Enel


 * The subject of this article is sometimes called "Eneru" or "Ener".

Enel is the main antagonist of the Skypiea arc. He is the former "God" of Skypiea.

Appearance
Enel is a tall, muscular man who has white/blond hair which was, by some ancient Latino civilizations, considered godly. His nose has many lines running horizontally across it. His ear lobes are extremely long, ending up to his torso. He is dressed in a very luxurious manner, to emphasize his "godliness": he wears loose, orange pants with a black pattern on them, and around his waist there is a blue, flowing sash, holding up a light-blue veil. He wears bracelets on both his arms and legs, earrings at the end of his extra-long ears, and two little rings around his bigger toes. His hair is covered by a simple white hat, and according to Oda, if Enel was to take off his hat, his hair would be in a perm. . He also holds four large Tomoe drums attached via a large ring to his back, instead of the regular Skypiean/Bilkan wings.

Personality
Enel thinks of himself as an invincible god - quite literally. He believes that he is a divine and immortal being, with the authority to do, take or destroy whatever he pleases and is capable of doing anything. As the result, he appears fearless, childish, arrogant and without a care in the world. His lifestyle is relaxed and hedonistic, and when not attending to his "godly duties" of smiting the natives of Skypiea (for speaking against him), he spends his time sleeping or eating in his residence, being waited on hand and foot by beautiful women. This attitude carries over to his battles, where he's hardly serious and barely annoyed - instead he's relaxed, and enjoys himself by effortlessly absorbing attacks, and humiliating his opponents. In his fight against Kamakiri, he even went to sleep in the middle of the fight, in order to prove his immortality.

Enel holds no regard for other lives except his own, and has no moral qualms about killing thousands - instead he sees it as his godly duty, and laughs maniacally as he sends Skypiea to its doom. He is, in short, a sociopath and insane, which becomes even more obvious when he sets off for the moon, which he believes to be the home of God (himself). Sometimes, against an annoying opponent like Usopp using his "Usopp Spell", rather then shocking them he simply bludgeons them with his staff.

Before Luffy showed up, his fruit power and mantra ability made his God-complex completely legitimate. Once Luffy began gaining the upper hand in the battle, Enel incapacitated him in order to remove him as a threat, and reclaim his status as "invincible" while stating that there is no need for him to fight Luffy - and from that point he acts somewhat cowardly, trying his best to avoid another confrontation with Luffy. According to Oda, Enel's favorite fruit are apples. Going along with this, when Enel taunts in One Piece Grand Battle! Rush!, he eats an apple.

Many of One Piece's primary villains were given distinct laughs. Enel follows this tradition with a stressed "ya" at the beginning of his laugh (i.e. "Yaaa ha ha ha ha ha!"). This carries over to the English versions.

Abilities and Powers
Enel is one of the most powerful villians in the series, and appeared earlier than many characters as powerful as he is due to the fact that Luffy had complete resistance to most of Enel's lightning based attacks, and was also able to strike Enel thanks to his rubber powers, making his fight much easier, compared to many of his other major fights. Enel has a great knowledge and awareness of objects that many Sky Islanders would usually not have, such as an understanding of what gold is, partly due to studying the ruins of Upper Yard. This awareness allows him to keep these items for himself believing he is truly worthy of them. However, before Luffy he was unaware of the existence of rubber. He is also very perceptive and has an amazing deductive ability, quickly seeing through Robin's deception and concluding that the Shandorian Golden Belfry Bell was not at Upper Yard but beyond it. He is also brilliant enough to understand the mechanical functions and capabilities of his ship: Maxim, and quickly repaired it once he deduced the origin of the problem. In addition, he has some awareness of the meteorological functions of the sky.

Enel is usually portrayed as very acrobatic, often doing backflips with one hand, and has an above average endurance, shrugging off most of Luffy's attacks. He is also adept at using his golden staff and gives powerful hits to his opponents with it. On top of this, he had access to Mantra which had been enhanced by his Devil Fruit powers, making him virtually omniscient of the thoughts and actions of Skypeia. Nevertheless, Enel himself admits that Mantra is not perfect.

Devil Fruit


Enel gets his Devil Fruit power from the Logia-classed Goro Goro no Mi. It lets him use a variety of lightning based attacks from the drums on is back, which are nearly all named after thunder gods from various cultures. When amplified by his ship, they were shown to easily destroy an island. It also gives him the ability to restart his heart after being killed, as long as he doesn't have any fatal wounds that could bypass his Logia powers, as well as increase his mantra to omnipotent levels. These abilities give the Goro Goro no Mi as one of the few Devil Fruits to be regarded as "invincible". His current mini-arc suggests he does not need to breathe, and can survive outside of the atmosphere (though the laws of space as we know them may not apply in the One Piece universe). However, his electricity-based powers have no effect on certain substances such as rubber, making Luffy a formidable enemy, as he is immune to Enel's powers. He is also weakened by Seastone, as all Devil Fruit users are.

