By Rei Penber
Here's why Sanji's new bounty after Wano is lower than Jinbe's.
After every major arc in One Piece, Oda goes over the newly assigned bounties, and, for the fans, this is certainly one of the most exciting things to look forward to. One Piece's Wano Country arc finally concluded after 4 years with chapter 1057 and with the Straw Hat Pirates out of the isolated country, it was time to see their new bounties.
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Having taken on two of the Four Emperors in Big Mom and Kaido and defeating the entirety of the Beast pirates, it goes without saying that the Straw Hat Pirates deserve high bounties. The likes of Zoro and Sanji, in particular, did the heavy lifting against Kaido's crew. However, for some reason, Sanji's bounty was revealed to be lower than Jinbe's. Sanji's bounty amounts to 1.032 billion berries, while Jinbe has a reward of 1.1 billion berries on his head. While this doesn't seem to make much sense on the surface level, there is a sound reason behind this.
A Higher Base Bounty
Every member of the Straw Hat Pirates is known to be skilled and had already made a reputation for themselves in the One Piece world prior to the war of Wano. This holds true for even the weakest members of the crew, such as Usopp or Nami. As for the stronger ones, they were already renowned pirates. Zoro's status as the Pirate Hunter was already known all over the world. At the same time, Sanji was also one of the most feared members of the crew and his bounty of 330 million was certainly an indication of the level of threat that he carries.
Jinbe, however, had already made a tremendous name for himself when compared to the likes of Zoro and Sanji. While Sanji's bounty before Wano was 330 million berries, Jinbe's reward amounted to 438 million berries, which is significantly higher than that of the Straw Hat cook. As such, Jinbe already had an advantage over Sanji right from the get-go.
Former Shichibukai Status
While having a higher base bounty certainly did help Jinbe's case, nothing helped it more than his reputation across the One Piece world. Jinbe is known to have been the right-hand man of the legendary Fisher Tiger, who once invaded the Holy Land of Mariejois and freed all the slaves. After Tiger's death, he took charge of the Sun Pirates and eventually, was given the position of Shichibukai. Jinbe then made a tremendous name for himself and became one of the most well-respected people on the seas. He earned himself the title of "Knight of the Sea," and made connections to the likes of Whitebeard. In the Paramount War, Jinbe saved Luffy's life and even stood up to the likes of Akainu, and the then-Admirals commended his bravery.
In the Whole Cake Island arc, fans could see the likes of the Big Mom Pirates giving due respect to Jinbe, and, once again, that just goes to show that he is an incredibly well-respected person in the story. For someone like him to join Luffy's crew would certainly make waves all over the world and push his infamy even further. That's certainly not all. Jinbe was, curiously, also asked about Nika by Who's Who during their fight. It appears that he holds some secrets about this legendary warrior of the past as well, which could also have aided his bounty being so high as the World Government wouldn't want this information out in the open.
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Is Jinbe Stronger Than Sanji?
Jinbe certainly has a slightly higher bounty than Sanji and this has sparked a debate in the One Piece fandom about who the stronger of the two is. However, it is already been established in the story that bounty isn't an indication of strength all the time. Strength certainly is a factor that comes into play one determining the bounty of a criminal, however, their infamy and their reputation across the world, along with the level of threat that they pose to the World Government, is another. Jinbe, as fans know, ticks all of these boxes, while Sanji doesn't have nearly as big of a reputation as him. In terms of strength, however, Sanji is certainly much stronger than Jinbe. This was evident in the Wano Country arc, where Jinbe was paired to fight against Who's Who.
While Jinbe ended up defeating him with rather ease, he still took quite a significant amount of damage in the fight. Sanji, on the other hand, was brutally beaten by Black Maria, someone who held the same rank as Who's Who, and then went on to fight Queen In battle. Furthermore, Sanji also took on both King and Queen in a fight at the same time until Zoro was done recovering. Later on, he awakened his latent Germa abilities and ended up defeating Queen with rather ease. The fact that Oda refers to Sanji as Luffy's wings, along with Zoro, puts it beyond any doubt that he is, in fact, the third-strongest member of the crew.
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