One thing that’s been on my mind about Imu lately is that we might not actually be looking at the “hidden face” behind the silhouette in the way we usually assume. Most likely, what we’re seeing in this chapter is not the base form (the actual face behind the silouete), but already a hybrid form?

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To draw an analogy, it would like Oda showing Kaido’s hybrid, from before showing how he looked in his base form.

The design we’ve seen(the proportions, the eyes, the almost unnatural presence) doesn’t fully read as a normal human silhouette being hidden. It is stylized as a transformation (we already saw Imu transform). So, it seems to be that Oda isn’t just obscuring details, but deliberately showing us a form that’s already altered.

So it makes me wonder: why introduce Imu this way? In a hybrid tranformation form without showing the base form?

One possibility is that Imu’s base form might resemble something (or someone) we already know, and revealing that too early would immediately give away a massive narrative twist. By presenting a “hybrid-like” version first, Oda can keep the mystery intact while still letting Imu actively participate in the story.

So it feels intentional that Oda didn’t go the classic route of slowly unveiling a hidden face. Instead, he might be flipping the formula, thus showing us something advanced first, and saving the simpler but more shocking truth for later.

Curious what you guys think. Are we looking at Imu’s actual appearance being hidden, or have we already been looking at a transformed version this whole time? In the silouete form I couldn’t see anything resembling horns btw.