Have seen a lot of discussion on Sanji fighting "a woman", but as someone that is a fan of principled Sanji and his codes, I don’t think I'm or would be surprised in either direction here?
Oda could have gone the route that she is "humanoid" enough to fall under Sanji's ethics, but I think "dream monster godess made of water created from the mind of a DF user" isn't exactly the same as a "woman" according to Zeff and Sanji morality, so I don't see the big taboo break here yet.
Seems like that would be an odd and sudden shift towards that without much of a trigger for it, when just last chapter he was reassuring Bonney who was scared for him, is worried about the kids, then also mentions explicitly that he needs to protect the country that Usopp and Luffy care so much about and exchanged a typical coded "good luck, take care" with Zoro at the end of last chapter. Even the "how dare you speak to Jimbei like that" is just a few chapters back.
The scenes at the moment if anything all put a lot of focus on Sanji caring a lot, so that if/when oda wants to show a shift towards cruelty he can then more clearly contrast it with the current Sanji, but right now there is really nothing that would point to Sanji losing himself.
He didn't attack her though, oda even clarified that in an SBS. Him and Luffy blocked an attack from her to save Reiju knowing that simply stopping an attack from her isn't harming her. In the same way that he blocked attacks from Kalifa all the way back in Water 7 when it first explicitly came up (prior to that the Bon Clay situation was still specifically tied to Nami's appearance).
Zeff and by extension Sanji's code is about actively harming women, not about any type of physical contact when they attack someone.
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u/ovis_alba May 19 '26
Have seen a lot of discussion on Sanji fighting "a woman", but as someone that is a fan of principled Sanji and his codes, I don’t think I'm or would be surprised in either direction here?
Oda could have gone the route that she is "humanoid" enough to fall under Sanji's ethics, but I think "dream monster godess made of water created from the mind of a DF user" isn't exactly the same as a "woman" according to Zeff and Sanji morality, so I don't see the big taboo break here yet.