Past Story
Six years before the current story, Enel destroyed his home island of Bilka as a show of his power. Afterwards, Enel and his loyal contingent of followers overthrew the then current ruler of Skypiea, Gan Fall, becoming the island's new ruler. Enel maintained a personality cult over Skypiea, truly taking the mantle of "god" to its more literal sense. Though Skypiea still had a sense of peace and paradise, much like in any classic dystopia, it was a false paradise. If anyone dared speak out against Enel, or challenge his list of commandments, he would shoot a giant column of lightning down from the sky to effectively eliminate the dissenter. Along with this, he forced the enforcers who worked under Gan Fall to build him a massive, flying ship called the "Maxim".

Skypiea Arc
Once the Straw-Hat pirates arrived in Skypiea, and entered Upper Yard, Enel commenced his plan to return all of Skypiea to an "endless world". Enel took advantage of an already brewing war between the Skypieans and a native tribal group called the Shandora. His great battle, which he called the Enel's Survival Game, was meant to pit these two groups, along with the Straw-Hat pirates and his own followers in a war to see who was worthy enough to accompany him to his holy land, "Fairy Vearth" ("The Endless Varse" in the English dub). At the start of the fight, Enel made a prediction that there would only be five survivors at its end (including himself). However, Enel's prediction was miscalculated, as there was one fighter overlooked (due to being inside a giant python): Monkey D. Luffy.

In a grand battle between Monkey D. Luffy and Enel, it is made apparent that Luffy is more than a match for Enel due to rubber's inability to conduct electricity and that Enel's most powerful attacks are all electric based (making most of his power useless), and Enel is momentarily incapacitated as a result. His ego bruised, and frightened he found his natural enemy, Enel manages to get rid of Luffy temporarily by using his powers to heat up a golden Buddha statue, and using the metal to graft a huge golden ball to his right arm as a "reward" for such a valiant struggle, and then knocking him off his flying ship. The heat of the electrified ball burns Luffy, while its tremendous weight rockets him down to the ground. With Luffy out of the way, Enel continues on with his plan to destroy all of Skypiea. Enel unleashes a devastating new technique called Raigou, a massive thundercloud sphere, and destroys one of the Skypiean islands. Setting his sights on Upper Yard, he forms an even larger one.

Along with help from Nami and the rest of his friends, Luffy manages to get back up into the sky to defeat Enel once and for all. Before he does though, Luffy launches himself into the Raigou. Using the golden ball, Luffy creates a new technique: Gomu Gomu no Ougon Botan (Golden Peony), in which he twirls the golden ball ferociously without control while having his arm out-stretched, creating an illusion of thousands of golden balls. The tremendous force of this attack wreaks havoc within the Raigou, causing it to explode within mid-air. With the threat of the Raigou neutralized, Luffy winds up his arm with the golden ball attached to it for one final attack on Enel.

In retaliation to his attack being thwarted, Enel uses the full advantage of his powers and transforms into a giant God of thunder. His attack "Amal Enel" shows all of his power and might as he is now pure electricity. This doesn't deter Luffy though who surprisingly manages to kick Enel even in this form (if anything he made himself an easy target). Enel catches Luffy with his trident though, thinking he won as Luffy will either be burned from the heat of the trident or fall from the sky. Luffy chooses to fall but much to Enel's dismay he manages to grab onto a solid cloud (which Nami is currently on) and slingshot himself back into the air. In perfect position to strike Enel, he winds up his arm as much as possible and stretches it clear across the sky setting up his final attack: the Gomu Gomu no Ougon (Golden) Rifle. Enel makes one last vain attempt to guard the strike, but it is clearly too late; Luffy launches his arm forward too fast for Enel to counter or dodge against. Letting out a massive sonic boom as he smashes the spinning gold ball into Enel, sending him flying into the golden bell of Skypiea, signaling the defeat of Enel and freedom for all Shandorans and Skypieans. Though he falls from the sky, Enel has managed to escape in his battered floating ship, Maxim, and heads for his supposed promise land, "Fairy Vearth", which turns out to be the moon.

Enel's Great Space Operations
After journeying in space onboard the Maxim, Enel finally reached the moon in the mini-arc Enel's Great Space Operations. After exploring a crater, he discovers a being of sorts upon which he shocks. The small being, which survives Enel's shock, is First Lieutenant Spacey and apparently he and his comrades were fighting some Space Pirates. After a brief scene where Spacey mourned for his fallen comrades, Enel becomes a witness to an attack on Spacey by a fox like Space Pirate. The pirate then tries to impale Enel only to be kicked down by him. Enel then witnesses a large explosion on the moon. The sight of "his Vearth" being destroyed angered him very much. He then went to their location and began "punishing" them. The pirates were no match for his wrath.

