In One Piece collection 36, the race to save Ace from Impel Down continues. He has 29 hours and counting until his execution. Luffy and escaped prisoners Bon Clay, Buggy and Mr 3, keep battling through the prison to make their way to the lower prison levels.
After battling and defeating the Demon Minatouris they fall to the Burning Heat hell on level 4, our protagonist and 3 counterparts continue on their journey. Warden Magellan gets notified that Luffy has already reached level 4, he has defeated Minatouris and gets fired up and decides to take matters into his own hands. He splits his forces into three – Sadie and the demon squad to guard the stairwell on level 5, Hannyabal and the guards to guard level 3 and Mangellan will go down to level 4 to settle the score with Luffy (but not before he releases his bowels).
The story continues with the four battling their way through the Impel Down guards and while Luffy and Bon are keen to go further down, Buggy and 3 are trying to separate themselves from Luffy in order to escape. The scent of food hits Luffy’s nose, hungry as hell he races towards the smell – but suddenly drops of poison hit the ground at his feet. Magellan the powerful user of Venom Venom devil fruit appears. There is a bit of banter between Magellan and Luffy stating that he knows why he is here to save Ace and that he will force him to say how he entered the prison.
Luffy gets fired up and the battle begins. Before the first punch lands on Magellan – Bon stands in the way and lands the hit. Bon fears Magellan (as he knows what he’s capable of) and warns Luffy that if even a small amount of his poison lands on you you’ll be dead (it acts as a Neurotoxin and will travel through your body in intense pain before you die). But in normal Luffy style he doesn’t back down and the battle continues. Bon Clay battles with his fear – he wants to help Luffy, goes through every scenario in order to help him, but every factor results in death.
From here Bon Clay decides to run, as it’s the only thing he can do and Buggy and Mr 3 (whom also feat Magellan) are conducting a plan to take out Hannyabal – the weakest link. But in usual style it back fires on them and they get captured until Bon arrives that way to save the day (using his shape shifting powers to arouse Hannyabal).
The fight between Luffy and Magellan continues – he even activates second gear, but to no avail. Luffy gets covered with Magellan’s poison and renders useless, he will die within 24 hours in agony and pain, he is then carted off to level 5: Freezing Hell to spend the remainder of his time.
The next episode then takes place with Hannyabal holding Buggy and Mr 2 captive; little do you know it’s in fact Bon playing the part. They go into a room away from the guard and Buggy is trying to convince Bon that there’s no helping Luffy now, it would take a miracle to save him. Bon has a light bulb moment and remember Ivankof (the miracle worker, when doctors can’t do anything – he has the power to save them). From here Bon has his mindset – he is going to enter the Freezing Hell on Level 5, to save Luffy and find Ivan.
Once Bon, Buggy and 3 arrive on Level 5 they are quickly split up due to an attack of demon wolves. Buggy and 3 seem to be the decoys for the wolves and Bon struggles on in the icy fortress to find Luffy. Once Bon finally finds Luffy – he is in pretty bad shape and he apologises to Luffy for not having the balls to stand up and fight. He then carries him on a sled trying to find clues to where Ivan is. A prisoner leads them to a forest – quite a distance away. Before too long the demon wolves catch up with Bon and Luffy and attack. Bon does his best to protect Luffy, but gets overpowered. Just as he passed out he sees a vague image of an odd looking character dressed in half orange and white.
When Bon awakes, he’s in a commune. In a panic he searches for Luffy, only to find a bar in full swing with queer folk enjoying themselves. The person (orange and white dressed) named Inazuma states that he has been passed out for 10 hours. This puts Bon into a panic, as he knew Luffy only had a limited time to survive. Inazuma tries to calm Bon down and says – you’ll need to speak to him and he will explain things to you. Suddenly a stage show begins, it’s the one and only Ivankof, in a song and dance he explains that Bon is at Impel Down Level 5.5 – a secret garden for prisoners called ‘New Kama Land.
You get a bit of a back story into Ivankof, and his powers – that he ate the Horm Horm fruit – which means he can control people’s hormones- can change their sex, body temperature, skin colours, growth, emotions and in general remodel people from the inside out – he’s like an engineer of the human body. He then states that there is no need for Bon to worry – he started healing him (with his powers) over 10 hours ago when he was brought in. However there is a catch – if he is healed – he will loose ten years of his life – but there’s no guarantee that Luffy will live, it’s up to his courage and spirit (which we all know he has plenty of). However even if he does pull through it – he won’t make it in time to save his brother. Ace will be taken in seven hours to Marineford, and Luffy is going to take another two days to fight and then another 3 to recuperate.
Bon in his stubborn ways doesn’t accept it and goes by his side, yelling out moral support while Luffy screams in agony. Hours past and what looks like blood oozes from Luffy’s door, just as you think all hope is lost – Luffy emerges screaming ‘MEAT’ and after having a week’s supply of the New Kama Land’s food he’s back to fine form.
From here, we have Ivan and Luffy getting to know each other briefly before Luffy rushes out to save Ace. Ivan reveals – that he won’t leave Impel Down until the revolutionary Dragon makes his move on the world. Luffy reveals that Dragon is actually his dad, even though he doesn’t know much about him or even what he looks like (Garp revealed this fact in a previous collection). It turns out that Ivankof is actually a commander in the revolutionary army and decides that it’s his duty to help Luffy get his brother back.
Through the rest of this collection we have a lot of thrills and spills for them to rescue Ace, but just as they reach him – they realise they were too late – he’s already on his way to Marineford. They make the call to go to Marineford and rescue Ace, but first they need to escape Impel Down and to do this they make some unlikely alliances. Will they get to Ace in time? Will Whitebeard strike war on the Navy? We will have to watch the next collection to find out!
I loved this collection – so many new characters involved, old ones re-sparked and some brilliant progress into the story – looks like we are nearly out of the woods with the Impel Down arc and onto Marineford, in which I hear big things happen – so really looking forward to it. Stay tuned for the next release from Madman.
A review copy was provided by Madman Entertainment to the author for the purpose of this review.