Why Magellan Is The Only Villain Luffy Can NEVER Beat

this is mellin and he has the rare status of being one of the only opponents that Luffy has never been able to beat he was a man trusted by the world government to handle the world's most dangerous criminals in his own personal hell equipped with one of the most broken devil fruits we've ever seen if mellin so much as breathes in your general direction then you're dead we're talking that kind of broken prior to the five Elders mellin was the closest thing we had to a literal demon but I want to know how he Stacks up in the series as a whole because we are on a mission to rank every major antagonist in the most comprehensive and exhaustive way possible video by video this time featuring The Guardian of hell mellin and I feel like that's a pretty good place to start early designs of mellin state that he was meant to have a title more akin to Guardian of Hell rather than Warden but title or no mellin is the facilitator of the closest thing the one piece world has to hell even on level one the crimson Hell they're torturing prisoners by releasing poisonous spiders into a forest of blades so the prisoners can either let themselves be killed by the spiders or try to flee and inevitably impale themselves on all of the blades ideally both I guess then during the introduction to level three the starvation hell Oda shows us the corpse of a prisoner tied to a rack who they had let starve to death meanwhile on level four they do the exact opposite and they literally cook prisoners in a giant Boiling Pot so OD drew some pretty genuinely horrific things in this Arc and proceeding through impel down is almost like going through a Diablo dungeon with the demon responsible for all of it being our main antagonist and throughout all of imp held down it is made apparent that mellin is not to be treated the same way that we've treated every other antagonist prior to him and his dominance is made immediately clear the first time he even comes close to stepping into action is when he takes Boa Hancock to level six to see Ace and when the prisoners start sing over Hancock and calling mellin diarrhea man he then activates his poison Hydra which is one of the more intimidating abilities that we've ever seen just period and on top of that mellan just up and decides to kill a dude and he adds never for get that I have the power and the authority to execute all of you right here and now quite intimidating but it needs to be said that as much as mellin positions himself as a demon he is far from one it's more of a facade that he puts on to maintain order and control something that he quite literally puts on actually because etra Oda has stated that Magellan's horns are detachable but mellin is strongly motivated by Justice it's quite similar to sakazuki Absolute Justice is probably a step removed because I think that if sakazuki were in charge of imp held down then he would even bother holding prisoners he just execute them all whereas mellin even though he inflicts horrific acts on the prisoners and will kill them every now and then always maintains a purpose relating to Justice he doesn't do all of the things he does for no reason he isn't a Mindless killer nor will he allow any treatment of prisoners that he considers an injustice such as the whole shidu situation when shidu went on an inmate Killing Spree mellan stopped him and said these prisoners aren't here to satisfy your blood lust shiru after which point shiru was captured tried convicted icted and imprisoned himself which sounds a whole lot like that Justice thing with that said it takes quite a lot to cross Magellan's line of justice for those imprisoned and impal down given all of the daily torture and killing but mellin is pursuing his own admittedly extreme sense of justice which makes him a degree more empathize than more of a pure monster like sh but the other motivation to keep in mind with mellin is pride for example the very first thing he says to Luffy is for you to break into this impregnable prison is sullying my reputation because impel down is a symbol of Justice if one prisoner steps one foot outside of these walls then that symbol is broken now in regards to this you might say well man on the internet did you forget about Golden Lion Shiki H to which I would say technically he did not step any feet out of impel down he had to cut them both off but also this was not under Magellan's leadership we do actually see mellin in volume zero and he was a mere Vice Warden 22 years ago when Chiki escaped so if anything melan's got something to prove to his predecessor or had something to prove because we know it doesn't work out well but all of which paints a picture of a very fearsome loyal and detail oriented man demon but funnily enough that was in no way how he was introduced to us no no no no our introduction to mellin is a detailed explanation of his toilet habits Warden mellin has diarrhea for about 10 hours each day it's part of his daily routine to haul up in the restroom he also sleeps about 8 hours a day given time off for meals and breaks he only works about 4 hours a day Domino then goes on to say that he can be quite productive when necessary which is which is good but it gets crazier because mellin and his vice Warden hanal then have this back and forth I'm sorry I had diarrhea I got food poisoning from my poison soup this morning I think you got poisoned because it was poison as a poisonous human poison is my favorite food you know what they say fight poison with poison it doesn't work that's why you get diarrhea so mellin inflicts this Quirk on himself and this is often seen as one of the most random and just simply bizarre character quirks in the series but it's a reference to Magellan's visual design inspiration which comes from a demon named bagore whose emmo is to seduce people into laziness and is usually depicted sitting on a toilet I just saw that toilet demon and he went yep that's my guardian of hell but also mellin has much more emotional range than I think most people remember there's a page during his introduction where he switches emotion in literally every single panel in the first he's demonically releasing poison in the second he's laughing uncontrollably and Goofy in the third he's being what I can only describe as Petty evil and then in the last he is being Love Struck by boah hok this single page of mellin is an emotional roller coaster when I was first reading impel down I had no idea what to make of the guy it was like he had every quirk in one piece all smoed into one demonic diarrhea ball zor's demonic nature Sanji sing Luffy