One Piece Episode 446

[DarthEnderX]

Because it'd be lame if Luffy could singlehandedly defeat 2 schichibukai, the god Enel, and the main CP9 guy, yet struggle against a bunch of jail guards. Having the schichibukai outclassed by guards would be lame too... they're supposed to be strong enough to represent one of the triad balance of powers in the world.

We're not talking about regular guards though. We're talking about the officers.

The people who the World Government deems powerful enough to stand between the most powerful criminals on the planet and the rest of the world. Magellan seems qualified, and Shiryu probably was as well. But nobody else seems qualified.

Which, I guess, is why this is happening now. The WG put underpowered people in charge of keeping the most dangerous place in the world sealed up tight, and now all these villains are going to get free because of it.

End of the day, the staff of Impel Down wouldn't even be able to contain two Level 6 prisoners escaping simultaneously. Because Magellan would only be able to fight one while the other would end up soloing the entire rest of the facility.

Contriving villains of incremental strength is one of the biggest shounen cliches that have been played to death, and, more often than not, receive a rather bitter response from an increasingly disbelieving audience. I don't understand how you could broadly prefer that.

Perhaps it wouldn't be as much of an issue if it WERE a refreshing change of pace. Unfortunately, the Impel Down arc directly follows the Amazon Lilly arc, where Luffy ALSO completely outclassed every threat thrown at him.