Who is King Imu? What is their devil fruit power? How did they become King of the World? Is Imu one of the ancient weapons? And what is their true identity really? So many mysteries surround what is potentially
the most enigmatic figure in all of One Piece, who is such a vital piece to the grander mysteries
of the series, that if we could only find out who they really are, then maybe, just
maybe, we might even be able to understand what the One Piece treasure itself is. But to get to that point, we're having to
solve every single mystery surrounding King Imu, so let's get to the bottom of the Void
Century in the biggest Imu theory ever told. To understand the truth of the Void Century
and the One Piece treasure itself, we really need to better understand who Imu really is. So let's start with the basics and outline
what we know for a fact: As Ivankov inferred, Imu is almost certainly
one of the original 20 founding members of the World Government, a King from a certain
country ruled by the Nerona Family, someone who seemingly led the other 19 kings in defeating
the people of the ancient kingdom and used the Ope Ope no Mi to attain perennial youth
and take control of the world. However Ivankov also likely speculated that
Imu was connected to one of the ancient weapons. As their power to wipe out an entire island
in one attack is the same exact description that Crocodile attributed to one of the other
ancient weapons, as we've been told only they could have such world-destructing power. But how could Imu be an ancient weapon? Well, once you think about it, suddenly a
very clear pattern begins to emerge. If what destroyed Lulusia was a flying weapon,
then it basically would have to have been a flying saucer, a UFO, or more simply, a
flying ship. To clarify, while it was said that Vegapunk
created the Mother Flame, the way it's been referred to in the Japanese version seems
to indicate the idea that the Mother Flame is the power source behind the weapon rather
than the weapon itself. It's likely that the weapon itself is a flying
ship as we mentioned that likely existed since the Void Century, while the Mother Flame is
the energy source that powers it. Meaning that Imu likely had possession of
the weapon, but needed Vegapunk's energy cells to power it. As Ivanov explained, this was most likely
an ancient weapon connected to Imu, which would be the flying ship we mentioned, the
dark object Sabo and the others saw flying in the sky. And it’s not the only ancient weapon that
is also a ship, as Pluton was also said to be a battleship hidden underneath Wano. But wait, the other ancient weapon, Poseidon,
also involves a giant ship, the Ark Noah. So what if all three ancient weapons are actually
giant ships, all meant to fulfill one grand task. "But wait wait wait, hold on Artur" you might
say, "isn’t Shirahoshi considered the ancient weapon Poseidon?" Well, yes, but we may be looking at this the
wrong way. Maybe it's not that all the ancient weapons
are people or all the ancient weapons are ships, what if each ancient weapon isn't a
single entity, but is formed by different components: a colossal ship, a person who
can put it to use, and the giant creatures that said person can control. Think about it. For example, with Poseidon, we have Shirahoshi
who has the power to command the Sea Kings through the Voice of All Things. Those Sea Kings are then the only things that
can move the colossal ark Noah, fulfilling their purpose. Similarly, Pluton is a battleship that is
hidden beneath Wano. But the only way to unleash this weapon is
by quite literally physically opening the borders of the Wano Country, which we have
been told can only be achieved by Zunesha. Zunesha came to Wano to open its borders upon
Joyboy’s return, but Momonosuke told it to wait until they were better prepared to
face the Government. Since Momonosuke is the only person that can
command Zunesha, doing it also through the Voice of All Things just like SHirahoshi,
it would make Momonosuke the champion of Pluton and Zunesha the beast he commands, being the
only creature that can unleash the battleship Pluton upon the world. Even Yamato had told Momonosuke that according
to Oden's journal, after he find out about the truth of the ancient weapons, he realized
that Momonosuke was essential to fulfilling the purpose of the weapons, that of bringing
the Dawn of the World, that for which he had to survive at all costs. Something that can only mean that Momonosuke
is one of the three ancient weapons, being the human counterpart of Pluton, who can command
Zunesha just like Shirahoshi and is the only one that can unleash the battleship Pluton
upon the world. So finally, perhaps, Imu is the champion who
