Warning: Contains spoilers for One Piece chapter #1114.Among the various One Piece villains, the one fans have wanted to see return more than anyone is Eneru (sometimes spelled as Enel) from the Skypiea arc. The incredible impression Eneru left during his arc was one thing, but Eneru going to the moon and meeting robots and aliens in his cover story was so bizarre that people immediately wanted a follow-up, and that’s only intensified in recent years as the Skypiea arc has retroactively become more important.
It’s been over 20 years since Eneru was last involved in One Piece, but he might finally be returning. A recent reveal in the Egghead Island arc feels like a deliberate callback to the end of Eneru’s story, and not only could that lead to Eneru’s return, it could mean that Eneru will be the person to explain the biggest mysteries in One Piece.
Putting Eneru in that role would be the perfect payoff to his two decades of absence from the story, and that would surely add a lot to the series as it continues through its final saga.
The main reason why Eneru might be returning to One Piece is how the reveal of Mother Flame’s design seems to reference a key detail from Eneru’s cover story. In part 36 of Eneru’s cover story, “Enel’s Great Space Operations”, Eneru discovered hieroglyphs detailing the history of his ancestors, and one of them was a circular design with a flame in the center. While there wasn’t originally anything notable about that, One Piece chapter #1114 revealed that the hieroglyph Eneru discovered resembles the Mother Flame and its container, thus implying a connection between the two and providing a reason for Eneru to return.
While that could just be a coincidence, especially since the Mother Flame is supposed to be Vegapunk’s invention, that’s easy enough to explain. A major plot point of the Egghead Island arc has been Vegapunk researching the Void Century for renewable energy, and with the ancient Shandians being connected to the Void Century, Vegapunk might have learned the same things Eneru did while researching the Void Century and based the Mother Flame off of that hieroglyph. That would be an easy way to tie the two together, and above all else, it would still justify Eneru’s return to One Piece.
The design of the Mother Flame gives a lot of credence to Eneru’s return, and that can lead to answers to some of One Piece’s biggest mysteries. Previous chapters basically confirmed that Uranus is powered by the Mother Flame, which would mean a connection to the hieroglyph Eneru discovered, and that hieroglyph was grouped with ones depicting a boat and sea creatures, which calls to mind Pluton and Poseidon, respectively. All of that implies that the Ancient Weapons are connected to the moon, so if Eneru comes back, then his return could lead to a full explanation of the Ancient Weapons.
There’s also how Eneru’s return can lead to reveals about the space-related elements of the series. Between the Lunarians, the sun god Nika, and the naming scheme of the Five Elders, there are a lot of elements in One Piece that relate to the Moon and space, in general, so with Eneru being on the moon, Eneru can provide answers about the Lunarians and other space-related elements of One Piece. Overall, there’s a lot of good that can happen with Eneru’s return beyond the simple excitement of his return, and hopefully, now is when One Piece finally makes it happen.