Brook

"**Soul King**" **Brook** is the musician of the Straw Hat Pirates.

He is a skeleton that the Straw Hats found on board of a ghost ship after drifting into the Florian Triangle.[13] He is a Devil Fruit user who ate the Yomi Yomi no Mi, and is undead, having been brought back into a pseudo-immortal state because of its powers.[14]

He is the ninth member of the Straw Hat crew, and the eighth to join Luffy's crew, as well as being the oldest and the tallest member on board.[15] He is also one of the two swordsmen onboard their current ship, with the other being Roronoa Zoro. He fills the role of the long-awaited musician that Luffy had wanted for his crew ever since his journey began.[16][17][18][19]

He currently has a bounty of 83,000,000.[3]

## Appearance

### Before Death

Before his death, Brook was a tall, tan, skinny man who had a rather distinctive face. He had a slight goatee on his chin and some side burns. He typically wore shades never revealing his eyes. On his forehead was a scar that slightly resembles a diagonal omega sign (**Ω**). This scar was retained in his skeletal state as a distinctive crack across his skull.[4] Brook's facial appearance, accompanied with his style of clothing, resembles a type of appearance and style that is commonly associated with various music artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Jimi Hendrix, Slash, and other musical celebrities with similar features.

### Before the Timeskip

Brook is an extremely tall skeleton dressed in formal attire complete with top hat and cane. Standing at 266 cm (8'8½") in height, he is the tallest member of the Straw Hat crew. Despite having no skin, he still has an afro which he says is because his hair has very strong roots. Brook's style was that of a gentleman consisting of a coat, top hat, trousers and afro, which were black, while the inner linings of his coat were yellow-orange. The cravat that was tied in between his coat and around his neck was blue. The outer covering of Brook's cane sword which he carries was purple. Also, due to his many years of seclusion his clothes were somewhat tattered.[20]

### After the Timeskip

He has now changed to more colorful and high-end clothes, as though to represent a rock star. He has heart-shaped sunglasses, a yellow feather boa, a top hat with a giant crown on the brim and orange red trousers with a floral design. Despite being a skeleton, he grew to 277 cm (9'1"), and remains as the tallest Straw Hat member.

During the Punk Hazard Arc, he wore a flashy striped coat, after taking it from a member of Brownbeard's Centaur Patrol Unit.

During the Dressrosa Arc, he wore a dark magenta long-coat with an upturned collar in addition to yellow pants. While shown on Zou during this arc, his second outfit consisted of a pink shirt with a white polka dot pattern (which resemble the circles on the SMILE fruits), orange and yellow striped trousers, and pointed dark colored shoes. He also donned his original pre-timeskip top hat, a blue bead necklace, and he swapped his heart shaped sunglasses for a more traditional black pair.

During the Zou Arc, he added a dark colored coat with a fluffy lining to his second Dressrosa outfit along with a larger top hat embellished with beads. Due to being chased and chewed on by his canine Mink admirers, his coat had become somewhat tattered by the time he met up with Luffy's group.

During the Whole Cake Island Arc, he wore a long, fancy overcoat with puffy sleeves and tall black boots. He also wrapped a decorative scarf around his head and donned a pair of plain black shades. Later on, after the Big Mom pirates stripped him of his clothes, he wore a simple sleeveless cloak with a rope tied around the neck to fasten it. When meeting with the Fire Tank Pirates, he dons a large fedora, a striped vest along with a dark shirt and ascot, and dark trousers. When he took part in the operation to ruin Big Mom's Tea Party, Brook disguised himself among the Luffy clones created by Charlotte Brûlée's powers by wearing a over sized Luffy mask and hat tied with a string, which got him close enough to destroy Carmel's photo.

## Personality

Brook is an eccentric character with a distinct personality of his own, like the other Straw Hat Pirates.

