Imu's Appearance was revealed!!
I am in love with it. It just looks so cool, and detailed. I can also see traces of lore hidden in his appearance, as well as hints as to what exactly is his ability and current appearance.
First of all, he shares similarities to both the Ancient Giants and Lunarians, if assumptions are correct.
He has the horns of an Ancient Giant, with the horns being long, curved and dark. They look very similar to Loki's, and Harald's, who we already know carry the blood of Ancient Giants.
There is also the slight chance that he has the dark skin and wings of a Lunarian. In the panel inside the castle, we can see wings on his back, which look similar to that of Lunarians, although they look very mangled and distorted.
(I also saw someone suggest he might also have gills on his neck, connecting him to fishmen. I think it makes thematic sense, given what we've noticed so far with his design. He seems to carry traits of all the races that are implied to have been allies with Joy Boy, and have since been oppressed)
Secondly, his devil fruit is written strangely.
It's mentioned that his ability is written with 'Akuma' in Katakana, while the more common version "Akuma' that we see with Devil Fruit Abilities is written with Kanji.
From what I can gather, Katakana is a phonetic script that was originally used for foreign words. It's not mainly used for grammar but rather names that were foreign (coffee, orange). It was derived from Kanji.
Meanwhile, Kanji were characters that were taken from Chinese. Katakana is the simpler of the two to learn, as it's pronounced as it is written. Kanji tends to be a bit more complicated.
I don't know if this is entirely reliable, but it feels like this implies that while the Devil Fruits that we have seen so far are 'True Devils', Imu's ability isn't a true ability, but rather something that is 'translated to be a devil'. Imu ability is some kind of mutation of actual Devil Fruits.
There are also other reasons that I believe this. I think his ability isn't one single power but rather an amalgamation of multiple 'Devil Fruits" that has been stored inside one individual. These Devil Fruits may have been the first ones created and therefore the most powerful. One of these 'Devil Fruits' seem to be similar to Big Mom's Devil Fruit, Soru Soru no Mi.
Third, the current appearance he has might be a form similar to Luffy's Gear 5 form.
The clouds that surround him look similar tothe ones that appear with Luffy when he does Gear 5, and his hair also has the same kind of pattern in them. It only looks inverted. He even has the 'cloud shawl that luffy always has with him in his Gear 5 form (which adds to my theory of Imu's ability being a mutations of some original Devil Fruits).
He would then become the literal anthesesis of Nika. Which he already symbolizes by being at the head of a stagnant system that deprives entire races of basic freedom, while Nika continues to represent both change and freedom.
Fourth, he is weak outside of the Flower Room.
We can see him cough blood immediately after he teleports to Elbaf, which is not seen in any other instance..
It is possible this 'mutation of multiple devils' wasn't stable for Imu to handle, so he relied on the Ope Ope no Mi to be given an immortal body. But he didn't realise it would not give him a resistant body, which meant he still had a frail bdy that prevented him from even leaving the flower room we see him in most of the time.
Some parts were inspired by this post and this post.
