If we speak about 1v1 match-ups that's only true for Luffy and Usopp kind of. Though in the latter case it is mental related only and Usopp has been quite consistently portrayed as a superhuman since his introduction in Syrup Village.
Zoro has one fight that pushed him beyond his limits (vs Daz Bones), Chopper has one (vs Kumadori) other than that I can't think of any.
It’s true for all of the Strawhats. The two arcs in particular that had them go all out were Baroque Works and Ennis Lobby, where they all had to go beyond what they were previously capable of, which included pulling out brand new techniques, in order to get their particular victories. It doesn’t matter if they were already superhuman, they ran into opponents they were previously portrayed as inferior to and overcome them.
Nami's fights look like it but since the moment she starts fighting, she becomes holder of a weapon of superpower. She already had the 1HKO from the start vs Miss Doublefinger and the challenge was Usopp's manual more than the second strongest female Baroque officer. Pretty sure the 1HKO would have have undone Sanji as well (it is implied to not have been fixable after breaking though). Against Khalifa it is the same. She already hold the power to defeat her at the start of the fight with her upgraded climate tact. Nami never gets injured much in any fight.
Nami having the potential to one shot her opponents doesn’t matter as, more often than not, it’s made clear that she is weaker than her opponents. It’s why she needs to run away or use tricky strategies because her opponents can usually end her more easily than she can end them. Miss Doublefinger held the advantage the vast majority of time in their fight. Same with Khalifa. It’s sheer luck that Nami got as far as she did with the latter. And it took more than one shot to end Khalifa.
There isn't a single full feature 1v1 where Sanji didn't defeat his oppenent mid-diff at max.
What does this mean? That Sanji has never had an easy fight? Or that he’s never had a particularly difficult one?
Last arc showed Sanji's potential without a power-up. He got ganged by a group of younger Charlotte children. That's very far away from defeating the entire Mink Tribe in Sulong.
Sanji was looking after a passed out Luffy. Fighting wasn’t on his mind at all as he just needed to escape safely. Nevermind that Jack quite literally had an army of Gifters and a Number backing him up against said tribe. I’m not claiming that Sanji would fair that much better in either scenario, but you can’t ignore the context of those situations.
Sanji couldn’t break through Blueno’s Tekkai and yet he went on to beat Jabra, who is nearly 3 times stronger in the same arc. In WCI, he got blown back by Daifuku then proceeded to easily stalemate him to protect Carrot and the ship when he attacked later in the arc.
This is a Shounen. Fights are expected. Stronger opponents are expected. It should be expected that we see our protagonists win their fights. Especially in One Piece, which has been following the same narrative patterns for years.
Now Sanji has gotten a power-up, but power-ups aren't SSJ. They only push the character one step further from were he previously was. WCI's final panels imply Germa loosing. That's 5 Raid suits, including one that is for someone without genetic exoskeleton as well (Judge's). While Sanji is stronger than his entire family, the suit does certainly not grant the power to defeat even Jack.
That’s how you want power ups to work. But that doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to go down.
Those are just assumptions about something we didn’t even see the conclusion of. It’s especially bizarre that you use that line of thought for the Vinsmoke, but ignore that Jinbe and his crew were also left in the same exact situation. But, here he is, with his new crew and no worse for wear. He was even late because his old crew threw him a party, clearly showing that all of them got out. There is nothing saying that the Vinsmoke lost and it's exceedingly likely we'll see them again.
To build up that, it’s not even the first time that the Vinsmoke were apparently taken out by the Big Mom Pirates, only for it to be revealed later that they were fine. They survived their ambush on the cake and managed to come to Sanji’s and Luffy’s aid when they needed it after tricking her crew that they all were killed.
It really just seems like you are attempting to find any excuse to downplay the strength of the Raid Suit. We’ve literally just seen what it’s capable of defense wise with it defending Sanji from a direct hit from King.
There is also the fact Sanji, without a suit, was able to defeat Yonji, who was in his suit, and keep up with Judge, who was also in his suit, implying that his natural level of power equals or exceeds theirs with their suits. The suits increase the users fighters abilities, so his boost may be significantly higher than theirs.