stupid Joy nami's Petty evil and all of that is on top of the fact that he spends 10 hours a day emptying his eternally full bows because he will not stop eating poison and I don't know it it's a lot I usually love one piece character quirks but I would argue that Oda may have overplayed his hand a bit with mellin and part of me thinks that this could be because of impel Down syndrome which is a term I just made up to describe od's tendency to overcompensate with comedy in particularly dark settings you see this most prominently with the impel down and thrill ofar ARS two very gloomy dark and dreary locations but also two of the weirdest and funniest arcs in the entire Series so because we're dealing with someone sculpted to be a representation of the devil Odin may have felt the need to balance that out with every Quirk he had in the stupid Quirk Arsenal and I think it's just it's a bit too much mellin didn't need this many wacky Tendencies crammed into him just the diarrhea alone was plenty for me oh and I completely forgot to mention mellin is also agoraphobic another Quirk to add to the pile but it makes him pretty perfect for pel down because he lacks controll dark spaces and that's also my personal conspiracy theory for why he continues to poison himself because that gives mellin an excuse to spend 10 hours a day in his nice safe and enclosed toilet but the agoraphobia also probably contribute significantly to his strategic prowess over the prison as someone with this condition would be hyper aware of the space and exits the Saving Grace for mellin is that his gazillion wacky quirks don't tend to get in the way of his job when something needs to be done mellin is on you like a drop B on a tourist visiting Australia for the first time much like that time when mellin dropped out of the sky in front of Luffy a panel that I love because there is a real sense of overwhelming power and I love that Oda didn't add pupils to melin's eyes because it makes him look that much more sick Sinister and demonic even the positioning of Luffy adds to it because he's taken completely off God so he's assumed this defensive position which tells you everything you need to know about how this match is going to go Luffy is not ready for an opponent of this level and then when the inevitable happens melin's assumed last words to Luffy are this is your punishment Intruder you will suffer for 24 hours and then go to hell no one piece villain has ever set a harder line than this although in classic Odus style this is then balanced where the next time we see Mell being on the toilet with a rather strained expression because apparently even using his abilities causes him to have diarrhea but mellin is undefeatable all Luffy can do is run in fact all anyone can do is run which gives impel down the kind of tension to feel more like a horror movie than it does a shown and manga especially right at the end when mellan is pursuing everyone and not a single person can stand up to him for more than a handful of seconds and it's always worth noting that mellin completely team wiped the Blackbeard Pirates as well and were it not for shidu Blackbeard Virg U Van alga and leit would all be very very dead let's put it this way in the space of a single AR mellan faced three future Emperors of the sea and soundly defeated two of them Luffy Blackbeard and buggy were all present for impel down and I'm convinced that this event will be remembered much like God Valley mellin is rock debec with Luffy buggy and Blackbeard needing to team up together like Roger Eng GARP did it's going to go down in history as a decisive and brutal battle where three future Emperors combined their powers to beat the system and even then it was a struggle because mellin is a strategic Mastermind at every step along the way he understands the correct course of action to take and again despite his various crippling quirks he does not hesitate to take action however his one arguable strategic flaw just so happens to be one of the biggest mistakes ever made in one piece which was to free shiru to theoretically help out during an event that I'm going to refer to as the riot of three Emperors where Luffy buggy and Blackbeard LED their forces simultaneously on different level of impel down and I often see people on the internet accusing this decision of being a plot hole or out of character because if you look at what happens afterwards yes it is a Monumental miscalculation but you do need to actually look at mellen's working mellin has Luffy buggy and black beard attacking the prison simultaneously and he states that he cannot request help from Marine HQ because they're busy preparing for a big old war so impel down is completely cut off and has to deal with this unprecedented event themselves which is a very desperate situation to be in especially when you consider the pride of the institution it is a global symbol of justice and if there were to be some sort of mass breakout then it risks destroying the public belief in the justice system from melan's perspective if he doesn't take Extreme Action right here and now then at least one of the three groups is going to succeed and completely undermine the symbol of impel so he figures that hey this Shero guy just wants a free pass to stretch his legs and kill some people for a bit which is a lot more helpful than having him not do that I do think that Magellan's decision looks a lot stupider in the anime because look for whatever reason they made it his idea to free shiru rather than shidu offering to help so anime mellin just up and releases a level six prisoner assuming that he'll do the right thing with no promises no evidence that that's stupid so the anime definitely makes him look much less strategically sound but that's not mellen's greatest flaw really melin's fatal floor is something much more general which is that he could not accept anything less than a perfect out if mellin was willing to accept that yes some prisoners are going to escape and then found the most logical way to keep that damage to a minimum then impel down would have had a much much darker ending for our protagonists but mellan makes his position pretty clear with the following declaration you will not set one foot outside of this prison so one prisoner setting one foot one step outside of impel down is considered a failure of unacceptable proportions but unfortunately the Quest for Perfection is always doomed to fail just ask old mate charlot kakuri what what's he up to right now probably not much because he failed so really there's only so many plates that mellin can keep spinning before they all come