Episode 26: Zeff and Sanji's Dream, the Sea of Dreams - All Blue
Air Date: 2000-05-24
Opening: We Are! (1st Opening)
Ending: Memories (1st Ending)
Manga Chapters: 56 (1-20/20), 57 (1-19/19), 58 (1-19/19), 59 (1-10/19)
Short Summary
Sanji is pounded around by Pearl without retaliation due to Gin holding Zeff hostage. Sanji's past is revealed as the cruise ship he once worked on was attacked by Zeff's band of pirates, and after a large storm Zeff and Sanji end up stranded on an island, with only enough food for five days.
In-Depth Summary
The episode opens with Gin standing over Zeff with a gun pointed to his head, and he breaks Zeff's wooden leg. Gin tells Sanji to leave the ship, but Sanji refuses. He tells Gin to point the gun at him instead. However, Pearl gets back up, and he comes up behind Sanji, pounding him in the bag with his iron plate. Sanji smashes into a wall, and when Luffy demands why he didn't avoid the attack, Sanji responds that Gin is about to pull the trigger. Sanji refuses to leave the ship because he has already taken enough away from Zeff that he doesn't want him to lose anything else. As Sanji starts to get up, Pearl comes behind him again and uses Pearl Cross, smashing Sanji's head. Pearl then leaps up and comes down hard on Sanji with a great smash. As Sanji lies on the floor, bloody, a flashback begins to a time, nine years ago, when young Sanji was a chef aboard a cruise ship.
On the cruise ship, Sanji is being made fun of by his fellow ships because he believes that he will find All Blue. They are cut short when people run into the kitchen screaming, as the dangerous pirate Zeff the Red Leg has arrived onboard. A storm rages outside as Zeff's crew pillages the ship. Sanji stands up to the pirates, holding two knives, but is swiftly kicked down by Zeff. Sanji doesn't give up, though, biting onto Zeff's ankle and declaring that he dreams to go to All Blue. The pirates laugh and him and hurry to load the treasure onto their ship, but the storm grows worse and the cruise ship is tossed about. Sanji is swept into the ocean, and Zeff kicks down a mast and goes after him. They are both lost in the storm, and Sanji awakens to find himself and Zeff on a desert island in the middle of the ocean. Zeff now has one leg, as he lost it in the storm when he was trying to rescue Sanji.
Sanji asks Zeff what happens, and Zeff explains that it's been two days since the storm. He says that they have enough food for five days. Sanji and Zeff spend the rest of the time apart, as Sanji carefully rations his food and drinks from puddles. On the fifth day, a ship comes by, and Sanji tries to wave it down, but is unsuccessful. By the twenty-fifth day, Sanji eats his last piece of bread, beginning to starve. By the fiftieth day his is barely more than a skeleton, battling starvation and struggling to cling to hope that a ship will come. By the seventieth day, Sanji wonders if Zeff is dead yet, and he decides that he will kill Zeff and take his food. Taking out his knife, he searches for Zeff and demands for Zeff's food, but when he looks in the sack that belongs to Zeff he finds that there is only treasure in it. He realizes that Zeff gave all of the food to Sanji, and went the entire time without eating. When Sanji asks why he did it, Zeff explains it's because he and Sanji share a dream, a dream of finding All Blue.
Zeff lies down and begins speaking as if he is going to die. Sanji begs him to live, and Zeff says that if he does manage to survive this ordeal, he will put everything he has into building a restaurant at sea. On the eighty-fifth day, a rescue boat finally arrives, and so Sanji and Zeff are taken off of the island as the flashback ends. Sanji begins to get up after telling the story, and Pearl gapes, wondering how Sanji can get up even after being hit by his special technique. Sanji gets up and declares that he will find a way to repay Zeff, no matter what. Zeff tries to argue with him, but Sanji stands up to face Pearl once again, who only laughs at him. Pearl says that a win is a win, whether they use hostages or not. Sanji replies by saying he will do anything as long as the restaurant can last even one second longer, but is swiftly knocked down by Pearl's attack. Luffy, having finally had enough, thrusts his leg high into the air and uses a great Gomu Gomu no Axe, smashing the entire deck to splinters as the episode ends.
Mumbo230's Notes
Sanji's past is very stirring and jarring at many points, as one can tell even by reading a summary. The anime really captures the brutality of Sanji being pummeled repeatedly by Pearl without fighting back.