While he looks like and claims to be a gentleman, he does possess vulgar and perverted manners such as asking to see women's panties (although in a mermaid's case he asks if they can lend him some money - however, he asked this question to the Mermaid Princess anyway), yelling impatiently for food (a trait shared by Luffy) and occasionally burping and farting conspicuously. Despite this behavior, he still remains very polite and soft spoken in speech, usually referring to people using the respectful "-san" ("Sir") and always speaks to everyone even enemies in a very courteous manner. He appreciates the simplest of things: from a gesture of kindness, the company of others, and walking in the sunlight after receiving his shadow back. Brook was moved to tears at just being able to share a dinner with people after decades alone in the Florian Triangle.

Despite his eccentric behavior, Brook is an extremely upright and compassionate person befitting of a true gentleman as Brook utterly disdains wickedness and cruelty. When Zeo began to ruthlessly assault his own men, Brook even defended one of the enemies from Zeo's attack, reprimanding Zeo for his cruelty. Brook's compassion is shown in Zou where he was horrified by the immense devastation the Beast Pirates caused. He readily helped the badly injured minks along with his crew mates. After Luffy arrived at Zou, Brook gave specific instructions not to mention anything about Wano and samurais out of consideration for the minks. He even beat up Luffy after he expressed disappointment in not meeting Raizo.

His reactions to different occurrences can be somewhat extreme, often comically so. For example, when the Straw Hats were alarmed at him for being a living skeleton, he forgets the object of fear is actually himself and also begins to panic. Although he tends to display more extreme emotions at times, Brook has been known to over-relax when he is told to stay calm.[13] He is also very patient, having stayed on his former crew's ship for years, waiting for the day when he would eventually be reunited with his shadow. However, due to his rudeness, he can also be impatient about things like waiting for dinner to be served. Brook's most notable trait amongst others, however, is that he cracks "skull jokes" about himself being a skeleton complimented with his distinct laughter of "Yohohoho" even if there is no one around to hear him. When Chopper broke one of his jokes by saying what he intended to say beforehand, Brook became temporarily depressed.

While stuck in the Florian Triangle, Brook discovered his skeletal body was now very limber and developed a strange gag to keep himself entertained- going completely rigid and then leaning against a wall or object at a forty-five degree angle. Though he mainly uses it to show it off in front of people and his crew just for a laugh, Brook later turned this into one of his signature poses as the Soul King. He has sometimes practiced and attempted to tilt in even further than forty-five degrees, but if he makes the angle too acute, he will lose his balance and slip. He can even run around in circles while maintaining this pose- when Nami had him be a lookout as half the crew was headed for Zou, Brook struck his 45 degrees pose and didn't check any other angle, causing Nami to yell at him to look in every direction, so Brook began a 45-degree rotation, annoying her with his antics until she attacked him.

Brook is a great lover of music. In times of joy or sorrow, music is what generally keeps Brook going. When he was about to die during his first life with his fellow members of the Rumbar Pirates, Brook suggested playing and singing a song with their last breath. As a result, his love for music often reflects itself in various other aspects of his character, such as in his fighting style wherein the names of his attacks are derived from various songs and dances. He gave himself a musical theme so noticeable that while he was alive in his first life, he was called "Humming Brook" by the authorities.[14]

In contrast to the other cowardly crew members' own fears - Usopp's being out of insecurity, Nami's as a survival instinct, and Chopper's from cautiousness - Brook's fear is more down to Earth; he fears the things that are not normal. An example would be that Brook is easily scared by the ghosts and zombies (despite technically being deceased himself). In order to fight the various Thriller Bark creatures without fear when he encountered them, Brook convinced himself that if he sings while fighting, he would not be afraid of them (though he starts running in fear when he stops singing). This singing while fighting, however, had a side effect of making him seem like a more sinister creature to the zombies - a rather ironic fact due to him being the contrary and the fact the song he sings during battle being one of life and joy than one of ominous threat and evil as perceived by them. Because of this, despite his equal fear he was given the name of "Humming Swordsman" by the zombies and was ironically feared by them in turn.

