Ch. 45 page 18: “I would stoop to becoming a pirate, or even kill, if only I could be with you ♡!” — Sanji’s lovesick-conversion-vector is canonized. Hearts radiate from him; the heart-eye reaction and prostrate-love-speech and I-would-do-anything-for-the-lady registers are all locked in a single panel.
Why this matters
The lovesick-cook archetype is one of One Piece’s most-referenced character templates. Sanji’s recruitment-decision-vector is shifted in a single panel from ‘I won’t join’ (page 5) to ‘I would do anything for the lady’ (page 18) — the chapter stages the recruitment-flip via a single new-information event (Nami’s existence on the crew).
The Sanji-recruitment signature is locked here: the cook joins the crew the woman is on. The hearts-as-SFX-symbol becomes Sanji’s permanent expressive register, paying off in every Sanji-meets-woman beat for the rest of the series (Vivi, Robin, Carrot, Pudding, every named female character).
The recruitment-vector axis broadens: crew-composition recruitment is a distinct vector from captain-charisma recruitment. Sanji is the first on-page Straw Hat recruited via who else is on the crew, not who is the captain.
Ch. 82 — navigator-framing distinct from darling-framing installs