Imu & Gorosei represent Sun Wukong’s sworn brothers
I haven’t fully fleshed it out, but I don’t think the Five Elders/Imu are based on yokai. I think Nika is a corollary to Sun Wukong. It makes sense, Gear 5 resembles Sun Wukong and the ability to stretch is similar to Wukong’s staff. Wukong has influenced a ton of Shonen characters (Goku being the most obvious and known), and Monkey D. Luffy becoming the Pirate King is a fitting parallel to Wukong on the Monkey King. Plus, Nika was the “Sun God” again connecting to Sun Wukong.
Sun Wukong had seven sworn brothers, all Demon Kings, six of which were sworn by him when he was Monkey King in Huaguo Mountain. Most of whom weren’t given any background or story. But these included the Bull Demon King, the Roc Demon King, the Saurian Demon King, the Macaque Spirit King, the Lion Demon King, and the Tamarin Demon King.
Saturn fits the Bull Demon King well, and the shadows of all the other Five Elders could easily match all of the other Demon Kings besides the Lion Demon King. Some myths of Wukong also had a Single Horned Demon King as a sworn brother, which would fit better, but it is fairly uncommon and usually was a separate antagonist.
It would make a lot of sense to me if Nika was essentially Sun Wukong, and the Five Elders and Imu were his sworn brothers/friends. I’d think they didn’t get their powers from Devil Fruits, but are “devils” themselves (hence Saturn came to the island via summoning circle).
Maybe at some point Nika helped create devil fruits to allow people to fill some innate desire and fulfill their wishes, and Imu became upset and rebelled against Nika. Maybe Nika didn’t like the idea of immortality but Imu wanted it. Not really sure here. This could also explain why devil fruit users can’t swim, Sun Wukong’s “weakness” was fighting underwater. He didn’t like it and he was said to be limited in what he could do there. It would make sense if he created devil fruits, they inherit his water weakness.
I also think this would revive the theory that the egg on the Oro Jackson contained Luffy. Sun Wukong was born from a magic stone egg that turned into a stone monkey when interacting with the wind. If Dragon has the Wind Wind fruit, he may be Luffy’s “dad” in the sense the egg hatching required the use of his fruit.
*by pmacob
