The existence of fishmen slaves, as awful as it is, creates some very interesting workarounds. Not only can they breathe underwater and withstand deep pressure they are also significantly stronger than the humans of the One Piece world, who themselves seem to be on average much stronger and tougher than real life humans.
A lot of people forget about them, but they likely used the *Blugori* to do most of the work. They are way stronger than the average Fishman and easier to control too. One of the jailers, a little guy named Saldeath, could control all of them with a flute.
Given recent implications about rising sea levels globally, and the possibility of it happening multiple times over centuries, Impel Down may have been more above water at some point before being submerged over the years.
This is also a world of fictional materials such as Sea Stone and Devil Fruit powers that can build absurd things in short periods of time. I think it’s mentioned that at least one of Impel Down’s floors was made entirely by a digging power user?
It must definitely have been a very hard build. Thankfully the ocean didn't fight back, being in the calm belt and all, but the sea kings must have been a real problem. The towers are coated in sea prism to ward them off, but the workers (or, more likely, fishmen slaves, knowing how the Celestial dragons operate) couldn't have been. Also, didn't know the concrete kanu is an international thing, not just a german thing. Funny how far ideas travel
@@onstructures on a technicality it is not, as Germany calls its universities of applied science "Fachhochschule" (literally translated "Subject high school", missing a lot of nuance), not university ツ It's held every two years with various regattas and competitions, and always in a different city. Our campus hosted in 2011
Impel down was 100% built by fishmen slaves! 100%The working enviroment basically necessitates it and Arlong in the live action has mentioned multiple times how fishmen slaves were being used as construction labour on a wide scale! as for detering Sea Kings I assume they used the same 'cloaking' tech developed by Vegapunk as the navy ships. Unless they had a few permanent Reylight type fishmen permanently on hand I don't see how the fishmen workers wouldn't be instant Seaking snacks otherwise 😅
@@DarkHarlequin do we know how old Impel Down is? For me it feeld kinda unlikely that Vegapunk already invented these navy ships. If it was build long ago, maybe they used Poseidon.
@@Soguwe I think Fachhochschule gets called UAS (University of Applied Science) in English and yes it is a fullfledged university, just with a more practical orientation.
Bear in mind that there is currently a hypothesis in the One Piece community that the OP world was flooded at some point. This leads into the hypothrsis that Impel Down WASN'T constructuted by the WG, but rather was an on-land fortress that was submerged and later used by the WG. This would 100% explain why there are battlements on an underwater structure.
There are hints that Impel Down was originally just a regular (albeit MASSIVE) tower, and the reason it was submerged was because the earth got flooded. It's still not confirmed yet, but the manga has been dropping several hints to a worldwide cataclysmic flood, including this arc where there are express questions made about how a tower could have been built underwater like that
If that was the case, then couldn't the water pressure realistically have caused the tower to implode, seeing that it likely wouldn't have been built to handle that kind of pressure?
@@johnd.2114 Counter Argument : It was probably built out of Sea Prism which is by all accounts basically a cheat code material (Poneglyphs are made from it and are said to be indestructible). And regardless, I think that this type of things aren't the top priority of Oda when it's an universe where you literally have islands in the clouds
@sephikong8323 yeah, I don't doubt there could be an in universe reason. I'm an architectural engineering student, so I'm just trying to think about these things as realistically as I can.
i was about to say that that makes no sense but then i realise that it usually takes luffys team 2 weeks to go from one island to another and in real life you can go from europe to america in 3 to 4 weeks. meaning by 2 islands luffy would've travelled half of the earth
Such a building already exists in the real world, it is just not used as a prison. It is the "Troll" oil platform which made out of hollow concrete pillars that extend 1000ft below the surface of the ocean. A hypothetical world government could definitely house some prisoners down at the bottom of Troll if they wanted to.
Oh wow! And the wiki says an artist played “the deepest underwater concert” at the base of the hollow walls! Super cool, the slipform form concrete construction allows for a joint-less construction, but still I’d be interested to know if other waterproofing measures were taken, or what modifications were made to the concrete mixture.
