Brook

Brook is one of the main characters from the One Piece anime and manga.

Brook is the musician of the Straw Hat Pirates.

He is a skeleton that the Straw Hats found on board of a ghost shipafter drifting into the Florian Triangle for 50 years. 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. His dream is to, after sailing around the world, reunite with Laboon at Reverse Mountain, where he resides with Crocus.

He is the ninth member of the Straw Hat crew, and the eighth to join Luffy's crew, as well as being the oldest member of the crew and the second tallest member on board after Jinbe. 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.

He currently has a bounty of 83,000,000.

In the AWA fics, Brook is a student at the AWA Academy and is part of Class 3.

Appearance
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. 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.

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 second tallest member of the Straw Hat crew, having been edged out by Jinbe. 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.

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").

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 Zouduring 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 black and red striped vest along with a dark shirt, yellow ascot, and brown 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 the former 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 forgot the object of fear was actually himself and also began 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. 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.

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 Pacifistacyborg 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.[14] 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 when Brook grew furious at a dragon for rejecting him, claiming that bones have plenty of nutrition. However, during the Zou Arc, most of the canine minks from the Mink Tribe constantly bit Brook due to him being made of bones, which he did not 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. However, unlike Sanji, Brook is not against fighting a woman to protect his friends or to complete an important objective. He defeated Jora to cancel the effects of her Devil Fruit powers and battled against Big Mom to keep the copied writings of the Poneglyphssafe.

Though he knows other songs, Brook's favorite song to sing is Binks' Sake which he was singing upon his first appearance. Even when he asks for requests from the others, he seemed to instantly switch over to singing this song. Other songs Brook sings include Black Handkerchief of Happiness 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.

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

Brook's attitude of waking up the crew in person is seen when he woke the Rumbar Pirates with his song White Handkerchief, much to his old crew's annoyance. His attitude carries on to the Straw Hats when he woke them up in person, much to their annoyance once again.

Abilities
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).

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, playing dead halfway through a battle, or launching himself at an enemy with erroneous results. His childish personality occasionally hampers his effectiveness. 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, and when he cleverly realized he could trick Jora to defeat her. When he first met the Straw Hats, he quickly proved to be an asset to them during their encounters with Thriller Bark's many undead inhabitants.

After the timeskip, Brook's overall skills have proven to be a very important asset during battle, as he defeated the energy steroid powered Zeo with no difficulty, and cut down Jora of the Donquixote Pirates. 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.

Brook has demonstrated tactical ingenuity, as shown when he used his music to act like he was on Jora's side, allowing him to regain his sword from her and defeat her. He also got the idea to store the copies of Big Mom's Poneglyphs inside his head before she confronted and later captured him. He is very good at working with others to execute plans in tandem, as shown when he took advantage of Pedro's distraction to get around his strongest opponents and enter the Room of Treasure. He also disguised himself as a clone of Luffy to take advantage of the chaos when Luffy crashed Big Mom's tea party, and he destroyed Big Mom's portrait of Carmel without being noticed.

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

Physical Abilities

Brook's skeletal body, which functions thanks to his Devil Fruitpowers, allows him to perform a wide variety of acts that would be impossible or fatal for a normal human to do. As long as his body remains solid and intact, he will live, and he can easily repair any bone damage simply by consuming milk. He can even survive having his head cut off, continuing to talk, smell, and see while it is detached. However, he is still capable of feeling pain. Due to his lack of flesh, Brook is resistant to lightning strikes. Brook does not age, as his body only consists of bones and he continues to grow stronger despite being 90 years old. He is capable of storing objects inside his skull, such as a Tone Dial and Poneglyph rubbings.

Brook's light weight as a result of his skeletal body makes him the fastest member of the Straw Hats. He can run across water without sinking, and jump extremely high into the air. Brook frequently uses his tremendous speed in battle, allowing him to take down opponents with attacks too quick for them to see. He was able to purify an entire horde of Soldier Zombies before any of them could react.

Though he has a naturally slim frame, Brook possesses an impressive degree of physical strength, being able to carry Luffy up to the crow's nest of Thriller Bark without slowing down. 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. After two years of extensive training, Brook's strength has increased further, 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 and defend powerful strikes from a steroid-enhanced Zeo and Sheepshead of the Beasts Pirates.

Brook also has a vast amount of endurance, as he was able to remain conscious after Bartholomew Kuma used his Ursus Shock on Thriller Bark. Against Big Mom of the Yonko and her three special homies, he was able to get up several times after receiving powerful attacks from her.