through commanding some giant large creature can unleash the starship Uranus upon the world. But if that is the case, what is the giant
creature that Imu could command? Well, Pluton, Poseidon, and Uranus are all
named after gods, specifically the trinity of Gods from Grecoroman mythology that rule
over the three planes: the underworld, the sea, and the skies. This is reflected in the three ancient weapons,
as Pluton is hidden in the underworld of Wano, Poseidon is hidden in the seas, and Imu is
located in the skies atop the Red Line. And similarly, elephants are land creatures,
Sea Kings are water creatures, so what are giant creatures that fly through the skies? Dragons are sacred to the World Government. After all, their very gods are literally called
the “Celestial Dragons”. Though if we translate from Japanese more
literally, the kanji used for Celestial Dragons is the same used for the planet Uranus in
Japanese. And this is no coincidence as the Sea Kings
also use the exact same kanji used for the Japanese name for the planet Poseidon. It was even mentioned that the Celestial Dragons
had ordered Vegapunk to artificially recreate dragons, the ones we saw in Punk Hazard, and
likely were also those who funded to replicate Kaido's fruit, which was eventually eaten
by Momonosuke, likely due to their adoration of the dragons Imu once controlled. wHich is why Imu blessed 19 champions with
the title of Celestial Dragons, or literally "Uranus's Dragons" if you want to be more
literal. Dragons are currently considered mythological
creatures as they have all gone extinct, but we can prove their historical existence through
a famous dragon of legend, the one from the tale of the samurai Ryuuma. According to legend, during a time when the
recently founded Government tried to seize control of the Wano Country, a dragon was
sent to take the land. This was likely right after the end of the
Void Century, as with the giant barriers they erected around the country, it would have
been impossible to enter the country via any means but the skies. So it would make sense that Imu sent the dragon
to invade from above, but as the story tells, Ryuma stood guard to protect his homeland
from the invader. And in a legendary duel, Ryuma slayed the
dragon over the capital of Wano, proving to the Government that their country would remain
free. Thus this dragon vanished from the Void Century
and became myth, but every myth becomes a mythological fruit, and thus that took the
form of the Uo Uo no Mi, Model: Seiryuu, which the Celestial Dragons then kept safe. That would be until Kaido ate the fruit when
Big Mom raided it from the island in the God Valley Incident, and in an ironic twist of
fate Kaido would return to retake the Wano Country, just as Imu tried to so many years
before. This would perfectly explain everything, except
there’s one thing that just doesn’t add up. As we were told, the ancient weapons were
meant to be used by the ancient kingdom to help bring good to the world. And this makes sense, as a power source like
the Mother Flame would have been impossible to build without the technology of the kingdom. As Rosinante once explained to us, the D.
Clan are considered the “Natural Enemies of the Gods”, the Celestial Dragons, something
that Imu later confirmed as the D. Clan were the people of the ancient kingdom who opposed
the 20 kings in the Void Century. And as Rosinante elaborated, the purpose of
the D. Clan, of the people of the ancient kingdom, is to bring the “destruction of
the world”. But as he clarified, this isn’t a destruction
meant in the negative sense like someone like Doflamingo or Imu would intend, but a destruction
that could bring good to the world. And we’ve been constantly told across the
series that the ancient weapons will bring the destruction of the world, which likely
refers to the destruction of the Red Line and the Grand Line, for the sake of uniting
the entire world as one sea, literally one piece, into the All Blue. This is the purpose that the three ships of
the ancient weapons serve. Pluton and Uranus, capable of destroying islands
in one blast, could be the only thing capable of blowing up the Red Line. Its destruction would cause the collapse of
Fishman Island below it, fulfilling the prophecy that Shyarly had that Luffy would destroy
the island, but to aid that, Poseidon's Ark Noah will help the people of Fishman Island
emigrate to the surface where they can coexist with humans, which is the promise that was
made with the people of Fishman Island from so long ago. So, here is what doesn't add up: why would
Imu, one of the 20 kings that opposed the ancient kingdom, be the champion of one of
the ancient weapons that were meant to change the world for good? Well, the answer is fairly simple: it must