The technic is called slip forming The structure is casted as, pun intended, "one piece" of concrete without any joints. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JDPoSmV2oUA.html here is a nice documentation from BBC about the plattform with an good explaination of the technic at 14:40.
My thought is that the lower tiers aren't larger spaces, but are wider due to thicker walls. I'd argue that every level has a similar internal space to level 1, if not smaller. I don't remember any character stating the lower levels were bigger areas outright
I’d like to note that buoyancy requires pressure below the structure. Since impel down is built on the ocean floor and is pyramid shaped, it’s actually more likely that it would be heavier underwater, since there is more pressure pushing down on the fortress than pushing up.
I agree, it’s very unlikely that the structure is actually lighter than the water weight, but I believe the buoyant force would still pull the structure upwards even when placed on the ocean floor.
I get the impression that although One Piece Earth is much bigger than ours, it is much less dense, and thus the surface gravity is lower. If this weren't so, falls would be far more lethal than they are in the show. Therefore, water pressure would be significantly lower. This wouldn't show up much on the surface, but at lower depths, the difference would add up rapidly. remember how low the Thousand Sunny had to dive before its mangrove bubble coating started to shrink.
One thing that could be used would be Roman Concrete which was just recently rediscovered how to be made in the last year or two. Which is said to become stronger the longer it’s in the ocean as the limestone fills the cracks and heals itself over time. Which is one of the reasons why so much of the old stuff is still standing and the new concrete we have used in the last hundred years only lasts a few decades. Not that it would help with the pressure I guess. Then again concrete had no cracks in the end. Maybe if it was reinforced to handle the higher pressure. Happy to see some companies trying to use the old Roman way and use limestone chunks in their mixing which was thought to be impurities for years and years.
Ah yes, Massive varrying size or even material from shot to shot. I realized this quite extremely during Miss Valentine's failed execution in Miss Goldenweek's Back to Baroque Coverstory. The cross Miss Valentine was tied to quite extremely shifted in size and even whether she was tied to it via ropes or Hina's iron rings... That was very weird. 5:30 That's just a tangent but why do the levels have these walls with Battlements on top of them? Isn't that a complete waste of time and material?
About the battlements, there might be more to this than we thought. A theory I read assumes that the world of One Piece is actually flooding and sea levels are rising.
Hah great practical point about the battlements, they don’t seem to do much… unless we think the world wasn’t always so covered in water! It’s even more odd when you think, there’s probably more level 1 prisoners in the world than level 6, so why would their layer be larger? Hmmm 🤔
@@onstructuresit could be either 1: it was not underwater before and it was submerged Orb 2: to support the massive weight the base had to be bigger then the top and compared to other levels the level 6 was not that open and big even tho it was the largest like the other levels has alot of open space but level 6 almost seemed like one big room contrary to its size further suggesting the idea the is just big to act as a base.
I genuinely thought i missed a massive youtuber creating cool content id never heard of. Seeing that you have under 100k is crazy. Keep it up man. Shits awesome
nice review!! looking forward for your next reviews of one piece! i suggest baratie on how you can redesign it in real life considering the environment, weather and not destroying the water haha that would be cool!
i was going to comment similar thing as well, considering its design from outside the building, it would be logical to think i was made as tower fortress of sort
@onstructures Especially since, in one piece, there is an indestructible material (The ponegliphs). The material the tunnel from Enies Lobby is made of might be made from the same material as the ponegliphs.
Videos like this reminds me that One Piece reaches people from all different walks of life, and it just makes me happy. Also very interesting subject and well made.
I need an analysis of The Grand Line/Calm Belt/Rivers Mountain and how Impel Down-Enies Lobby-Marineford can connect through those 3 giant gates. I never got why there are no currents inside of that triangle and how it's possible to isolate an area of the sea in the first place.
One of my favorite fictional locations I've always liked analysing is The World Tree from the nintendo game Xenoblade Chronicles 2. (If you haven't played the game and don't wanna be spoiled then DO NOT look it up! Its a major mystery of the game. But if you do or have played the game already, first of all you're awesome cuz its so underrated, but also if you don't mind spoilers its a really fascinating location that's design has many real-life parallels present and future.)
