From the back cover:
Don Krieg’s evil pirate armada attempts to hijack the oceangoing restaurant Baratie, but the pirate-cooks put up a fierce resistance—until Krieg reveals one of the greatest secret weapons in his arsenal: Invincible Pearl!
When sous-chef Sanji steps into the fray, it turns out that he and Chef Zeff have some unfinished business concerning the loss of the latter’s leg! Will their differences come between them, or make the Baratie stronger? Either way, unfortunately for Luffy, it turns out that Don Krieg harbors an even deadlier weapon: Gin, the very man whose life Sanji once saved with a square meal!
Review:
While nearly the entirety of this volume is occupied by the fight for the Baratie—with Luffy assisting Sanji and the cooks in their efforts to fend off Don Krieg and his pirates—there are still some nice bits of storytelling that elevate this beyond your typical shounen fare.
I was wrong that Sanji is the son of Chef Zeff, but their backstory together is revealed here and it’s kind of horrible, in a way. Suffice it to say that Sanji feels responsible for the end of Zeff’s pirate career and so will fiercly protect Zeff’s new dream, the oceangoing restaurant, and gets up time after time (after enduring injuries that should’ve killed him about six times over) so that it can exist for even a moment longer. What I really loved was that Luffy completely understood and we get a little snippet of the scene in which Shanks lost an arm protecting Luffy to really show the parallels between his and Sanji’s situations.
What I didn’t love was Invincible Pearl, possibly the most ludicrous opponent yet, but I couldn’t help kind of admiring how absolutely absurd he is.
I’ve fallen in love with the anime but it took quite awhile. Not sure yet if I like the comic-book form of the story….
It’s interesting you say that because, even though I haven’t watched anime for ages, I started to think that it might be nice to see some of these fights in animated form. Some of Sanji’s moves would undoubtedly be more impressive in that medium.