mean that Imu was originally part of this ancient kingdom, but eventually betrayed them. And the key to all this lies specifically
in the names of the three ancient weapons, as not only are Pluton, Poseidon, and Uranus
the names of three ancient gods, but also the names of the final three planets of our
celestial system. And what are the names of the other planets? Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter,
the names of the Gorosei, or when translated from Japanese, literally the “Five Elder
Planets”. The Five Elder Planets are the only planets
of our solar system that were observable prior to the invention of modern telescopes, but
during that time it was believed that planets revolved around the Earth. The likes of Galileo Galilei tried disproving
this, by demonstrating that the Earth revolved around the Sun alongside the other planets,
but as the Earth being the center of the universe served a sense of importance to monarchs and
the church, such belief was kept as law for many centuries. Thus, this model of planets revolving around
the Earth, known as geocentrism, has become a symbol for propaganda and false history,
whereas instead, all planets revolving around the Sun alongside the three other planets
is a symbol for the scientific truth. So in this case, the Sun would obviously be
the figure of the Sun God Nika. And by comparison, in this scheme, the figure
of the Earth may be Imu themselves, with the Five Elder Planets all orbiting around them
and the ancient weapons removed from this scheme. And if we follow the Grecoroman gods after
which the Gorosei are named after, the Grecoroman god for the Earth would be Gaea, the Mother
of Nature. Which has an equivalent in the One Piece world,
being the Mother of Nature Umi, the embodiment of the Sea, stated to be the one that punished
devil fruit users to drown in water. Which suddenly makes a lot of sense, as it
would explain why Imu is just Umi backwards, or even why their residence is called Mary
Geoise, as that translates to "Lady of the Sea". Even the term Pangaea, or as it is more correctly
pronounced, "pan-gaia", is derived from "Gaea", the goddess that is Mother Nature herself
in Greek mythology that embodies the earth itself. But devil fruit users drowning in water is
an inherent nature built within the devil fruits themselves, an actual flaw of the genetic
code they provide, meaning that only the one who created devil fruits could be the one
that could force their users to drown in water. Which all adds up as just like Shanks explained
in Chapter 19, the myth of the origin of devil fruits is that they are so-called incarnations
of a legendary being known as the “Sea Devil”, or “Umi no Akuma” in Japanese, literally
the Sea itself. But why would the creator of Devil Fruits
hate their users and punish them by drowning in water? Well, there’s several ways you could explain
it, but the simplest answer is that this was the intention all along. After all, if Umi is literally the sea, then
that means that devil fruit users cannot oppose their power as the Sea. So what if Imu purposefully offered the devil
fruits to the people of the ancient kingdom, only to cripple them to their powers and making
Imu undefeatable to them. And think about it, this would make perfect
sense, because regardless of if they may have been artificially created or not, fruits would
need a tree to grow from. And what other tree could be better than the
Sun Tree Eve? Before Mary Geoise, upon the top of the Red
Line, was the settlement of the Lunaria, known as the “God Country”, one of the biggest
members of the ancient kingdom. The Lunaria brought the incredible technology
from the Moon to this country, which included their research into the bloodline elements,
achieving genetic alterations which likely explain how the Lunaria became much more genetically
enhanced than the other angel tribes. A technology that Imu may have suggested putting
to use alongside the power of the Sun Tree Eve to generate the original devil fruits,
tricking the people of the God Country into making their dreams come true, only to secretly
cripple them. Imu doesn’t even need to have been a Lunaria,
even just one of the many allies of the kingdom would've been enough, given the many allies
they had. This likely earned them Imu’s trust, leading
to making Imu one of the champions of the three ancient weapons, which Imu took advantage
to instead betray and backstab this kingdom. In fact, it was likely Imu who secretly gathered
the other 19 kings in the first place, to declare war on the God Country and thus put
this grand plan into action by usurping power from them. In the current world of One Piece, we know
that Imu's subordinates, the Celestial Dragons are Gods, whereas all those that associate
