[Manga] One piece - Similarities between Impel Down and Dante's Inferno

I play a lot of video games but there is something else that I love: manga. Especially One piece !

If you watch the anime or read the manga you are not unaware that the mangaka (Eiichiro Oda) is inspired by many things to write his manga.
There is one particular inspiration I like, Dante's Inferno!

So here's a little article to show the similarities between Dante's Inferno and the manga's Impel Down underwater prison

First of all, what is Dante's Inferno?

Hell is the first part of the Divine Comedy, that is to say a long Italian poem written by Dante in the 14th century. This poem is composed of three parts: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. In Hell, the poet narrates the journey of Dante and Virgil to the deepest part of the Earth.

But then what is the connection between Hell and Impel Down?

First of all the structure of the two places is very similar, indeed it is said in the collection that the structure of Hell is in the form of a funnel that joins the center of the Earth and that it is composed of nine circles. Gradually as we go down the spiraling circles are narrowing because the more we go down the more crimes are important and therefore fewer are the sinners.

This is exactly the same organization that we find for Prison Impel Down, the more we go down the more the number of prisoners decreases:

I told you that Hell was made up of nine circles. In each circle is punished a sin (the deadly sins) thus according to the sin the punishment will be different in each circle as for the prison of Impel Down. Even though this one has only 6 circles, we can find similarities between the tortures inflicted on prisoners at Impel Down and those found in Dante's Hell.

Here is the list of the circles of Hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Avarice, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Ruse and finally Betrayal(this is where Lucifer would reside)

• In Hell, the first circle, Limbo is a place full of loneliness and emptiness
• In the second circle, the fate of the damned souls is to be swept by a relentless wind, Minos (the myth says that Minos is the one who locked the Minotaur in the labyrinth) guard the entry
• In the third circle those accused of gluttony sin suffer under acid rain
• The fourth is an endless desert
• In the fifth the souls languish in muddy waters
• In the sixth they are trapped in a fire that never goes out
• In the seventh the souls drown in a lake of blood
• In the eighth the souls are harassed, pursued, whipped and tortured by demons
• Finally in the last circle reigns an icy cold
  
  

All this is very similar to the different levels of Impel Down

In the first level (the Scarlet Hell) the prisoners are forced to run in the forest while being chased by the guards, the leaves of the trees being as sharp as razors they inevitably hurt themselves and suffer atrociously. This level reminds me of the acid rain of the third circle for the permanent pain of the prisoners and the eighth circle because the souls are also pursued.

In the second level (the hell of the demonic beasts) the prisoners are guarded by monstrous beasts

In the third level (Hell of Hunger) the prisoners suffer from dehydration (the heat rises from the fourth level) and receive very little water and food to keep them in a state close to death, this corresponds so at the fourth level of Hell which is an endless desert

In the fourth level (Hell of flames) the prisoners are tortured by the flames and thrown into the big pot of boiling blood. That would correspond to the sixth and seventh circle of Hell.

In the fifth level (Hell of Ice) reigns a winter cold that causes the death of many prisoners, this corresponds to the ninth circle of Hell

Finally, in the last level (Infinite Hell) the most dangerous criminals are locked up, the prisoners of this level have been sentenced to death or to life imprisonment, and have been removed from history. The Minotaur sometimes comes to hit the prisoners, which makes a connection with the guardian Minos of Dante's Inferno. Moreover, in Dante's Inferno it is from the sixth circle that the worst sinners are found. Those who committed the most serious mistakes and used their reason to do evil

There is also the similarity between Luffy and Dante who both goes deep into hell to recover a loved one

I think that's enough evidence to say that Oda has put references in his work to this very famous poem and that it supports a little more the infernal aspect of this prison !