Baratie Arc

This story arc follows the young Straw Hat crew to the sea restaurant known as the Baratie, a vessel that drifts across open water as a haven for travelers. Bounty hunters Johnny and Yosaku, old companions of Zoro, guide the pirates there so that Luffy can persuade the cook Sanji to sign on. Trouble arrives with Don Krieg, a defeated armada captain who covets the restaurant to rebuild his fleet, and the confrontation draws in the swordsman Dracule Mihawk while Nami quietly slips away with the crew's ship and gold.

Testing out their new vessel the Going Merry, Luffy and Usopp fired a cannon at a rock and accidentally struck two hunters resting on it. One of them, Johnny, proved to be Zoro's old acquaintance, traveling with his ailing partner Yosaku. After Nami treated Yosaku's scurvy, the group recognized that a proper cook was needed to keep their supplies fit for the Grand Line, so the hunters steered them toward a restaurant adrift at sea. At the Baratie, a scuffle with the Marine Fullbody left the roof damaged, and Luffy was pressed into working off the debt while the assistant chef Sanji nearly killed the officer over an insult to the food. A starving pirate named Gin was secretly fed by Sanji, but Gin's report of the restaurant led his captain, Don Krieg, to target it as a means of restoring his ruined fleet.

Krieg soon seized the Baratie by force, revealing his armada had been annihilated near the start of the Grand Line by an unknown swordsman. That figure appeared as the pirate's galleon was cleaved apart: Mihawk, the planet's greatest blade and a member of the Seven Warlords. Zoro challenged him for the title and was thoroughly outclassed, yet his resolve moved Mihawk to spare him for a future rematch. Meanwhile the crew discovered that Nami had stolen the Going Merry and their treasure, forcing Zoro, Usopp, and the hunters to give chase while Luffy remained to defend the restaurant. A flashback laid bare Sanji's history with the head chef Zeff, who had sacrificed his own leg to keep the boy alive when the two were stranded together, sharing a dream of the fabled All Blue. Luffy fought Krieg across the wreckage and beat him down, and afterward Sanji, moved by his mentor's blessing, chose to join the crew and pursue his dream at last.

Sanji became the crew's cook and its third-strongest combatant, though his family origins would stay hidden until much later. Zoro left with his first lasting battle scar and his old swords broken, setting up his acquisition of new blades soon afterward. Mihawk's introduction planted the seed of the ongoing rivalry that drives Zoro's ambition, while Nami's flight foreshadowed her ties to the fish-man pirate Arlong. Fullbody, Johnny, and Yosaku all entered the story here, and Gin departed with an ambiguous fate after surviving Krieg's poison, later confirmed to be alive. The anime introduced numerous changes, softening Zeff's flashback, adding filler characters, and altering several fights.