with the Void Century and its kingdom are branded as “devils”, like the “devils
of Ohara” or the “devil child Robin”. But during the Void Century, the roles were
actually reversed: the people of the God Country were known as Gods, whereas instead the rulers
of the 20 kingdoms were described by some as literally word by word “Devils”. And it would thus make sense that above them
all would be the Sea Devil, from whom originated fruits that people begun to call the “Fruits
of the Devil”, the Devil Fruits, as it was the king of the Devils who created them, thus
earning their name. Even Sabo directly referred to the Empty Throne
as the real location of Hell in the One Piece world, as after witnessing the devilish form
of King Imu, and all the devil-like transformations of the Gorosei, it was evident to him that
all of them were nothing more than Devils. It is after all this group that then took
over the God Country and instead built “Mary Geoise”, in its place. In fact his entire scenario fits really well
as it perfectly fits the story of the Book of Genesis. As after all, the devil fruit book was revealed
to be called the “Book of Genesis”, making a clear reference to the tale. As you may likely know, Genesis tells of the
story of Adam and Eve, who lived in the country of God, the garden of Eden, where they enjoyed
an utopian life. However, they were tempted by the devil to
bite into the fruits of the forbidden tree, and as Eve bit into them, they were thus betrayed
and exiled from the land of God. Some variations of the tale also add that
Lilith, who came before Eve, attempted to disobey the orders of Adam, for which she
was branded a “demon” and exiled. All of this fits really well with the story
of the Void Century. The Devil Imu tempted and tricked the people
of the God Country with the fruits from the devil fruit tree Eve, resulting in them losing
their godly status and being expelled from their country. The figure of Nefertari Lily, being the stand-in
for Lilith, attempted to stand against Imu, but was branded a “demon” alongside the
other people of the God Country and banished in turn. And so with this great elaborate gambit, Imu
seized control of the God Country and attained perennial youth to rule the world forevermore. There's also an additional idea I have on
top of this, which could maybe make sense or not, but I think it's worth bringing up
at least. Originally, there was a lot of talk about
the possibility of Imu being in reality Nefertari Lily, which was shot down very quickly. But what if this... actually could still be
the case? What if Imu and Lily weren't the same person,
but Imu ended up becoming Lily. A lot of people don't know this fact, but
when Doflamingo first talked about the National Treasure of Mary Geoise, in the Japanese version,
he made it very clear that that the treasure is actually referring to Imu's very existence
directly, with Imu being the living national treasure of Mary Geoise. Doflamingo explained how Imu's very existence
could shake the world at its core, something that they did end up very literally doing,
but that its existence is the biggest secret the Government has. This is why Doflamingo mentioned that they
tried persecuting and executing him, but Doflamingo was able to use that to his advantage by blackmailing
the Government with releasing that info into the world through his Underworld connections,
which is how he was able to manipulate CP0 in his favor during Dressrosa. And furthermore, Doflamingo elaborated that
if he had attained the Ope Ope no Mi, then he would've been able to use its power of
the Personality Switching Operation, that gag from Punk Hazard about switching bodies,
on the National Treasure itself to literally "become" the power that truly rules the world. In other words, Doflamingo wanted to use the
personality switching operation to change bodies with Imu directly and become the King
of the World, with no one else none the wiser if he would've been able to pull it off. So what I'm getting at is that since Doflamingo
brought up both the personality switching operation and the perennial youth operation
in the context of Imu, and we have confirmation that Imu used the latter to remain alive all
these years, what if the same is true for the former? What if Imu actually used the personality switching
operation on Lily's body, thus becoming Lily directly? It would explain the more slender female silhouette
Imu has and why Lily's body literally "vanished" at Mary Geoise. Maybe Lily may even have been the original
user of Uranus and that's why Imu took over her body, or perhaps there is some other reason
behind it. Regardless, whether that's the case or not
it doesn't really matter, because what matters to us is that Imu decided to become King of
