Brook/Misc.

Early One Piece
In One Piece Green: Secret Pieces was revealed an early concept of Brook.

The concept of Brook, a skeleton musician, had already been thought up by Oda the first time he drew Laboon. Brook's overall design however wasn't finalized back then but the basic idea was kept for a long time until Brook was finally revealed.

Takoyaki
In the anime when Brook first joined the Straw Hats for dinner, the dinner that was being served was a banquet of various octopus-based cuisine, whereas in the manga the dinner was unspecified.

While this scene does not differ from the manga much due to it being unspecified in the manga, it however somewhat contradicts what is stated in the manga in a later scene. Among the dishes being served in the anime are some Takoyaki balls made by Sanji. Though Brook is not seen eating them, it may be implied that he also ate them among other things.

This contradicts what happens later when Brook and rest of the Straw Hats enjoy some Takoyaki as a reward for saving Hatchan. The later manga scene has Brook stating that it was the first time he enjoyed Takoyaki thus making the contradiction.

Duels with Ryuma
The flashback of the first duel between Brook and Ryuma is handled differently in the manga and anime versions:

Originally in the manga, the duel against Ryuma is so fierce that pieces of Brook's bones are broken and fly off in the process as he takes hits from the zombie. While the duel is much longer with more moves portrayed in the anime, it is noticeably less violent by the fact that though Brook is attacked by Ryuma, there is only one instance where a few pieces of bone are broken off by the attacks.

The duel ultimately ends violently with Ryuma stabbing his sword through Brook's skull and creating a huge crack which fortunately "healed" over time. The duel in the anime ends considerably much different with Ryuma threatening to stab Brook's skull instead of stabbing through it like in manga.

While the anime portrayed the fight in the flashback less violently, it however portrayed the rematch between the two with the same intensity as in the manga. It showed scenes wherein Brook was stabbed by Ryuma with normally fatal but otherwise bone cracking strikes.

Color Scheme
In Gear Spirit, Brook is presented with a different color scheme than the one depicted in both the manga and anime. The color of the collar of his coat is gray while the ribbon and the frills coming out of his coat are purple. In some artwork within the game, Brook's nose socket is uncolored. The outer covering of Brook's cane sword is also colored red in the game. This color scheme is so because the game was developed before an official color scheme from the manga was presented.

Although Brook's cane has normally been portrayed in various media as purple (after his official color scheme is revealed), there is an exception on the cover of volume 50, where it is unexpectedly light blue. The mistake seems to be that the colors between Brook's ribbon and cane have been switched, because on the same cover the ribbon is purple instead of its normal blue.

Brook's glasses that he gets after the timeskip are purple in the manga. In the anime, they are pink.

Major Battles

 * Brook and Rumbar Pirates vs. unknown pirate crew
 * Brook vs. Ryuma (Thriller Bark grounds)
 * Brook, Franky, and Nico Robin vs. Tararan
 * Brook vs. Ryuma (Thriller Bark Castle)
 * Brook, Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Tony Tony Chopper, Robin, and Franky vs. Oars and Gekko Moriah
 * Brook and Straw Hat Pirates vs. Oars
 * Brook vs. Guntai Ari
 * Straw Hat Pirates vs. Golden Lion Pirates
 * Brook vs. Batch Fly
 * Brook and Sanji vs. Boxer Penguin, Kill Rabi, Big Tree, and other animals (offscreen)
 * Straw Hat Pirates vs. Flying Fish Riders
 * Straw Hat Pirates vs. PX-4
 * Brook, Zoro, and Usopp vs. Kizaru
 * Brook vs. Bartholomew Kuma
 * Brook vs. Longarm Tribe
 * Brook, Usopp, Nami, and Zoro vs. Ammo Knights and King Neptune
 * Straw Hat Pirates and Jinbe vs. New Fishman Pirates
 * Brook vs. Zeo
 * Brook vs. Kinemon's torso
 * Brook vs. Centaur Patrol Unit
 * Brook, Kinemon, Nami, Usopp, and Nico Robin vs. Vegapunk's Dragon

Translation and Dub Issues
In the 4Kids English dub adaption of the anime, the sequence in which the Straw Hats encountered Laboon was cut for various reasons. Due to this, aside from parts of the story being changed in order to coincide with the cut, a plot hole was created in the 4Kids version of the anime concerning an integral part of Brook's character, namely Brook's relationship with the whale. Though the 4Kids dub stopped at the start of the Jaya arc, the plot hole created still stands.