And again, we don’t know what Sanji will be pulling out when the time comes for him to fight. Diable Jambe showed up out of nowhere. There is nothing saying that he won’t be pulling out something else, be it in combination with the suit or without it. There was also a clear period of time where we don’t know what he was doing or improving on. The same could be said for the other Strawhats and it’s highly unlikely that Luffy and Zoro were the only ones training or improving for a Raid against a Yonkou.
Post-WCI Luffy was still weaker than Katakuri, whom he only defeated via circumstances like all of his previous foes before. Luffy never wins his major fights due to being stronger.
I don’t disagree, but whether or not that is the case, Luffy clearly got stronger during the fight to the point where he was able to keep up with Katakuri far better than he was able to at the start of the fight. He overcame Katakuri enough to fight against him on even terms.
So Sanji defeating Queen or King is straightforward impossible. Oda would completely blow his power-scaling that he so carefully set up by introducing the top end very early into the story: Shanks, Garp, Mihawk and Dragon in the first Saga, Crocodile and Ace in the second, Blackbeard, Whitebeard, Sengoku and the rest of the Shishibukai in the third, the Admirals in the fourth and so on. He then compared almost all of these in Marineford.
No, it’s not.
The only misstep Oda has made in regards to power scaling is not allowing the Strawhats to get proper single fights to naturally progress and to give us an idea of where they actually stand. However, that vagueness also allows them to be exactly where he wants to be when they need to be.
All of those individuals are still as strong as they are. That isn’t changing. The only ones who need to change are the Strawhats, and we are going to see those changes soon.
The powerlevels of One Piece are pretty hard set into stone.
The Strawhats are not static. The Worst Generation as a whole are not static. Things are changing because these characters are getting stronger and beating the old guards and upsetting the status quo. And it’s not just them. Months ago, I highly doubt anyone would’ve believed that the Scabbards would’ve been the first to injure Kaido...until they did it. Things aren’t set in stone.
The top is defined as the Yonko and Admirals. Meaning that is where Luffy will be at the end.
Below the top come characters like Marco, Jozu or Katakuri. King and Queen certainly belong into this category as well.
Luffy needs to be somewhat higher than that to be where he wants to be. And for Luffy to do that, he and his crew need to overcome and get stronger.
So it is unreasonable that Sanji gets to the maximum potential he holds as a character in the penultimate arc. What will he do in the remaining 5 years, become Pirate King?
Personally I think he will actually stay just below it EoS and that's perfectly justifiable for someone in his 20s.
It's not unreasonable as we don't know where the story is heading after this. We don’t know where any of The Strawhats’ maximum potential will be, except for maybe Zoro, who we know will be stronger than Mihawk.
Age doesn’t matter. Luffy is not even 20, yet he’s already on the level of a Yonkou’s First Mate. Sabo is 22, is already the second in command of the Revolutionary Army, and can fight against an Admiral. A lot of characters have an extreme potential for growth and Sanji (along with the rest of the Strawhats) is among that group.
There are still other Commanders to face off against, who may or may not be stronger, CP0, the new SSG project that the WG has, potentially Admirals, and whatever else may show up. The challenges aren’t going to stop if Sanji beats a Commander. All it will confirm is that Sanji is now able to fight against folks on that level.
Something to consider: If you start reading the series, than CP9 looks way more overwhelming than Baroque Works. However if you continue and maybe reread once, you have to get rid of this notion.
Oda reintroduces the Baroque Works agents in arcs that allow for mass comparison powerlevel analysis. They don't show any features they didn't show before. Yet they don't perform bad at all, neither in Impel Down, nor in Marineford. And what the feats show pretty much speaks for itself. Kaku wouldn't be capable of blocking a much stronger attack from Mihawk than the one Daz Bones blocked. Most of CP9 would be just as troubled by the Level 5 wolves as Bentham, as these are intended to keep 100M belly Pirates in check. And no one out of them would be capable of blocking Magellan and Sengoku like Galdino, who also restrained the greatest pirates of their era in his introduction arc btw.