the World through attaining perennial youth, and rule the world from the shadows to give
people the illusion that they weren't controlled. But because of this, the existence of Imu
in the Void Century became myth, and every myth is born upon this world in the form of
a mythological devil fruit. So what if, similarly to how someone incarnated
Joyboy during the Void Century and Imu incarnated the Sea Devil, what if Imu's very existence
became a myth in turn that became its own separate devil fruit? But then, who could be the user of this fruit? Which individual is the literal embodiment
of everything that Imu stands for? Have you never thought about how weird Blackbeard’s
fruit is? It’s supposedly a Logia, yet somehow Teach
said it doesn’t let him turn into the element, or dodge any attacks unlike "Logia users". Is that because it has special properties? Or much more simply because it… isn’t
a logia. After all Blackbeard said that the fruit “chose”
him, much in the same way that the Nika fruit may have chosen Luffy after believing in his
dream, which it could’ve only done so if it was a Zoan fruit with a will of its own. This may also be why Blackbeard spoke of “people’s
dreams” never ending, because the devil is the source of all of people’s dreams,
the fruits. Devil fruits were even described as having
a sense of a “gravitational force to them”, which makes sense if Imu is meant to be the
earth in this geocentric model, wanting everything to revolve around them. And what did Blackbeard describe his darkness
as? A gravitational force, one that draws the
entities within devil fruit users back to their origin. Even thematically this makes sense, as Blackbeard
has a lot of associations to the Devil, like the three skulls in his flag being the symbol
for the Devil in the One Piece world, or the fact that even the real life Blackbeard that
Oda really admires was described by many to be the son of the “Devil” incarnate. Though I don't think the Government has changed
the name of many fruits aside the Nika fruit, if a fruit that represented Imu’s identity
existed, then it makes sense that much like the Nika fruit, the World Government would
hide its name, disguising it as the Logia Yami Yami no Mi. And I mean, why else would Blackbeard literally
be able to generate water, through an attack he calls “Kurouzu”, literally "black water
vortex", which negates the abilities of devil fruit users? Because he is the mythical incarnation of
Imu, the Devil, that is able to subdue any devil fruit user. In fact, even Imu seemed to generate arrows
that were made of a dark liquid, as indicated by the dark droplets it left, or in other
words, black water. These two forces are like two sides of the
same coin, and now Luffy and Blackbeard, the chosen ones of these fruits, will once more
be clashing for the future of the world. Though none the wiser, the real Umi still
lurks in this world under the form of Imu. But beyond the gravitational power and everything
else, what is it that Blackbeard described his fruit as? Pure darkness. And as we’ve seen, Imu appears to embody
the concept of darkness as well, taking the form of a dark blob that shifts forms and
envelops everything in darkness. After all, the name “Nerona” can translated
to “made of Darkness”, being “pitch black”, and thinking about it, it makes
perfect sense, as it further develops the idea that Luffy and Blackbeard, and by extent
Joyboy and Imu, are complete polar opposites. Nika represents pure white, the light of the
sun that brings the warmth of the Dawn, whereas Imu represents the color black, a cosmic darkness
that swallows everything like a black hole. White and black, light and darkness, Yin and
Yang, something that even fits as in Eastern belief it is believed the Five Elder Planets,
the Gorosei, revolve around the Yin and Yang, the black and the white. And since we’ve seen Imu transform into
goofy yet frightening creatures as well, what if its parallelisms to Joyboy are even more
similar than we think? Perhaps Imu really is the devil, but not so
much in a lovecraftian form, but more like the devil out of a cartoon, with a devil’s
tail and encompassing the very primal nightmares of all humans, the same principle as the cartoonish
figure that is Joyboy, but in a much more twisted form. As it was said Joyboy is fundamentally the
dreams and hopes of people incarnate, bringing laughs to people’s faces by acting goofy,
whereas Imu is the fears and nightmares of people incarnate, controlling everyone from
the shadows. And it is the dynamic of the duality between
these two forces of light and darkness that is the key to finally properly understanding
what Joyboy’s treasure, the One Piece, actually is.
