第123回：V6KM

I love Smoothie. I really do. And that’s why I’m super jealous of this fellow here who was drained by her Wring Wring powers. But hold on a second. ‘V6KM’? Isn’t One Piece’s opening song sung by the boy band…V6? And KM? Could that possibly mean… V6 MEMBER KEN MIYAKE!?

I raced to the opening credits and didn’t see any listing for this character but that makes it all the more suspicious! Did Ken Miyake lend his voice talents to this character!? Super jelly!

So why Snake Man? Bound Man and Tank Man seem fairly straightforward; Luffy inflates his muscles so he becomes *really* bouncy or extremely skilled at defense. So what makes Snake-Man special? My guess would be that Luffy concentrates all of his air and/or upper body so that his arms can easily extend GREAT distances. It seems to leave him incapable of releasing devastating attacks with his legs but that’s just speculation. Bound Man seems like an all-around form, Tank Man is a defensive form and Snake-Man is a form for lithe boxing. Think we’ll see a form that grants Luffy superior leg strength flexibility?

Now here’s something special! In the midst of Luffy and Katakuri’s clash we see a present day parallel visit to characters we haven’t seen in the manga in a long while, Rayleigh and Shakky discussing Luffy’s potential. What I wouldn’t give to get inside Rayleigh’s head and learn the reason behind that confident smirk!

Due to perspective and certain stylistic choices, size and size-relation is sometimes hard to grasp in One Piece and Snake-Man might be one of those cases! Is Luffy’s Snake-Man form…HUGE!? Check out his deflation process:


There’s no indication that the ‘camera’ is moving away from Luffy, he’s simply deflating while the ‘camera’ follows him. If that’s accurate, it may help Luffy stand toe-to-toe with some of his larger opponents!