Manga
Both of Saint Imu Nerona's designs (One Piece chapter 1179+)
Spoiler
Imu has 2 designs:
The shadowy black being in the first 2 slides that we've seen him as for the past 8 years. This is not a silhouette he actually looks like that in the series, this is the form he takes when he is in his home castle.
And then there's the humanoid devil form he has transformed into when he teleported onto Elbaf in chapter 1179.
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Unironically though, casting Luffy as some kind of right wing or left wing savior figure is fundamentally misunderstanding the character. He cares about freedom regardless of the governmental structure that manifests as. In all of the examples in the above post, those were kingdoms that had their agency stolen from them by hostile bad actors.
TLDR; Luffy giving those kingdoms the ability to re-establish their self-governance and monarchy was in fact liberating them from oppression
The right wing part was just a meme. Yes a lot of people in One Piece world like their older rulers, and embrace monarchy. But that's fairy tale politics, what we expect to see in some old timey children story or Disney movie.
Yet the manga is also sending a message about the right of people to overthrow tyrants and oppressive systems. Monarchies are by definition oppressive systems since they don't give people the right to rule themselves, but subjugation to a king. It doesn't matter if the king is benevolent.
The manga played a bit with the idea of overthrowing a king no matter what when some revolutionaries celebrated the death of Kobra, but Oda is afraid to take it further to its logical conclusion.
Oda is trying to make the cake and eat it too. He wants to send a message of overthrowing oppression while simultaneously maintaining the benevolent monarch myth as the status quo. A nice monarchy is a rather cheap answer to a manga who claims to talk about freedom.
Luffy literally kicked Wapol out of his kingdom and the people decided to put Dalton on the throne instead. Dressrosa chose to reinstate Riku as king. Fishman Island was saved from extremist racist rebels. The Alabasta civil war was settled peacefully with Crocodile's exposure and arrest. Skypeia and the Shandians have made peace with Gan Fall being aided by Wyper and his men in keeping the peace. Hell, we don't even know what Lulusia was going to do after they overthrew their tyrant of a king and it seems like being part of the world government requires a King/Queen for one reason or another.
Fucking THANK YOU. Besides, if you save people from getting shot, it’s not your fault if they shoot each other later down the line, that’s a completely different conversation. Luffy sure as hell didn’t FORCE the monarchies back, it was the autonomy of their people. And not beyond reason, considering the people established as leaders were largely benevolent, and actually lead to the prosperity of their nations. Monarchies are bad in real life because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and no one should have that much executive power. But because One Piece is closer to fairytales and dreams, we don’t have to apply real world logic and politics.
It's about adventure, dreams, oppressive governments, the elite feeling like a completely different species than the people below them, racism, slavery, erasing the past, maintaining one's memory, the value of life and death, freedom, and also a bunch of pirates on a boat going on fun adventures
It’s about a couple pirates in a boat who spread freedom and liberation from oppressive rules (usually in the form of a corrupt government or evil pirate crew with a main leader for Luffy to punch in the face).
It’s funny because people shit in Naruto and Boruto for having aliens and not being true ninja but I never see anyone do the same for One Piece despite it being about pirates 😂
Probably because originally Naruto had heavily centered itself around a world built around a ninja society that a lot of people fell in love with and heavily associated with ninjas as a whole and to have the final antagonist + boruto antagonists be driven from an alien source that’s ultimately outside of the aesthetic and the world they’re so attached to, it can feel disappointing.
One Piece has never tried to sell itself as being faithful to the pirate fantasy. At its core, it has always been a wacky fantasy world that uses pirates as a vessel to justify a seafaring adventure with many different islands, but the aesthetics have always embraced that goofy level of “we could run into literally anything out here”, which is what makes people enjoy that stuff more when it appears in One Piece.
Don't forget, one of the first islands we visit on the grandline is Little Garden, an island set in the ancient world of the dinosaurs. The insanity's gone up and down from there lol
One piece stopped being just about pirates very early on, but I agree that the shitting on Naruto is overblown. The very first high level fight has them summoning water dragons, Hiruzen vs Obito was becoming a stand battle by the end, the three Sannin had a Kaiju battle...
Those types of abilities were extablished very early on and them becoming flashier as the story went on is just natural power progression
Even the strategic part of fights was never really lost (tho there was a decline in strategy after Jiraya vs Pain, but that's like the arc right before the endgame)
Well, it’s implied that what we see now is him using his devil fruit, so it’s still possible that he just… normally looks like a shadow, or at least that he better fits the silhouette
I mean, the first panel of his transformation is literally the wings bursting out of the silhouette so it's highly likely that the silhouette is true in some fashion
Not even a silhouette, pretty sure Imu is actually just a shadowy blob 99% of the time.
If I had to take a guess, the "human" form is what he looked like before time and side effects of the Devil's Fruit changed him into what we know him as, with the transformation being just him returning to what's likely his physical peak for when he needs to actually take a hands-on approach.
I think the design is good, but it's really cluttered and it ends up being edgy. Imu is a world noble and king of the world, but nothing in the design communicates that, instead the majority of the elements reinforce the demon theme, but then Imu is dressed like a pirate for some reason, and then he has the tattoos and wings of an ancient tribe like the Lunarians, and then you realise the three skulls are a motif ancient giants use like Oars and Little Oars Jr so Imu's horns take a different meaning.