tumbling down and that's really the only Victory we get to take from mellin the facts that Luffy and the other prisoners defeated the symbol of impel down which to me isn't as satisfying as your typic one piece villain resolutions but you do need to remember that mellin is a Paramount War antagonist which is the only Saga in one piece that really differs from the typical formula every other Saga in the series has has this end goal of defeating a major antagonist but during the Paramount War the goal of every Arc was essentially just to escape on sabed they had to escape kizaru then Luffy had to escape from Amazon Lily during the war itself we had to escape from aayu and of course during impal down we had to escape from mellan although I will say that it was very satisfying to see Luffy's combination with Mr 3 and there's even a brief very brief moment where it looks like we may have cracked mellin like when Luffy figured out how to hit crocodile but that moment is incredibly fleeting and one mere poison upgrade later we are back to fleeing for our lives and in the end we really did only barely escape with the help of a wax wall a giant stab and a big old wink from Ivanov oh and also if it wasn't for the Blackbeard Pirates all of that still would have been for nothing because mellan ordered a Pursuit ship so we really do have to thank the Blackbeard pirates for defeating mellan off screen on our behalf but again that that's not satisfying the villain was beaten by another villain and we didn't even get to see it yeah but also I do need to bring this up initially one of the most pain Yul satisfying things about mellin is that he was a villain who did lasting damage because impal down ends with the strong implication that mellin kills bong clay one of the most beloved characters and that feat alone would Skyrocket mellin score in this tier list however the whole situation gets heavily undermined when we discover that Bon Clay is still alive on the cover page of chapter 666 don't get me wrong I love the bong clay still alive but it definitely lessens the overall impact of mellin significantly especially after he went said H any lost words Bon clay I mean he probably didn't say it like that but that is the traditional indicator of I'm going to kill you now but what I guess mellin meant is any last words Bon clay to your friends who have just escaped because you bonay have been a very very naughty boy and we're going to lock you in a dungeon for a long long time it just doesn't quite hit as hard and I do think it contributes to Mell and being one of the more forgettable one piece villains honestly a lot of fans can't even name him for example when I ask a lot of you for your input as to the next villain we should rank on this tier list a lot of people just commented hey can you do what's his name you know the poison guy from the jail and that's not an amazing impression to have left on an audience but in the end that is Magellan's Legacy less of the actual character and more of the general concept of poison he's probably the villain that has given Luffy the greatest gift being poison resistance and poison awareness something that we are still seeing to this very day such as recently in chapter 1,111 when Luffy was immediately able to recognize a PO attack from St sattin because it was similar to what mellin used against him so Magellan's effect it is undeniably profound but as an antagonist or I guess as a character in general he doesn't have anywhere near the staying power as almost every other antagonist and we can see this most clearly in his post impel down character o something I didn't have space to mention previously is Magellan's relationship with hanal because mellin does also have this motivation of keeping hanal off his back as all throughout him P down hanal can barely string a sentence together without demanding ing that mellan resigns so that he can become the new Chief Warden of impel down and eventually this does become a reality we don't really hear much about melan until pun Hazard when we learn that he was demoted to Vice Warden and that hanul is now the chief Warden which was what he always wanted I guess that just goes to show that manifesting works hanal kept saying that he wanted to become the new Warden and then B it it happened but it happened in a way that makes sense because mellin did fail to prevent the greatest disaster that had ever been inflicted on impal down the was compromised and so he was demoted mellan also has a pretty nasty looking scarf from whatever the Blackbeard Pirates did to him and also one of his wings was damaged and patched up with assorted Metals with that said it's not all bad news for mellin though because we did get some insight into his personal life and apparently during the last two years Sardi fell in love with him and now he's known as the quote most trustworthy man in Hell other than that mellin has been pretty disappointingly quiet with the last reference to him I believe coming from chapter 96 where DOL Flamingo is shown alleged talking to mellin but we don't actually see him so mellan feels like an incomplete antagonist and not in a good way because there are going to be other incomplete antagonists that we do need to rank as part of this journey such as Blackbeard sakazuki maybe even emu but they're incomplete because odor is setting them up for bigger rolls down the line in the case of sakazuki and Blackbeard they've both progressed one becoming a fleet Admiral and the other becoming an emperor of the sea but mellin hasn't progressed in fact he's actively gone backwards which indicates to me that we're done with him if he does return in the future it's not going to be in a major role and so he'll always feel a little bit unsatisfyingly incomplete to me which is a shame because his Threat Level was superb his motivation was incredibly solid and even amongst onepiece villains he stands out as unique but then again probably due to his agoraphobia he chooses to stand out in a dark corner where very few people see and or remember him and while I do think that mellin is incredibly underrated as a villain it's mostly because people forget that he exists in order to actually rate him so if he'd had a all effect then I could see mellin being an A but in comparison to every other villain in one piece I can't justify giving him any more than a b tier and you let me know in the comments which villing you'd like to see ranked next

Channel: GrandLineReview

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Id: -R9f551A5JA

Length: 17min 11sec (1031 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 22 2024