Musical Abilities

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 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. Brook can masterfully play enchanting songs that are so melodious they can completely 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" and "New World", 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" 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.

His music also shows capabilities to change its listener's attitude and emotions, as when he was on Namakura Island, his music inspired 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. As a musician who mastered music temperaments such as rhythm, beat, and tempo, Brook has extremely sharp hearing that allows him to accurately distinguish sounds, as he was able to detect where Zeo was by the sound of his movements while the fishman was invisible, even though Zeo was still difficult to locate through sound.

Devil Fruit"Further information: Yomi Yomi no Mi"While he was still alive, Brook ate the Yomi Yomi no Mi, a Paramecia-class Devil Fruit that allowed his soul to return to his body after he died. This allows him to reside within a skeleton body, and he can even perform the functions he did when his body contained flesh and muscle.

Other than bringing him back from the dead, Brook's fruit initially seemed useless. However, after the timeskip, he discovered that he could exercise the power of his soul, which he discovered is what allows him to animate his body. He can separate it to move independently of his body. This leaves his body a lifeless husk, but as a spirit, Brook is capable of moving through walls and going to areas that would be impossible for him to physically reach, though he cannot grab hold of anything. He is capable of exerting his soul power to affect beings with weaker souls such as homies. This soul energy exudes coldness, called the "chills of the Underworld", and allows Brook to transfer this freezing aura to objects like his sword. With this aura, he is capable of freezing his surroundings, as seen when he turned the ground around him on Zou into ice.

Swordsmanship"Further information: Soul Solid"Brook uses a type of sword called a shikomizue, a sword concealed inside a cane. He uses this sword in conjunction with his fencing skills and has had it for at least fifty years.

As a former battle convoy leader and pirate captain with years of experience in the Grand Line, Brook is a master 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.

Although an extremely skilled swordsman, the power he applies in swordsmanship are not of the same caliber as Zoro's, who has a tremendous amount of physical strength 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. 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. Although not on par with Zoro, he was able to keep up with what Zoro was doing while he watched the swordsman fight Ryuma, showing his sharp perception for swordsmanship. He works very well with Zoro, as they defeated a Flying Fish Rider together, that was inches away from killing Hatchan.

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. His power and skill in swordmanship has also increased to the degree where a samurai from Wano has commended his skill and he is also now able to use flying slashes as well, which were on par with Zoro's and Kin'emon's. 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.

Other Weapons

During Big Mom's wedding ceremony, Brook used a hammer to destroy the photograph of Carmel.

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.
 * During the beginning of the Punk Hazard Arc Brook is seen drinking from a tea cup with a slightly different personalized jolly roger. The anime adaptation shown yet another version.
 * A mug with his two canes jolly roger can be seen in Hands Up! while Brook play on the deck of the Thousand Sunny.
 * Brook is the oldest member of the Straw Hats, being 88 years old when he joins them, over twice the age of the next-oldest member at the time Franky.
 * Brook is one of two Straw Hats that was a captain of his pirate crew, the other being Jinbe.
 * Brook's height and age before the timeskip, 8'8" and 88 years old, 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.
 * 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 is one of two Straw Hats to have never ridden aboard the Going Merry, the other being Jinbe.
 * Brook's unique Laughter Style 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.
 * In the 6th Japanese Fan Poll, he ranked 19th.
 * Brook is the only known person to have a wanted poster that is not formatted in the uniform style, instead the World Government used one of his old concert posters, and added the standard "WANTED" and "Dead or Alive", and replaced the "World Tour" with his bounty and the paragraph at the bottom.
 * 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 are named "Blook".
 * In One Piece Blue Deep: Characters World, Brook's post-timeskip height is said to be 277cm, 11cm taller than his pre-timeskip height. This appears to contradict what he said during his fight with Ryuma; that it was important for him to protect his afro because his body had stopped growing.
 * The idea of a skeleton musician was first conceived by Oda in the year 2000.


 * Brook's birthday, April 3rd, comes from his Devil Fruit's name since 4-3 can be derived from yo-mi.
 * Brook's favorite food is curry. His least favorite food is lemons because he has no cheeks to make a sour face.
 * Brook also likes ice cream, the same as Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, and Robin.
 * Brook's favorite dish to cook is churrasco.
 * Brook's favorite type of island and season is autumn on a spring island.
 * Brook's specific numbers are 09 and 43 (4=Yo - 3=Mi, or revive).
 * Brook's specific colors are black and white.
 * Brook smells like tea.
 * If the Straw Hat Pirates were a family, then Brook would be the grandfather