One Piece's Nerona Imu reveal shows how Naruto is done with becoming the final villain.

one piece and naruto The two were one of the most revolutionary shonen manga series in history, and it's no surprise that they have been in fierce competition with each other throughout the series. Authors Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto have also publicly stated their friendly rivalry. However, these stories clearly have different strengths, and in the most recently revealed Elbaf arc, one piece It introduced the final villain to teach Naruto a lesson and show him how Kaguya Otsutsuki should have been dealt with in the Fourth Ninja War.

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Introduction to Nerona Imu by director Eiichiro Oda

There are an incredible number of villains in One Piece, but the one that is most built up and far stronger than anyone else is Saint Nerona Imu, ruler of the world government and one of the first 20 kings. Oda first introduced Nerona Imu eight years ago in the Reverie Arc. At the time, Imu was introduced only as a silhouetted mass of darkness pulling strings from the shadows as the true sovereign of the world. However, in the Elbaf arc, Oda exceeded all expectations by demonstrating for the first time both the physical appearance and strength of the King of the World.

With this, the author has slowly built up his final villain over the course of eight years, and has a lot of lore to follow throughout the Elbaf Arc and the Void Century that he explores later.

Analyzing Oda's thoughtful deployment approach with Imu

Eiichiro Oda takes a careful construction approach to most of his plots, and Nero and Imu are no different. The World Government was established a long time ago as the main enemy of the world of One Piece, and their oppressive nature was already revealed in the Alabasta arc of the series. In fact, from the very first mention of the Celestial Dragon, there were clues that there was someone at the top ruling as a god. Eight years ago, in the Reverie Arc, Oda finally revealed this to the world.

Since then, the story's author has carefully and intricately weaved a storyline revolving around Imu Nerona and Joy Boy, connecting them to the Void Century that was woven into the story over 20 years ago. This shows a very thoughtful approach in creating a final antagonist whose goal is to transcend time itself and take complete control of the world of One Piece. In the grand scheme of things, Elbaph serves as the culmination of all of these ideas by bringing Nerona Imu to the surface and revealing it to fans for the first time.

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How to compare the final villain of One Piece with Kishimoto's Kaguya Otsutsuki

It goes without saying that Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto series is really great and contains powerful villains like Pain, Madara Uchiha, and more. However, the last major villain, Kaguya Otsutsuki, is weak compared to the majority of villains in One Piece, let alone Saint Nero or Imu. Despite a bit of build-up towards the end, Kaguya came out of nowhere, taking Madara Uchiha's place, which had been carefully built up in the story even before the timeskip.

Kaguya's entire character was completely empty, and the execution of her end goal and the lore surrounding the character certainly did her no favors. Kaguya and the Otsutsuki clan itself is one of the weakest plot points in the entire Naruto series, and it's painfully obvious that we only see it at the end of the story. Kishimoto certainly had some interesting ideas for the character of Kaguya Otsutsuki, but the execution was a complete failure. Kaguya should have been made over a long period of time, and the fundamentally basic story itself should have been much better.

The Otsutsuki clan itself is barely explained in the Naruto series, only being explained in detail in Boruto. Even with their elaboration, they still serve as a subpar group of villains with little to no global impact. It's unfortunate that Naruto's story is let down by Kaguya Otsutsuki's rather underwhelming final villain. That said, the series still features some of the most iconic anime villains of all time, like Pain and Madara. In that respect, Naruto will forever be remembered as a legendary series that helped Eiichiro Oda on many occasions.

One Piece Chapter 1180 will be available to read on Manga Plus on April 19, 2026 at 11 AM EST.

one piece

release date

October 20, 1999

network

Fuji TV

move

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Ito, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudo, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yuji Endo, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Sato

author

Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shoji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda.

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  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)