He apparently does not like moving fast, evident when he was in the more intense rides at Sabaody Park. Linked to this is moving at high speeds via the Flying Fish Riders flying fish or theme park rides and fighting a Pacifista cyborg there was little chance to win against. Comically, most of these fears are things he himself has the potential to unintentionally cause such as being an almost living skeleton that can run so fast that most people would have little chance to win against.

Before encountering the Straw Hats, Brook was very lonely while floating adrift on his ship and longed for the company of other people. He initially accepted Luffy's offer to join the crew and invited himself over for dinner upon arriving on board the Thousand Sunny just so he could interact with the crew and fill the void that he experienced all those years. Also, while possibly one of the oldest pirates "alive", Brook still retains an air of childishness about him that enables him to behave in a manner similar to Luffy and Chopper, noted by the ease with which he participates in their childlike antics.

His distinct personality and laughter allowed Nami, Usopp, and Chopper question a "guardian" of Hogback's lab, Ryuma, who had Brook's signature laughter and personality.[15]This was because Ryuma possessed Brook's shadow until the samurai was defeated by Zoro, upon which Brook's shadow was returned to its rightful place.

Awkwardly, Brook has a tendency to lack common sense in slightly frantic times. For example, when Luffy falls into the water, Brook (and Chopper for that matter) jumps into the water, despite being a Devil Fruit user himself. He also has a tendency to accidentally go on rides that go obviously fast and sit out on slower rides.

Also in*One Piece Film: Strong World*, he appears to take offense if someone avoids him because he does not have any "substance", later commenting he is like that because he is "dieting". This was later seen again during the Punk Hazard Arc. Brook grew furious, claiming that bones have plenty of nutrition. However, during the Zou arc, the Canine Minks from the Mink Tribe tend to constantly bite Brook due to him being made of bones which he doesn't enjoy at all.

Brook believes in and has quoted the philosophy "Good things come to those who wait", given the years he spent on the ghost ship, and Laboon's patience.

However, one issue he has stood by is the act of wasting lives. As he had experienced death, he knows more than most about the consequences of dying. He shares a very strong emphasis on keeping promises and friendship, as he would do everything in his power to reunite and fulfill his promise to Laboon his long lost friend, something Franky had complimented him upon. Though he is prone to being childish, he proves a loyal and fearless friend. Standing between Usopp and a Pacifista stating that he shall protect him even though he knew his chances of survival were slim. Even Zoro has quietly acknowledged that Brook is a true man to his heart, facing down odds that are near impossible unflinchingly to save a friend. As possibly the ultimate example of this, he shows absolutely no fear in the face of Big Mom, a Yonko, who is specifically able to use an opponent's fear against them. He even goes so far as to call her "young lady" during their fight, an unprecedented sign of contempt for someone of a Yonko's status.

Like Sanji, Brook's mind is often filled with lecherous thoughts. Ironically for his relationship with Sanji, however, two women whose beauty Brook has explicitly complimented are Vinsmoke Reiju (Sanji's elder sister) and Charlotte Pudding (Sanji's arranged bride); in the case of Reiju, Brook even expressed regret at not having lips with which to receive a kiss from Reiju. Brook is also chivalrously protective over women (as is Sanji), as he chastised the New Fishman Pirates for aiming their firearms at Shirahoshi.

Though he knows other songs, Brook's favorite song to sing is Binks' Sake which he was singing upon his first appearance.[16] Even when he asks for requests from the others, he seemed to instantly switch over to singing this song.[17] Other songs Brook sings include Black Handkerchief of Happiness[18] and his own originals, Bone To Be Wild and New World.

Brook is also clever enough to trick Jora into turning his weapon back to normal by pretending to side with her.[19]

He loves to drink tea, as he is often seen holding a cup of tea.

## Overview

As much as Brook normally goofs around on the ship engaging in acts of silliness with Luffy, he is still a formidable opponent. Due to his previous experiences and skills that he amassed from the days when the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger was still active, Brook, in all respects, is a veteran pirate (though these attributes are somewhat downplayed by his overall demeanor, along with the fact that his isolation in the Florian Triangle seemed to have eroded his knowledge of modern society).

