Fire leg was not only random, it didnt make sense in the series. I mean bombs and shit burn them, but not bone burning friction heat? The exploding cloud bombs of that priest burnt sanji's clothes, but not dragging his foot on the ground to the point where it glows red and burns flesh.
But that's been inconsistant througout. When Sanji fought against Pearl way back, his clothes didn't burn at all either. Priest Satori's bombs singed both Sanji and his clothes pretty good, but he got better pretty much by the next scene. Enel's Judgement aboard the Maxim also just left him and his clothes kind of singed, but he and his outfit again got better not terribly long after. Shigan attacks puncture deep into flesh and draw blood, but then seem completely fine a few moments later.
The damage taken by these characters is all but completely arbitrary; Luffy and Sanji get beat up like whoah and they bleed a bit, but Zoro gets cut once and he's gushing out oceans of blood. Likewise, only Zoro seems to carry any lasting scars, despite the fact that practically all of them have taken enough damage to warrant some massive scarring. The same seems to go for their clothes; one moment they may be blackend, torn, burnt or whatever, and the next they're perfectly fine. Or they may take damage from something some of the time, but not all of the time. Case in point, Luffy's shirt and bullets. Sometimes they tear through his clothes, sometimes his clothes just stretch to accomodate them. It all depends, and it seems pretty random to me.
I personally subscribe to that line of thinking in One Piece that is it works because it's a manga and thereby not realistic, but that's more than half of the fun in reading or watching things like this.
Exactly. I also find it to be more than a little hilarious-yet-odd that it's so easy to accept that yes, Sanji can move fast enough to create the insane friction needed to heat his leg white hot, while at the same time having a problem with how his clothes don't catch on fire because of said heat. Maybe it's just me, but I find that it's actually easier to suspend my disbelief over ridiculously heat resistant clothing – especially given how that's an anime and manga staple – than it is to accept that Sanji has the so-fast-it's-practically-stupid speed necessary to heat his leg up so hot that it glows. But because both are silly and it's a manga, a shounen manga no less, I just accept it as is. Trying to analyse something like this would just give me a headache in the long run, and like Taiar and DoctorDrink, among others, have said, it's all fiction anyway.
I think if we can accept the fact that Zoro throws beams of energy out of his three swords though, getting past the fact that Sanji heats up his leg to that kind of effect shouldn't be too much more difficult.
Seriously. I mean, by this point we've seen some truly bizarre, insane things in this series. Devil cursed Fruit, exploding boogies, giant crocodile monsters with bananas growing out of their heads, a unicycling swordsman and a guy in a cutoff fursuit that rides a handlebar maned pink and green lion, a battle suit made out of ramen noodles and all other manner of weirdness. Why is it that it's so easy to take all of that in stride but then balk at the idea that Sanji's clothes are beyond super heat resistant? I mean, Zoro can create illusions out of his battle spirit and both Luffy and Chopper have clothes that are practically indestructible, yet no one seems to have a problem with any of that.
Or what about Franky? Dude's a self-crafted, DYI cyborg powered by cola. That deserves a repeat and a bold: a self-crafted cyborg powered by cola. I mean, come on! No matter how you slice it, that is some seriously over the top craziness there. I dunno about any of you, but I find that to be way more out there and unbelievably insane than the idea that Sanji's got super-duper heat resistant clothing.
~ jj ~