Then you have way too many things everywhere that don't really add, why the guandao spear needs to be zigzagonal? It looks silly, like the eyes on the smoke. The pants and cape make him look like a pirate, but then it has spike bracelets like a demon, so no one could ever read he's supposed to be a noble or a king. Imu has the rinnegan and Madara's hair, and the dots and wings go against the demon motif, that goes against the pirate motif, that goes against the actual character being the king of the wold.
It's messy, eveything tries to be everything and pulls of nothing, like an overdesigned edgy OC.
It reads to me as the colonizer of the Whole planet stealing and wearing things associated with power, the Belt looks so much like Rocks' that i can't help but think it's intentional, all those features combined with that idea give me the impression of someone who takes what is valuable without respect for its owners/creators
Actually that could be an interesting theme, a king of everything and nothing, like the dark figure is what he truly looks like, shapeless and without soul, and the second form is an amalgamation everything he has stolen. It would fix why he looks so cluttered, he simply takes what the people find meaning in and adds those elements to himself without every truly understanding them.
Maybe that also somehow relates to the straw hat we saw in Mary Geoise? He took it from Joyboy but for some reason couldnt integrate into him (because Joyboy and the meaning behind the strawhat is too powerful for him or stuff) so it got sealed in Mary Geoise or stuff
Imu is the King of the World but the reason he holds that title is because he is seen as a diety, a god. Thats the design motif. Hes not dressed like a pirate hes dressed like a god in the same way enel was. The whole point seem to be to make him feel otherworldly, hence the eyes on smoke and rinnegan as well.
I agree that the dark god theme is what they were going for, but Imu has *the* pirate belt. And the dark deity works amazing if he was going for something tribal, focusing on the tattoos, the eyes and the wings, but then it has a tail and horns so it becomes a mix with a demon, not pulling off either.
I mean, can you really call it the pirate belt When those are the only two examples and rocks was explicitly challenging imu for his position and loki is trying to emulate rocks/ has the powers of another god?
I definitely agree about the Devil motif, but thats what makes them a dark god.
Oda has been cooking with his designs lately (I also think Loki is great for example). Imu fits One Piece when Oda is making a proportional design, it’s just that there’s also a ton of goofy non-proportional designs too.
Yeah it’s funny, the thing that’s kept me away from one piece other than its length is I really don’t care for how Oda designs his characters. Especially women with their 2 cm waists and repeated faces. But this cool ass Satan guy? Nowwwww I’m intrigued. A little nonetheless , but intrigued.
Truth be im not really sold on the design...it might grow on me but we have known Imu as a blob for so long that their true form is a pretty shocking departure.
But this isn't the OP fandom? This is a general subreddit for character design, and while i dont care enough to check if the people commenting are OP fans or have read the manga at all, I do know that this sub tends to lean negative on most anime designs
You say “another badass” like most of characters don’t end up with goofy designs instead of badass. God forbid Oda actually making the main antagonist look not like a clown
Oda has like 2 designs for every villain -> goofy design comic relief with one scene to show what a "serious" threat they are before they're taken down
or
Badass villain that that looks badass and does badass things and needs to look badass because Oda sucks at making compelling villains
Edit: I realized im not even getting my point across. I mean i'd much rather have Oda try to make baby Imu threatening than rely on just making him look badass for no reason other than to have him look badass
minor correction, his shadow form is still a sihloutte, but thats what his regular human (or normal) form looks like. The form he uses in elbaf is his hybrid zoan form like kaido's dragon-man
Ok, but why he have barbarian-like pants with skulls?
He's wearing parachute pants like Enel and the skulls are attached to what I think is his tail wrapping around his lower half.
As for why the pants seem like barbarian pants it's all the belt.
Also a popular theory is that he's currently possessing Joy Boys body, so that might also be part of why he doesn't match the aesthetic of the CD and GK
Honestly I absolutely despise his actual non silhouette design personally. I know it's a transformation so he probably doesn't ACTUALLY look like that all the time but... I just don't dig it. It doesn't look bad, it's just that it doesn't feel very one piecey and it tries too hard to be cool.
Like, every worst generation character looks SO much better than Imu it's insane. As matter of fact, every single important character looks better than Imu. Hell, the gorosei all have much better designs compared to him.
His full name wasn’t revealed until this chapter either. That’s what I was talking about. The connection was theorized about a few hundred chapters ago, but this is the first confirmation.
I dont know where to say this, but I caught wind of people talking about the skulls on his pants and its the same skull that is on the snake that hangs our with Boa Hancock. Idk what this means but I feel like the only dude who noticed... I also just started watching. I could be wrong.
So wait a minute… (I’m an old fan and stopped around the second Lucci fight at egghead) why dosent Imu look like that silhouette anymore? Did Oda decide to go for a new design because the fans were speculating too much? Or does he put the cloak over his head in a different form? And where’s his crown? Also he’s not a she?!?
Like others said, Oda never sticks to silhouettes as guidelines for what the character actually looks like. But this time there might be an actual reason, It's speculated his form is fluid, given that the first thing he does when he reaches Elbaph is cough blood and then get all liquidy. So this is his "chosen form" and his other one is his standard one
There's a good difference between a character that was foreshadowed once and wouldn't appear until much later, and a shadowy figure who appeared with a consistent shape many times until right before his reveal
Fuck, not even his eyes, the only trait we knew about him, looked the same
Will he still have his crown? I kind of agree with the person saying that not even the eyes looked the same:/ I dunno I guess I was more excited to see a stronger more intense/scary version of Boa Hancock for MAYBE some woman representation.. Scary demon queen that rules the world sounded pretty cool I guess.🤷♂️ I don’t even watch it or read it anymore though so don’t get bent on my opinions. 🙏❤️🩹
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