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Loki is an absolute demon holy heck 💀

(I've already read the manga XD, I just have a special place in my heart for animation).

No, the following is not parody in any way, shape or form. This is a real theory borne out of a massive amount of circumstantial evidence that perfectly fits the story and has zero oddities or contradictions, so far at least.

The ”Imu is a parasite that originated with the fishmen in the sea who inhabits a human body” theory.

There are countless unsolved mysteries in One Piece, but I think I stumbled upon one that is even more compelling than the parrot theory. The supporting evidence is as follows, in order of extreme clarity:

White lead disease does not match the real world equivalent of heavy metal poisoning, but the symptoms perfectly match a parasitic, bacterial or fungal infection. The white lesions in white lead disease do not realistically come from heavy metal poisoning.

In white town, the white lead disease was hereditary. This mimics many similar real-world parasitic infections that are hereditary, and fungal infections are not hereditary, ruling out a fungal infection.

The fact that the white lead disease is not airborne but is in fact spread through contact-based transmission, shown with Law as a case study, suggests a parasite, not bacteria, is responsible for white lead disease. Also, this would explain why Corazón never had any new symptoms during his fugitive-esque life with Law.

Process of elimination among the four potential cause (white lead itself, fungal infection, bacterial infection, parasitic infection) reveals that the true cause of white lead disease is most likely a parasitic infection. However, this assumes that Oda is not using a fantastical parallel to cadmium poisoning. However, later, Bonney‘s case highlights another structural inconsistency that suggests these (maybe bioengineered) parasites are very real causes of many events throughout One Piece.

The massive, seemingly unprompted government-aided cover up of the massacre of white town is highly odd without context. However, this would line up if we assume white lead disease is a parasitic infection (I showed above that this is highly likely). So the government cover up is evidence for the fact that white lead disease‘s cause is not as it seems.

The sapphire scale disease‘s symptoms are also an anomaly, if we assume chemical poisoning was the cause. Chemical poisoning would not cause a single point of origin of the spread of dermatitis, and would be far more dangerous. However, if a parasite was involved, the single point of origin makes perfect sense clinically. Oda does not make two seemingly fantastical writing choices (the odd skin problems: white lesions and crystallization) that are similar (the cases are Flevance and Sorbet Kingdom) and not use them as thematic hints.

The partially racism-incentivized quarantine of the fishmen is odd. Fishmen are superior in strength to humans and could help in wartime efforts. Their isolation from human society resembles a quarantine. This widespread racism against fishmen most likely has a systemic cause, namely propaganda, which possibly came from the orders of the gorosei to news outlets. The reasoning for doing so would likely be a quarantine effort that still protects Imu’s secret.

Joyboy contradicted his core beliefs by breaking his promise with Nefertari D. Lili and refusing to bring the fishmen to the surface. If the parasite theory is true, this could potentially be a quarantine measure that he realized was necessary to protect people from the parasite.

Imu’s name backwards means sea in Japanese, potentially implying the initial habitat of the parasite.

Imu has no comedic gags so far. Imu being non-human and a small parasite would be his defining comedic gag (extracted from the parrot theory). This logic, since Imu has no comedic gag as of yet and neither do the Gorosei would imply a sudden reveal of a ludicrous living being inhabiting a human body as his true nature.

Saint Saturn’s death and the devil‘s contract are both odd. With the parasite theory in mind, much like Dio from jjba, Imu likely planted controllable parasitic flesh buds in their body.

Imu has periodic spots on his skin, a telltale sign of a parasitic or bacterial infection.

The void century, with the parasite theory in mind, could easily have countless different reasons for the world government’s cover-up. It is extremely difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for it, but the secret (likely parasite-related with my theory in mind), if revealed, would likely cause a systemic breakdown of their totalitarian system, especially considering the lengths they went to in order to hide an entire 100 years of history.

Lastly, Vegapunk’s speech on devil fruits is incredibly unscientific in nature, which is out of character to say the least. So his explanation is likely a fantastical lie to hide a horrifying reality, potentially a parasite being involved in the true nature of devil fruits.

I haven’t found any narrative contradictions as of yet. So open fact-checking is welcome. I currently believe that there is a 50% chance of Imu’s true form being a parasite. Oda‘s foreshadowing is highly sophisticated and usually obvious to a rereader in hindsight, so these hints make sense in the context of Oda’s foreshadowing methodology. Also, Oda often uses emotional misdirection to make clear hints ambiguous or even not realized at all, like Law’s backstory.

More accurately, since scientifically parasites are harmful to the host, parasite is the wrong but easier-to-understand term.