This is a strange tangent.
CP9 would easily be able to go through Impel Down because, from what we’ve seen, they are stronger than Baroque Works members.
Kaku probably could block the same attack from Mihawk as Daz Bones did, especially since the attack wasn’t even meant for Daz Bonez and he intercepted it. And like Daz Bones, he’d easily be slashed down once Mihawk puts forth the correct effort.
Given the fact that all members of CP9 have Tekkai, Geppou, and Soru, Level 5 wolves wouldn’t do anything to them. CP9 are government trained agents who all have versatile techniques and a strong physical foundation. The situations wouldn’t be remotely similar. Nevermind that, if the Vivre Card Databook is to be believed, they knew haki.
Galdino was only able to stand up to Magellan and Sengoku because of the nature of his fruit, not because he was strong, especially not because he was stronger than CP9. Nevermind that Blackbeard couldn’t even stand up to Magellan and he was probably the strongest individual in the prison during the time he invaded with Luffy. Same could be said about him (and his crew) being hit by Sengoku’s ability.
Page One and Ulti are only 20 and 22 years old. They are Super Rookies like the Strawhats. I doubt Page One is worth more than 200M. People just have a really wrong impression about Yonko crews. Squardo is 200M, Bobbin 106M, both are Yonko executives, and in the former case we are talking about a veteran from Roger's era.
Again, age doesn’t matter. And again, you are making assumptions. We barely know anything about them, their past, or their bounties.
Squard isn’t a Yonkou crew member, he’s just a Pirate Captain allied with WB. And Bobbins wasn’t anywhere near an executive. The only clear executives in her crew were her children, who were appointed Ministers.
There is a conversation to be had about Yonkou crews being full of fodder and how those individual members shouldn’t be overestimated, but in this case, Page One and Ulti are among the key members of Kaido’s crew, right below his All Stars. They have much more plot relevance than Bobbins and, to a certain extent, Squard since his actions lead were key to WB's death which, obviously, effected the plot as a whole. Even then, he hasn't been brought up since.
Page One is probably a bit stronger than Bobbin but still weaker than Pekoms.
Do you have any proof to back up that statement?
Bobbins got laid out by a nameless Sanji kick. Page One took several of Sanji’s kicks and kept trucking on one occasion and a direct Elephant Gun to the chin on another. He’s still running around after taking the latter.
Ulti herself took a direct hit by Yamato to the face and recovered quickly moments later. The same Yamato who was capable of fighting a base Luffy to a standstill. He’s also implied that he fought Ace in the past.
Do you really believe that Bobbins and Pekoms can take the same level of hits from Luffy and Yamato and keep trucking? Because from what I’ve seen, they can’t.
People think all Yonko crews are the same, but the reason why people like Marco, Jozu, Katakuri, Jack or Queen are considered as a comparable tier has nothing to with rank but because they have actually comparable feats. Atmos is of the same rank as Marco, yet much weaker. The Flying Six are what they are, and not necessarily the same as Perospero, Oven, Daifuku. If anything, this story heavily implies that the Big Mom Pirates are more powerful than the Beast Pirates.
Yonkou Crews are different, but follow a similar structure. A Captain and their 3 Main Executives. It’s why we have the fan designations of YC1, YC2, and YC3. Marco, Vista, Jozu, Katakuri, Smoothie, Cracker, King, Queen, Jack, Beckmann, Yasopp, and Roo all follow these patterns. Blackbeard is also likely to follow this pattern, but we haven't seen much of his crew's structure yet.
The Flying Six are exactly the same as Perospero, Oven, Daifuku, and Compote because, like them, they are clearly the closest individuals to the Top 3 Executives of their particular crews. We’ve gotten in story confirmation of this being the case. In fact, it’s been said more for the Flying Six than it has been for those 4 members of the Big Mom Pirates, seeing as how the opportunity for promotion to that rank is/was their incentive to search for Yamato.
