Toei’s Sanji Bias Is Impossible To Ignore After He Kicks St. Nusjuro In One Piece 1147
Sanji gets done dirty again: One Piece episode 1147 dulls his manga-defining rescue of Bonney and Franky and a slick block-and-kick on St. Nusjuro, igniting backlash from fans who say the anime botched one of his biggest glow-ups.
Sanji finally got a manga moment begging for an anime glow-up... and episode 1147 shrugged. If you felt that save-and-kick against St. Nusjuro should have rattled the screen and instead landed like a tap, you are not alone.
What actually happens in episode 1147
Sanji swoops in on Egghead to yank Bonney and Franky out of danger, meets St. Nusjuro head-on, blocks the attack, and tags him with a kick. On paper, that is a fireworks moment. In the episode, the staging and impact are weirdly muted. Some viewers are straight-up saying the manga panel hits harder than the full animated sequence, which is not the goal.
One fan put it bluntly on October 26, 2025, riffing on the episode with: "Damn, this looked much better in the manga" and "No Zoro, no budget" (Pirate Path). That tone carried across a lot of timelines.
Toei can absolutely cook... just not for Sanji?
Before anyone points at schedules or staff lists: yes, Toei Animation has delivered recent bangers. The Gear 5 episodes? Wild. Luffy vs. Kizaru? A showcase. So the studio can go all-in when it wants to. The head-scratcher is how often Sanji-specific peaks keep getting sanded down.
A fan animation showed what the scene could have been
Within hours, a fan cut of the Sanji vs. St. Nusjuro sequence popped up and immediately made the official version look sleepy. The kicks have snap, the timing flows, and the whole beat finally reads like the big Sanji rescue it is.
"A random fan animation is doing this scene 100x more justice than the biggest anime studio in japan. Major but expected disappointment." — Nutty II, October 26, 2025
People rallied around that clip because it does the obvious thing: it turns a clean, heroic intercept into something kinetic and loud. You do not need sakuga extravagance for that. You just need clarity and punch.
Is this just bad luck, or a pattern?
Some fans still chalk it up to episode-by-episode variance. Others say the trend is too consistent to ignore, especially in Egghead. A few past examples keep getting dragged into the conversation for comparison:
- Sanji vs. Queen came in colder than expected for a marquee matchup.
- Sanji vs. S-Shark and the Edison save (episode 1105) felt undercooked, energy-wise.
- Meanwhile, Toei poured visible love into recent Gear 5 material and the Luffy vs. Kizaru showdown, which makes the contrast sting more.
Where this leaves Sanji (and the fandom)
After how some fans felt Zoro was handled in parts of Egghead and now this Sanji moment getting flattened, the frustration makes sense. The show overall is still solid week to week, but when a long-awaited character spotlight shows up and turns into a shrug, it hits different.
If you want to compare for yourself, all previously released One Piece episodes are up on Crunchyroll. And if that fan animation crosses your feed, yeah, it is probably the one everyone is talking about.
Did episode 1147 whiff Sanji’s big save, or are folks overreacting? I’m leaning toward whiff.