're just gonna have to trust me. It's all in their personalities. Zoro's stoic nature and his introverted nature can be safely interpreted as being shy and not knowing how to express his feelings. While Sanji, due to his emotional trauma from his 2 backstories, he not only cares about ladies because they were the only nice people in his life, but also because it is a way for him to cope. By being a romantic. Cooking is a sign of love, it is a love language for Sanji and he finds comfort in expressing that love. It is when he is in the zone and when Sanji is most happy, not when Sanji is being taken cared by others. He is blatantly the most service top coded character, while Zoro is just a little shy person who has a hard time expressing his feelings and instead hides it, maybe most likely to not be weak and feel vulnerable.

Now on that note, Sanji's legs are toned, buff, and jacked asf and nobody seems to bring that up. He carried a wedding cake with the cart with one leg while skywalking on wci! Also remember that leg muscles are the biggest muscles in the human body, so if anybody says that Sanji is a twig, use this to help ig. Because of his leg muscles, Sanji can make the sex he has with Zoro 10000000x better. It isn't Zoro's main priority to train his legs, while Sanji fights with his legs.

so uh this next portion in parentheses is just me venting, you can skip if you wanna

(You Zosan shipper think so highly of yourselves and your ships, and yet don't you see what you're doing to Sanji and Zoro?! How you reduce him to a loveable twink blonde that needs to be protected at all costs and cherished and loved because he has 2 sad backstories?! HUH?! IS THIS HOW YOU WANNA REPRESENT US SANJI FANS?!)

But at last, at the end of the day, we all know that Sanzosan will most likely become canon because I highly doubt Oda even ships them, at most they're probably best friends and drinking partners who see each other every week lol. But one can fantasize what freaky stuff Sanji and Zoro get to. :D

WIP

I've never been more disappointed to be a Sanji fan and Sanji x Zoro shipper than recently.

I get that people make Zoro the dominant one when Sanji is paired with Zoro because of physical appearances and the fact that Zoro is stronger than Sanji, but emotionally and personality wise?

Zoro's stoic nature often gets misinterpreted as a sign that he is not as vulnerable as Sanji, displaying little to no emotion and extreme loyalty towards Luffy. This stoic thing is often interpreted as being dominant and confident. Meanwhile Sanji is really emotional, especially towards women and display affection with words (praise) and actions (his cooking duh). This often gets interpreted as a sign of submissiveness, which INFURIATES ME.

I know it's "not that deep," but hear me out for a second. What if instead of the boring old trope of Zoro being all strong and mighty (like what zorotards think of zoro, like a god) and instead see his stoic nature as a sign of not being able to express his emotions properly or is too shy to? That is when the GOAT Sanji steps in! There is ONE thing Sanji is that Zoro isn't, a romantic. He loves expressing love and it won't be no different towards Zoro. Sanji will help Zoro express his feelings and not to be so shy and closed off. A healthy relationship can't function if one of the partners doesn't express their needs and feelings.

This will basically display one of Sanji's strengths, his kindness, and help Zoro grow as a character. To learn how to manage his emotions and how to feel them. This is why, in my opinion, why Sanzo is better than Zosan.

"But Zoro would never submit to Sanji!!!"

Zoro has shown that he is a really loyal and reliable crew member for the straw hats, as mentioned earlier, specifically towards Luffy. This can be interpreted as submissive behavior, but I'll just say that Zoro is a loyal person.

So how is Sanji seen within the One Piece fandom?

To a lot of people, even some Sanji fans, they view him as an irredeemable pervert. The Sanji community sometimes have fake fans and fans who aren't really that loyal to Sanji and are willing to roast him when everybody else does.

Ladies and Gentleman, you have this. Defending Sanji and stopping this misunderstanding is my top priority. You must understand that Sanji's character in pre timeskip is immaculate. Sanji had the right amount of desperation for women and gentleman, it's crazy how Oda managed to balance Sanji's character without it feeling weird or creepy, but alas that was from pre timeskip. Starting Thriller Bark and onward, Sanji's character and motives have changed.

From being a hopeless romantic who doesn't understand that not all women want him to lusting over women in general and creepily. It's so sad that Oda and Toei both are at fault for destroying Sanji's character, although Oda did redeem Sanji by giving him an unforgivable father and brothers and a great caring mother. Sanji's backstory is really good, but since I'm not insane, it's not the saddest backstory in my opinion (theyre just all really sad).

The Sanji hate is actually really confusing to me. A person can hate Sanji for only ONE thing?! But the Sanji glazing can go a bit too far too. That Egghead episode where Sanji kicks Kizaru laser (episode 1141) was actually done good! And yet people are pointing out how they didn't animate Sanji smoking in the panel where he told Kizaru to that he'll have to write an apology letter to marine headquarters?! THEY DID!!! It's just that they delivered an epic and hot closeup of Sanji smoking and saying this! Have people gained the attention of a goldfish?! So Sanji doesn't deserve the hate :D