Carmen (East Blue)

Carmen (カルメン, Karumen) was a rival cook of Zeff's, and eventually of Sanji's as well. Carmen is an anime-only character.

Appearance
Carmen is a woman with fiery pink hair. She is dressed like a flamenco dancer and often holds a ladle in her mouth the way a dancer often holds a rose.

Personality
She is described as a big liar by both of her assistants and is shown to be very proud of her cooking abilities, being deeply angered at the idea that Sanji was a better cook then her. She is quite flamboyant at times, which carries over to when she cooks with showy movements. Nevertheless, she is rather fair to other cooks deep down, shown when she concedes defeat to Sanji.

History
Carmen aspired to be the greatest cook in all of East Blue, but was enraged after reading a newspaper article heralding Sanji with that title. Thus, she set out to find him. When she did, she claimed to have searched for Sanji for 10 years. (Though it was "more like 10 days" according to her assistants). She challenged Sanji to participate against her in the Loguetown cooking contest. Though, Sanji initially was not interested in the challenge (he was more interested in her), he was convinced after learning that the prize was a rare and famed Blue Fin Elephant Tuna. In the end, it came down to him and Carmen, and although the winner had not yet been announced, Carmen knew that Sanji had beaten her, though she bore no grudge.

While she was saying she had no hard feelings for Sanji's win, she had a flashback in which she was spying on him in a kitchen. While she watched him, Sanji was saying that All Blue was real to the other cooks in the kitchen. That is said to be ten years ago, so in truth, she was not lying when she said she was waiting for this for ten years.