So after reading some nice cooking about there being more than five Elders and Zunesha being the Sixth Elder, representing the yokai Baku, I got thinking and decided to write out some theories of my own! Let’s get to it!

First of all, I don’t think the Five Elders are human or mortals in the first place and the monstrous forms are in fact their natural forms. I think they are just actual demons mimicking humans. That would make them kind of similar to a human using a Devil Fruit but reverse and they probably have a strong connection with Devil Fruits without actually using them.

It kind of makes me think about the “Original Myth” from the real world, which is stealing fire from the gods. Maybe they feel like humans somehow stole the power with the Devil Fruit. Also, maybe Nika and the other “godly beings” are in the same “category” of species(?) as them, like how yokai aren’t all in the same level of power or all good or evil.

Maybe there are gods and demigods or gods and angels/demons or gods and their servants. It makes me think that maybe Nika and Imu are originally the two sides of one coin, good and evil, light and darkness, day and night, ruling over their respective sides(duh!).

The Elders may be the “servants” of Imu, akin to demigods or angels/devils and Nika may have had his own set of “servants” of similar kind. This thought makes me draw a parallel to the Straw Hat crew. We already know that Luffy is the incarnation of Nika, so maybe his crew mates are the new demigod “servants”, although they are all mortals this time, at least originally.

So maybe there was originally more than five Elders, just like there are more than five Straw Hats(and Luffy said in the very beginning that a crew of 10 sounds perfect). The number 10 and Nika being a Sun God makes me think that the 9 crew mates represent the planets in the solar system, revolving around Sun plus the Moon.

It might have been similar with Imu and the Elders, as the known Elders already have a planet assigned. Whether Imu was actually a godly being similar to Nika or just envious of him and trying to imitate his prowess remains to be seen.

Zunesha might very well have been one of them. And if Zunesha is a former Elder then maybe there are others as well, if there originally was more “crewmates” that served Imu, if the Elders are indeed immortal. Or maybe Imu wanted to have the same power and exalt as Nika and tried to build his own crew.

The Five Elders represent the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. That leaves out the planets Uranus, Neptunus and Pluto, as well as Moon. (And Earth, although I think it can be disregarded as the World itself.) Now it just so happens that the three Ancient Weapons are also the planets left out of the Elders, Uranus, Poseidon(Neptune) and Pluton. Maybe Imu tried to complete his own solar system by stealing and utilizing the Ancient Weapons.

So what about Zunesha then? He might have actually been the representative of Moon. His species is listed as Naitamie-Norida elephant, an animal species supposedly existing in the world, but so far Zunesha is the only one we’ve seen or heard of.

Maybe Zunesha roaming around the world has made people think that there are a species of such elephants when in fact it has only been the one and same elephant they’ve been seeing. Maybe his age is isn’t because of the long lifespan of the elephants but because as an Elder he’s immortal.

Or maybe he was supposed to be another Ancient Weapon, as he seems to have the power to submerge and close up islands, like we see in Wano. He is needed to open up the country. This power seems similar to Moon rising and lowering the tide. Not to mention the Minks living on his back, very heavily associated with Moon and Wano, the country that he’s supposed to open up and whose prominent families all carry the Moon theme with their names and whose shogun is the only one who can communicate with Zunesha.

Maybe that connection would actually make him Uranus, the Ancient Weapon associated with the Sky. Personally I think it’s more likely that he’s representing the Moon itself and Uranus is something else. But he would definitely qualify as an Ancient Weapon if someone was commanding him like Momonosuke did!