After Enel finished punishing the pirates for desecrating his Fairy Vearth, the god was then thanked by the robot, First Lieutenant Spacey, who had awakened, for avenging his and his comrades' professor. Enel however simply replied to the robot by simply shocking him and his companions. Enel then climbed down into the crater created by the Space Pirates and entered a cavern. There inside, Enel found an apparently abandoned city hidden deep under the lunar surface. Seeing these ruins, Enel decided to attack them for the moment. His electrical attack on the ruins however ran through the ruins and into the bodies of several winged spaceys deep within the city. The winged spaceys, once fully charged, thanked Enel for recharging them along with the previous four that came to the moon.

Enel and the four Machine Island Spaceys then study some wall paintings of the Lunar Spaceys' past. The mayan-like mural depicted an ancient civilization with wings that lived on the moon. These people were the ones who created the Lunar Spaceys. The city on the moon was called Bilka, a place with the same name as where Enel came from. The civilization while technologically advanced, however ran out of resources on the moon. For this, they flew to a "Blue-colored star" with balloons in order to find more resources. These unfortunately made both the inhabitants and their creations sad as they would miss each other.

After studying the paintings, Enel realized that he had an abundance of land and plenty of followers. With these, Enel established a new empire on the moon with the Spaceys as his followers.

Translation and Dub Issues
Enel's name could very well be a nod to ancient Mesopotamian Gods, such as En-lil. Some believe that his name is a pun on the word "energy", and therefore translate it as "Eneru" or "Ener"; in some instances it is written as "Enel", mainly due to the fickleness of romanizing katakana.

Due to the position Enel holds as God and the various religious connotations associated with it, the term is translated and censored on varying levels amongst the various official English adaptations. In the game One Piece: Pirates Carnival (dubbed by 4Kids), Enel's title is censored and changed to Sole Sky Lord of Skypiea. In the TV broadcast version of FUNimation's dub, his title is Eternal Sky King of Skypiea and all the religious connotations associated with the title are changed to royalty connotations (i.e. "Skypiea Priests" to "Sky Knights"). In the uncut version of FUNimation's dub, Enel retains the title of God and the religious connotations are left uncensored. In the Viz adaptation of the manga, his title is left untranslated as Kami, but he is still occasionally referred to as a god.

Cameos and Crossovers
Enel appeared in a Shonen Jump special, where he attacked Tokyo and Odaiba. Goku arrives to fight Enel and Luffy appears to help him. Luffy and Goku make an attack called "Gomu Gomu No Kame Hame Ha" and they defeat Enel.

Merchandise
He's featured in the One Piece Full Color R Gashapon series.

Anime and Manga Influences
His powers and the drums attached to his back match those of the thunder god of Japan, Raijin, so the idea of this character might originate from this god. He even introduces himself with the sentence: "Ware ga kaminari", which can taken in English either as "I am lightning" or "I am God". Additionally, one of his poses (reclining on his side) and his elongated earlobes are reminiscent of statues of Buddha. His golden staff and a floating cloud he made using a dial seem to be plays on Son Wukong, the Monkey King of "Xiyouji" ("Journey to the West"), which is also the basis for the Son Gokus of both Dragoball and Saiyuki fame.

Trivia

 * In Episode 182 of the anime, Enel's drums disappear after being kicked by Luffy.
 * Oda confirmed that if Enel were actually a wanted pirate, he could have a bounty as high as 500,000,000.
 * Though he is Bilkan, Enel lacks the Bilkan wings and instead has his ring of drums in the same place they would normally be.
 * Both Enel and his Spaceys appear in the One Piece Unlimited Cruise game for Wii.
 * In Unlimited Adventure, when Enel is fought in the story mode the game displays his name as "Enel", but when accessed in the multiplayer mode the game displays his name as "Eneru". He is also in the sequel, Unlimited Cruise.
 * Enel is also the name of the main Italian electric company.
 * In the 3rd and 4th Japanese Fan Poll, Enel is ranked the 22nd most popular character, making him the most popular One Piece "Major Villain" (outside the CP9 members).
 * The symbols seen on Enel's drums are called tomoe and are very common in Japanese heraldry such as family emblems and corporate logos. The tomoe are also present on a another One Piece character, Sentoumaru.
 * An unconfirmed interesting component of Enels naming could have its origin in the Hebrew Language. There, many Gods would carry the syllable "El" in their name. Moreover, there is also the syllable "En", which expresses a denial or the opposite. Therefore one can roughly translate Enels name to "No God", which indicates that Enel is not a God, or in this context not a legitimate God.
 * His favorite food, apples, could be another reference to his God status. As the apple is referred to as the forbidden fruit of knowledge that only God was allowed to have.