Though he often gets scared easily by powerful enemies or the supernatural, he can be very calm and fearless to defend his crew, such as when he willingly sacrificed himself hoping to hold back a Pacifista and Bartholomew Kuma,[13][14] and when he cleverly realized he could trick Jora to defeat her.[15]

## Physical Abilities

Brook's value to the crew was already evident during the Thriller Bark Arc, where he proved indispensable for the Straw Hats on their encounters with the island-vessel's many undead inhabitants.

Though he has a natural skinny frame, Brook possesses an impressive degree of physical strength, able to carry Luffy up to the crow's nest of Thriller Bark without slowing down[16] and to carry many wounded minks without much help.

When Brook fights, his battles often have a comical element to them, including making a few of the members of his own crew fall asleep while fighting the Flying Fish Riders,[17] playing dead halfway through a battle,[18] or launching himself at an enemy with erroneous results.[19] His childish personality occasionally hampers his effectiveness.[20][21]

Brook also has immense endurance, as he was able to remain conscious after Bartholomew Kuma used his Ursus Shock on Thriller Bark.

After the timeskip, Brook's overall skills have proven to be a very important asset during battle: defeating the energy steroid powered Zeo with no difficulty,[22]cutting down Jora of the Donquixote Pirates,[15] and matching Zoro and Kin'emon's cutting power in Punk Hazard.[23] Brook also took on Big Mom of the Yonko, and while he was no match for her, he was able to get up several times after receiving powerful attacks from her.[24]

After two years of extensive training, Brook has gained a high increase of physical strength as the force he now applies in his swordsmanship is powerful enough to create flying slashes that can break thick ice from a far range, defend powerful strikes from a steroid enhanced Zeo and Sheepshead, an artificial Zoan devil fruit user and leader of the Gifters, cut through a Dragon's scales which is harder than steel. In the treasure room of the Whole Cake Chateau, Brook was able to easily cut down multiple physically large and strong members of the Big Mom Pirates with extremely powerful and precise slashes.

When fighting to reclaim the Thousand Sunny, he and Tony Tony Chopper battled and defeated several of Big Mom's chess soldiers. This earned them praise from Charlotte Katakuri, one of Big Mom's Sweet Commanders.[25]

He is shown to have a strong will as he was able to withstand a burst of Big Mom's Haoshoku Haki.[26]

## Tactical Ingenuity

Brook has shown to be clever. He could trick Jora into letting her guard down and restoring his sword from her Devil Fruit powers, which allowed him to dispatch Jora quickly and to save Nami, Tony Tony Chopper, and Kozuki Momonosuke from being killed.[15] When acquiring copies of the Poneglyphs in Big Mom's possession in the heavily guarded treasure room of the Whole Cake Chateau, Brook was successfully able to deceive the majority of the Big Mom Pirates in charge of the security of the treasure room, including Sweet Commander Smoothie, into leaving the treasure room by using Pedro as a decoy before sneaking into the treasure room and locking them out, leaving only a minimal number of guards in the treasure room whom Brook can quickly dispatch before stealing. Brook is also an ingenious and quick thinker.

After he finished making the Poneglyph copies, he stored them inside his skull instead of inside his clothes and cylinder, allowing him to effectively hide away the copies even after he was captured by Big Mom.[27][28]

At the Tea Party, amidst the chaos caused by Monkey D. Luffy and his duplicates, Brook disguised himself as one of the duplicates of his captain and destroyed the picture of Mother Carmel while Big Mom was distracted.[29]

## Musical Talent

Brook is a virtuoso musician who is extremely skilled in playing all kinds of instruments, particularly the violin, his favorite instrument. After he was separated from the Straw Hats, Brook began to picked up the guitar and, within two years, he became so highly skilled in the new instrument that he came to be regarded as a world famous rock star. At testament to this fact, his records in Tone Dials sold in the millions, and his fans during his final world tour stop in Sabaody Archipelago were either crying or fainting at his presence. Ultimately, Brook can masterly play enchanting songs that are so melodious they can totally captivate even animals like Laboon, who used to sing along to Brook's music. In addition to singing  and playing music, Brook is also a skilled composer, having composed songs such as "Bone To Be Wild", "New World", and "Let's Go See Master Nekomamushi", which proved to be very fashionable among music fans and lovers.

