One Piece animator Vincent Chansard addressed sentiments within a part of the fanbase about an anti-Sanji bias at Toei Animation. When asked on the Brago D. Ace YouTube channel (via X, formerly Twitter) if Toei “hates” Sanji, Chansard said:
“It’s amazing! You’re bringing up everything we’ve discussed with colleagues!” He added that they do discuss and banter about the idea of being biased against Sanji, continuing, “You’ve probably seen Ishitani-san fighting with [fans]. It goes without saying [that was ridiculous]. Obviously, with colleagues we’ve been like, ‘Is there any like… Is there something we should do differently…?’ Because obviously, when it comes to the top people in One Piece — the people who are in the deciding position who attribute these scenes […] — obviously, there is no agenda in these people.“
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The aforementioned incident with One Piece episode director and storyboard artist [Megumi] Ishitani refers to when a section of fans targeted her account with criticism, escalating to harassment, over Episode 1123 and One Piece‘s depiction of Sanji more generally. Ishitani is among One Piece‘s most acclaimed and social media-active staff.
Despite not being involved with the episode, proponents of a Sanji bias at Toei Animation replied to her posts with images and comments comparing the manga and anime, finding that Sanji was removed from a group shot and a fight scene with S-Shark changed. Meanwhile, the anime’s adaptation of Sanji’s already quirky nature didn’t go down well with dissatisfied fans. Ishitani told fans to refrain from directing criticisms of the whole One Piece project at individuals.
Chansard continues, “So like, it could be — Because what I will say, is in Wano, I didn’t feel like this at all as a fan. Like, the Sanji vs. Queen episode had Akihiro Ota-san… Tu Yong-Ce-san. You could say very much like the biggest names were on the Sanji vs. Queen episode. So I never really felt like this was a genuine concern. What I will say, as a One Piece fan, like when you look at all the Zoro scenes and all the Sanji scenes, and look at the names of the animators who are on these scenes, you can’t help but notice an imbalance.“
“But I’m not sure where it comes from because I know for a fact that the people deciding who’s in charge of these scenes do not care about agendas and stuff. My theory, but again it’s just a theory — an anime theory — maybe, I feel like, because Zoro’s scenes tend to be longer and tend to center around narrative bits, like when Luffy, Kaku, and Lucci were together… Because it just happened to be where things are happening, naturally, maybe the people in charge of attributing these scenes tend to give it to more high [level] animators. I could be wrong. But that’s my analysis of it. Although, as a One Piece fan, not as a One Piece animator, I’m curious to see how it evolves in the next episode.“
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Crunchyroll streams the latest episodes of One Piece weekly, and describes the series:
Monkey D. Luffy refuses to let anyone or anything stand in the way of his quest to become King of the Pirates. With his rubber-like stretching powers granted by the supernatural Devil Fruit, the spirited young pirate seeks the legendary treasure known as the One Piece. He’ll chart a course for the treacherous waters of the Grand Line and recruit a motley crew to build his Straw Hat Pirates one bond at a time. This is one captain who’ll never drop anchor until he and his friends all reach their dreams!
Source: Brago D. Ace YouTube channel, via X (formerly Twitter)
© Eiichiro Oda / Shueisha / Toei Animation
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