Anime and Manga Influences
Brook, like the rest of various characters introduced in the Thriller Bark arc, is based on certain elements taken from The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Addams Family, and various zombie movies.

Other Media

 * Brook is shown during the One Piece Premier Show 2012 as a member of the Straw Hat Pirates against the New World pirate, Chameleone.

Trivia

 * Like other members of the Straw Hat crew, Brook has his own personal Jolly Roger: it is a skull without a jaw with Brook's trademark afro, a top hat, and a cane in place of the cross bone mark. His jolly roger is also shown on his travel mug and tea cup. His Jolly Roger was seen worn by one of fans.
 * Oda has also revealed a post-timeskip Jolly Roger. The design for this one includes a full skull and an afro, with his new glasses and hat. His afro and skull is encircled by bones with his single guitar as his cross-bones in the background.
 * Brook is the oldest member of the Straw Hats, being 38 (dying 2 years after leaving Laboon, then spending a year seeking his body) at the time of his death and 88 years old when he meets the crew (most likely a reference to the number of keys on a piano), and he is the tallest, as he is even taller than Franky who is over seven feet tall.
 * Brook's height being 8' 8" could be related to the usual number of keys on a piano, 88.
 * Before Brook fulfilled the position of musician, there was a running gag of the need for the position to be filled that was always being brought up by Luffy during important meetings with his crew on who should join next. Whenever the Straw Hats hold a serious meeting about a situation they are in that might require the addition of a new crew member with skills to aid in that situation, or anything similar like that, Luffy would always bring up the need of getting a musician. His reasoning is that pirates love to sing and a musician is essential to a pirate crew. Luffy's request however would always be turned down by his crew for more practical solutions to the situation.
 * The idea of a skeleton musician was first conceived by Oda in the year 2000.
 * In Chapter 488 the first digit of his bounty is a 2. This was a mistake by Oda that was later corrected.
 * Since the introduction of Brook's bounty, there was speculation of whether his 33,000,000 bounty was active or not. In Chapter 600, Marines declared that his bounty was still active, thus ending the speculation.
 * Brook's unique laugh of "Yoho" is a stereotypical pirate line commonly found in various pirate related pop culture. It originates from “Dead Man's Chest”, the sea shanty from the book Treasure Island.
 * It is possible a partial inspiration for Brook's backstory came from the poem (and song by the British metal band Iron Maiden) "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It involves a mariner and his crew who are led out of the fog of Antarctica by an albatross, but the mariner shoots it down and curses his crew into calm waters. Through a game of dice, Death claims the lives of all his crew, but Life-in-Death claims the mariner, who is cursed to a fate worse than death by remaining on the bleak, foggy ship alongside his dead crew for ages, forced to relive all their deaths through the looks in their eyes, until finally acknowledging the beauty of life and its creatures, and released from drifting through the fog, ecstatically jumping for joy when he sees the first living people to approach and take him away, to tell his tale of warning, now a sadder but wiser man.
 * He is the second skeleton pirate shown in One Piece. The first was the non-canonical Captain Joke.
 * In the 4th Japanese Fan Poll, he came out as the ninth most popular character. Coincidentally, he is also the ninth member to join the Straw Hats.
 * Brook's outfit in the Movie Strong World is almost identical to the outfit worn by the young Micheal Jackson in a film-clip performed by the Jackson Five.
 * In Episode 509, when Brook starts playing the composition to raise the people's spirits, the music played on his violin is the same piece played by Butler, "The song of the horn eaters", from the third movie. The music, however, was originally used to make animals start rampaging, rather than raise people's spirits.
 * Brook's model sheets in TOEI is named "Blook".

SBS-Based Trivia

 * Brook's birthday, April 3, comes from his Devil Fruit's name since 4-3 can be derived from yo-mi.
 * According to Oda, Brook most resembles a horse.
 * He is identified by the colors black and white.
 * He smells of tea.
 * His favorite type of island is a Spring Island during the Fall.
 * If the Straw Hats were a family, Brook would be the grandfather.
 * Brook's favorite foods are tea and takoyaki.
 * Brook would be Austrian in the real world.
 * In an SBS, when asked which flower Brook resembles the most, Robin's Voice Actress replied he most resembles a rose.
 * As revealed in SBS Volume 66, Brook's blood type was X (the same as Nami's and Chopper's) when he was alive.
 * As revealed in an SBS, Brook bathes once a week.