The strawhats have always been THAT reckless and THAT stupid... and perhaps even that immoral.
Reckless, that's understandable.
They however are reckless or whimsical because they're trying to protect their loved ones.
Sanji's not being reckless, he's simply being selfish because the only thing he's thinking of is women... when they're at war.
Say, remember back in the day when luffy gambled his crew on a whim? Even though it would have been easier to simply fight foxy head on and not make an arc out of him... The strawhats tried to straight up rob the sky folk.... and ended up unknowingly poorer for it.
The Davy Back fight is a LAW in the world of Pirates. They can't back down. It's something they have to do.
Robbing Skypiea, it's not like they made them impoverished. They just saved the entire nation and defeated Enel. They ended racism and civil war. Brought to tribes together and united the entire Skypiea nation. Their stealing was clearly just an attempt to make them look like real pirates, but the fact is it was literally harmless even in that situation. It's an on-going gag, the SHs try to look like pirates even though they're good people and heroes.
Can't compare that to... disregarding your comrades, endangering them because of lust... during war?
There is no scenario where sanji following after the scent of lovely ladies isn't business as usual for the strawhats.
Who said otherwise?
The point is in a war.... he just saw Momonosuke get kidnapped. And his first instinct was to chase after women?
Gag or not, there's no justification when such a stupid code puts others at risk; when has Zoro's alcoholism and Luffy's gluttony been a situation where it was Food vs Comrades or Alcohol vs Comrades, and they chose the former? Not once, they'd always choose comrades over anything, that's the point.
The strawhats always pull up nonsensical stunts and then make up for them through the arc via victories.
Not at all.
Tell me one time where Luffy had to choose between Meat and saving a nation or his comrades, and chose meat?
There's never been a time where this happened.
There's been gags, but there's never been a time where they let their quirks take precedence over what was truly important when it was with lives at stake.
Sanji is consistently a jackass who then goes on to not win fights.
Not at all.
This is literally the first time where it's been this divisive.
WCI, the Cake was absolutely needed because not quelling her rampage would have destroyed the entire WCI. Granted, he could have even poisoned the cake, but chose not to, he could be somewhat forgiven, but in this arc? There's no silver-lining, it was straight up unjustified perversion.
No one would care about sanji's whoring sidequest if there wasn't a possibility of him finishing the arc with as many victories as in dressrosa...
Sanji can whore all he wants, that's not the problem.
The problem is when a stupid reason is why he's disregarding his comrades and putting everyone in danger.
I'm not even concerned with the battles... this is a war arc... he will likely fight someone formidable. Even if he wins, it won't change the fact he's been a piece of shit.
Caring about Sanji fighting is like having the uncle that rapes, but then pays one's way to school or buys them a nice car. The end result doesn't resolve the main issue nor does it justify forgiveness. Sanji can go on to defeat Kaido, the point is he's still chosen to be selfish at a time where one can't be selfish.
What Sanji's doing is like someone knowing their family member is kidnapped, but decides to go to the massage parlour, the club, the bar and then goes off to a Sauna before going to resolve the issue of the family member being kidnapped. Even if they end up saving their kidnapped family member, the fact they did other unimportant things would suggest they're assholes and don't care much for their family members... that's literally what Sanji is doing here in comparison.
Sanji would be a good match for perospero.. perhaps he is straight up a hard counter unless perospero can produce some candy variety that is more fire resistant...
Not necessarily. Just because he can use fire doesn't mean he's strong enough to defeat Perospero. Perospero is a veteran who is capable of using Haki. He defeated 2 SuLong. Strong fighters don't necessarily need their ability to be dangerous, they're still elite fighters without it. Even with flames, Sanji wouldn't be at the advantage because Perospero's ability allows him to create so much candy that flames that Sanji could produce could merely be like flames to a big candle... barely effective.
Unless Sanji's strength is much better than we currently have seen, I doubt he can just beat Perospero. Fire doesn't guarantee victory against Perospero. He's a beast that even Marco acknowledges. He's not going out of his way to fight him, but wanted to even ally because his strength is the real deal.