WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chapter #3 of Shokugeki no Sanji by Yuto Tsukuda, Shun Saeki, Yuki Morisaki, Adrienne Beck, and Annaliese "Ace" Christman, available in English now from Viz Media.
With the One Piece manga in the middle of one of its largest showdowns at the moment, it's easy to get nostalgic about more intimate scenes involving the Straw Hats. Thankfully, the creators of Food Wars!, Yūto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki, are back to do just that with another chapter of the Sanji side-story manga, Shokugeki no Sanji. While the first chapter was a prequel set right before the Baratie arc and the second during East Blue, this third chapter is a follow-up to the feast scene at the end of Alabasta.
After defeating Crocodile and stopping the Alabasta rebellion, the Straw Hat crew enjoy a delicious feast in the palace in Shokugeki no Sanji Chapter #3, where they're joined by King Cobra and their friend, Princess Vivi. Just seeing the desert princess again alongside the crew is so nostalgic for long-time One Piece fans, and while Sanji is the focus, Tsukuda and Saeki also provide us with some terrific Vivi scenes.
As Sanji takes a smoke break, he overhears how Chef Terracotta had chefs from all across Alabasta come to cook the Straw Hat Pirates' victory celebration. Unfortunately, though, the chefs traveling from out of the capital have been delayed by a carriage accident, and Luffy's appetite only seems to be growing since the feast began.
The cooking staff considers letting the crew and King Cobra know about the delay, but Terracotta refuses. After everything the Straw Hats did for their kingdom, Terracotta wants to repay them with full stomachs and satisfied appetites. Luckily, our chef in fashionable armor steps in, offering to be the kitchen staff's "stagiaire."
Terracotta accepts Sanji's offer and he quickly performs any cooking task the head chef assigns him. What's most interesting here, though, is something one of the cooks notices about Sanji: "There's a sense under it all he just wants to do things for others. That he finds joy simply in the act of cooking."
When you look past Sanji's "Horny on Main" exterior, you find a man who just loves feeding people. That's been part of his character from the very beginning. From his introduction in One Piece when he was the only cook in Baratie who would feed the starving pirate Gin, to Whole Cake Island when Sanji refused to let Bege poison the wedding cake he baked for Big Mom. While he may have a foul mouth and perverted mind, Sanji's heart overflows with kindness and compassion, and it's through feeding others that we really see what type of man this chef is when the chips are down.
When the chefs from all across Alabasta finally roll in, it becomes apparent that Saeki really studied Oda's art style because there are some very exaggerated and fun designs among them. Returning to the dinner table in time to sate his captain's hunger, Sanji gifts Vivi with a stunning dessert made just for her, sparking some adorable callbacks across the Alabasta saga of some of Vivi's fondest memories with her friends. The chapter ends on a sweet moment with Chef Terracotta gifting Sanji a secret cookbook of Alabasta recipes before the crew dashes off into the night.
The feast scenes in One Piece are what close out every arc, adding an air of fun and relief. In Alabasta, the crew worked their hardest to help their friends and take down the people who imposed their will over others. Seeing our favorite pirate crew celebrate their victory is just as important. Tsukada and Saeki understand this, evidenced by the camaraderie you'd see around a dinner table in Food Wars!. You couldn't ask for a better duo to depict this scene.
Their unabashed love for the curly-browed chef of the Straw Hats also gives him an earnestness we're only used to seeing sparingly in the source material. Tying that to the self-sacrificing and heartwarming Vivi, who is surprisingly not hypersexualized by a duo best known for their "food porn" transformations, and the chapter leaves us feeling even more wistful for Alabasta and our favorite desert princess.
The Shokugeki no Sanji chapters are produced infrequently for the One Piece manga and in all honesty, that's for the best. We won't know when the next chapter of Shokugeki no Sanji will come out, but we can say for certain Sanji will definitely have a seat waiting for us.