Brook's devotion to music not only helped him to pass the lonely days during his long isolation, but also learnt to weaponize music for combat. His technique, "**Nemuriuta Flanc**", loosely translated as "**Lullaby Parry**", shows this, where he strums his violin with his shikomizue in place of a violin bow, creating a soothing tune that makes anyone who hears it immediately fall asleep.[17]

Due to his musical background, Brook also moves according to the rhythm of his music to assist him in battle.

His music also shows capabilities to change its listener's attitude and emotions such as when he was sent to the Namakura Island by Bartholomew Kuma his music inspires the cult there to fight back against its invaders, the Longarm Tribe.

During the fight with the New Fishman Pirates, Brook revealed that he has refined his musical skills to the point where he could completely change the mood and effectively hypnotize his opponents to believe they were at a festival. His opponents believed the illusion was reality and ended up using their cannons as fireworks.[30] As a musician who mastered music temperaments such as rhythm, beat, and tempo, Brook has extremely sharp hearing able to accurately distinguish sounds, as he was able to detect where Zeo was by sound of his movements, while he was invisible, even though it was shown to be difficult to figure out where he was based on sound.

## Devil Fruit

While he was still alive, Brook ate the Yomi Yomi no Mi, a Paramecia-class Devil Fruit. Should the user of this fruit die, it allows them the one-time opportunity to return to life. Though his soul was not able to find his body in time before it decomposed completely to a skeleton, he gained some advantages that would otherwise be impossible to do without being a skeleton supported by Devil Fruit powers. One advantage is that because he is just comprised of light weighted bones, he can use his speed and light weight to run across water,[31] but, like all Devil Fruit users, he can still drown when submerged. With the aid of his powers, he is also able to function like a regular human being, and retains all the strength he had when he still had actual muscle mass. He is able to perform normal acts such as drink, eat, cry, digest, and even "poop" normally. He has also proven that calcium (such as in milk) will rapidly heal any damaged bones.

Due to his light-weight skeleton body, he can leap tremendous distances, jump immensely high and run so fast that he can even run on water without sinking, and can also store things in his skull cavity such as a Tone Dial. His skeletal appearance not only gives him immense amounts of agility on par with Zoro and Sanji, but the fact that he does not have body parts allows him to take less damage in a manner of speaking, as he does not have the physical limitations of a normal human. His extraordinary bone regeneration from milk also allows him to heal immensely faster than the rest of the crew, effectively making him one of the most tenacious opponents in battle. In fact, after an intense fight against Big Mom, one of the most powerful pirates alive, Brook instantly healed all the fractures his skeleton body suffered after drinking some milk. Due to his agility, he has managed to leap close enough to a firing harpoon and destroy it with his sword, while the harpoon was in flight, with relative ease.

Due to being entirely made of bones, he appeared to be resistant against lightning and electricity in general. Furthermore, Brook appeared to be resistant against the deadly poison of Shinokuni, however gases that enter the body through one's respiratory system such as KYP and the unnamed sleeping gas that Caesar's men used still affect Brook normally. Due to all of his flesh having rotted off, he no longer suffer from the effects of aging, and therefore is physically immune from senescence, being nearly a century old without showing the ill-effects of the elderly in fact his physical prowess vastly surpass his physical capabilities that he had when he was alive.

After the timeskip, it is revealed that he can separate his spirit to move individually of his body similar to Perona, but is unable to move his body while in this state. During his battle with Zeo, Brook recalls how in the last two years, he discovered the true power of his devil fruit, and how he is no longer animated by organs or bones, but by his spirit. Brook is also shown to be capable of reattaching his head in the event it is pulled off, and according to the skeleton, as long as his bones are not broken, his core remains unharmed, which will allow him to reconstruct his body. Brook has also shown being able to call upon forces from the other side as seen when he channeled the "**Chill of the Underworld**" through his sword, in order to freeze his opponent's body with ice.

