Summary
A surprisingly emotional episode delivers big action and bigger twists as the Straw Hat Pirates take on another recruit and earn the ire of another villain.
This recap of the 2023 Netflix series One Piece Season 1 Episode 6, “The Chef and the Chore Boy”, contains spoilers.
“The Chef and the Chore Boy” starts with an urgency that most previous episodes haven’t, since it picks up from the end of Episode 5 with Zoro badly wounded after his ill-advised duel with Mihawk.
Luffy goes to get help from the Baratie, but the only people available are Zeff and Sanji. Zeff uses an old seaman’s trick of applying fish skin to the wound to help staunch the bleeding and heal the flesh. He can’t promise anything, but if the others do whatever they can to help keep him tethered to the land of the living, there’s a chance he’ll make it.
One Piece Season 1 Episode 6 Recap
Mihawk returns to Garp to tell him, rather impressively smugly, that he decided not to bring Luffy in because he wants to see what happens when he sails the Grand Line. Garp tries to remind the warlord that he answers to the World Government, but it’s a waste of time. Mihawk makes a remark as he leaves about Garp’s grandson perhaps being the one to find the One Piece, and Koby overhears it.
Koby later talks with Garp about Luffy, and tells him that Luffy has always been and will always be a pirate – he’ll never change because he knows who he is, and is it the worst thing in the world to leave him be? Garp claims to get the point, but when he later assembles the Marines for new orders, he doubles down on their mission to bring Luffy and his crew to justice, to Koby’s obvious horror.
How did Sanji meet Zeff?
While Zoro heals, Sanji keeps the crew fed, and regales them with a story – told in flashback, naturally – of how he met Zeff, formerly a great pirate captain himself.
It was nine years ago, on the passenger ship Orbit, where a child Sanji was working as a cook. The ship was boarded by Zeff’s pirate crew, but a storm shipwrecked both vessels, leaving Sanji and Zeff stranded on a nearby outcrop.
With only two bags of food, Zeff sent Sanji to the other side of the outcrop with the smaller bag and told him not to bother him unless he sees a ship. He survived 70 days until, starving and desperate, he resolved to kill Zeff and take the rest of the food he had hoarded for himself.
What he discovered, though, is that the other bag contained only treasure. Zeff had given Sanji all the food and had severed and eaten his own foot to survive. He explains that he has been looking for the All Blue his whole life, and that since Sanji shares that dream, he had to keep living to one day fulfil it when Zeff was no longer around.
Who is Arlong?
Trouble comes to the Baratie in the form of Arlong, a thuggish fishman pirate who we earlier saw intimidating Buggy. Arlong’s looking for Luffy and threatens to start adding the Baratie’s patrons to the menu unless Zeff presents him.
Despite Nami’s warnings that Arlong has the highest bounty in the East Blue, Luffy refuses to let innocent people be hurt because of him, so he, Sanji, and Usopp go to protect the Baratie. There, they discover that Arlong is carrying Buggy’s head with him, and that his ear has been nestled in the trim of Luffy’s hat the whole time, listening in on their adventures.
Luffy fights Arlong and loses, despite putting in a good effort. Before Arlong can eat him, though, Nami reveals herself as a supposedly loyal member of the Arlong pirates, which is the group she has been spying for. She hands the Grand Line map over to Arlong and compels him to dump Luffy in the sea, leaving Sanji to rescue him from drowning.
One Piece Season 1 Episode 6 Ending Explained
With the group now splintered, Zoro wakes up. He pledges his unswerving allegiance to Luffy until they find the One Piece or die trying. But before they go to sail the Grand Line, they’re going after Nami.
After receiving Zeff’s blessing in a very specifically Zeff way, Sanji also joins the Straw Hat Pirates as the ship’s cook. He has a surprisingly moving farewell with Zeff as the Going Merry sails out of port.
When Usopp asks Luffy how he plans to find Nami despite not knowing where she is, Luffy reveals his secret weapon – Buggy’s severed head.
You can stream the 2023 series One Piece Season 1 Episode 6, “The Chef and the Chore Boy”, exclusively on Netflix.