## Fighting Style

At one point being the captain of the guards in his home country and as a captain of the Rumbar Pirates who has fought countless other pirates in the Grand Line, Brook is well trained in swordsmanship. Despite his usual goofy personality in battle, he is an extremely skilled sword master who is able to dispatch numerous enemies at once with swift and precise strikes. His swordmanship is a combination of classical fencing and iaidō.

Brook's main advantage is his tremendous speed, which is possible because of the light weight of his skeleton body to point where he can travel across bodies of water without sinking. This speed allows him to deal extremely accurate blows and quick maneuvers before his opponent can react (once taking down and purifying a whole swarm of Surprise Zombiesin a fraction of a second) that are much swifter than he was when he still had flesh and blood back in his mortal days. With these advantages, Brook excels best at fighting and taking down large enemy numbers of average fighters on his own. Despite not retaining any muscle tissue, it seems that Brook can still grow stronger over time, as he said to Ryuma that he has grown stronger over the span of the last five years.

Brook's signature attack as of yet is known as "**Hanauta Sancho: Yahazu Giri**". The attack is the fastest cutting technique of his kingdom's assault squad. It was originally named "**Requiem La Banderole**", but was given the other name by his old crew. Due to the attack's blinding speed and Brook's distracting humming, enemies often do not notice they have been hit until after Brook has sheathed his sword.

Although an extremely skilled swordsman, the power he applies in swordsmanship are not of the same caliber as Zoro's, who has a immensely strong physical power in addition to his skills as a master swordsman as Brook's swordsmanship is more focused in speed and precision instead of power. Brook had been unable to defeat Ryuma no matter how hard he fought and while Ryuma only used a fraction of his power, he noticed that Zoro was able to defeat him at full power with only two of his swords, although Ryuma did say that Brook's protectiveness of his afro held him back somewhat.[32][33]

While at Sabaody Archipelago, two years ago, he struck a Pacifista using a high speed sword attack, yet failed to do much damage to it and had to be rescued afterwards. However, when Zoro attacked the same Pacifista, the results were very different.[34] Although not on par with Zoro, he was able to keep up, visually, with what Zoro was doing while he fought Ryuma, showing his sharp perception for swordsmanship.[35] He works very well with Zoro, as they defeated a Flying Fish Rider together, that was inches away from killing Hatchan.[36]

After the timeskip, Brook has now been shown being able to combine the new freezing ability of his devil fruit with his sword style in order to cover whatever or whomever he cuts with ice.[37] His power and skill in swordmanship has also increased to the degree where a samuraifrom Wano has commended his skill and he is also now able to use flying slashes as well.[38][39] Like Zoro, Brook can now cut materials that are harder than steel as he was able to cut down a dragon, whose scales are tougher than steel.[23]

In the treasure room of the Whole Cake Chateau, Brook was able to expertly cut down multiple strong members of the Big Mom Pirates with lightning fast slashes, defeating them within a significantly short period of time as he had sufficient time to finished making copies of the Poneglyphs before Big Mom personally confronted him.[40][28]

A true testament of Brook's new abilities is when he was able to injure Prometheus, one of Big Mom's most powerful homies, becoming the first person to do so.[41]

## Weapon

Brook uses a type of sword called a shikomizue, a sword concealed inside a cane.[42] He uses this sword in conjunction with his fencing skills and has had it for at least fifty years.

After the timeskip, Brook has named his sword "**Soul Solid**", due to him developing the ability to coat it with the aura of his soul, freezing it in the process, and anyone who comes into contact with it. He also claimed that the Longarm Tribe has helped him sharpen the sword.[37] After he was captured by Big Mom, the sword was confiscated from him.

During the wedding ceremony, Brook used a hammer to destroy the photograph of Carmel.[29]

## TMNT X Pokemon

He constantly ask the girls to show them their panties. However, some will either slap him or punch him hard. One time he ask April to show him her panties which cause Donnie to fight him to make him apologize