@@onstructuresnot just part 2. A very much unnecessarily detailed part 2. I'm not a civil engineer, but an in depth analysis of how it could be made, maintained, maybe cost of operations etc., I was looking forward to the whole thing and the video abruptly ended :D. This initial analysis was pretty good too! It gave me a good basic understanding of the structure. Wish you the very best man!
I have a counter argument to this. It’s possible Impel Down was made before or during the Void century when it wasn’t underwater. People have pointed out the random Poneglyph inside Impel Down level 3. And we know Poneglyphs are indestructible. It’s possible whoever made the poneglyphs (Wano or the ancient kingdom) also made Impel Down. We also know the ancient kingdom had super advanced technology. If insane stone masons also created impel Down or the ancient kingdom created it, it would make sense as to why it would be structurally intact. This is all still theoretical though and based on magic stones or super technology. Still really enjoy these types of videos. Can’t wait for the next one.
I was going to say the same thing. The marine warships are massive and look miniscule in scale to impel down. Not to mention the many sea kings that swim around it and we know that the largest sea kings reside in the calm belt so it's definitley wayyyy bigger than a 1000ft. I'd say 10 Miles makes plenty of sense as it house many Giants and large human beings, not to mention the many giant monsters inside Impel down.
Nice review. Like Azkaban, i see Impel Down more lika a Concentration Camp & Torture Chamber than a Prison. And in my oppinion i think it deserves to be more destroyed than Enies Lobby who seems to be a natural phenomenon, the ground its buildings was on.
It's implied that Impel Down might be even older and once served a different purpose than what it currently is, so it's clearly definitely not designed to be a perfect prison.
We kind of built Dams. It's a similar structure, I think. Although incredibly exaggerated/scaled up. And I didn't know about that hollow oil platform thing. Cool.
I came here when i left a comment to the train tracks materials imbued with devil fruit properties. I'm sorry if i spoiled it for you. (Spoilers) It was shown in the anime punk hazard arc that an awakened fruit can affect an environment permanently and i think its quite possible to assume or speculate that materials taken from these environment that is used for building can also affect structure integrity, of the material because of its properties. (Theory speculations)long ring island all creatures and the island itself is changed permanently by a devil fruit long ago, long trees long creatures long pastures etc. So i think we can imagine characters that had devil fruits awakened long ago like the diamond fruit or the stone fruit could create a sturdy material that permanently change its properties.
Pretty sure that impel down is actually the body of someone who ate the castle-castle fruit who died in that form. Therefore that would mean Moria could use the "corpse" and why shiki couldn't lift it.
Knowing all the that is happening in the latest chapters of One Piece, it wouldn't sourprise me if Impel down was a tower prison with just the level 5 and 6 submerged. Then the sea level rise up
You could check the location of the deepest concert ever for comparison. It was in the pillar of an oil plattform. Maybe you even do, haven’t watched til the end yet 😂
What if Impel down was built on a dry land on island, but then due to shift of planet axis it got submerged underwater. Would it explain the design then?
i feel like you might enjoy looking at the structure of the land of Lordran from Dark Souls - it reminds me a lot of Chongqing, China personally (another great place for cool structures to be found)
The different levels' unique climates could be the result of past awakened logia users altering the climate forever. Level 5 couldve been Aokiji's work just like he did on Punk Hazard
wasnt it stated that the one piece ocean floor is around 10000 meters (~33k feet), the same height as the white sea up from the oceans surface? 1000 feet sounds way too shallow
Imagine if there used to be a level 7 that housed the most diabolical, pirates lost to time but it was breached centuries ago. High pressured water rushed in and it was forcefully closed off for eternity with the corpse of the worst pirates still down there. Note: this is just a quirky idea, not canon or anything.
What if Impel Down does actually displace more than its weight in water and is meant to float, with the bottom most floor anchored at the ocean bed and the rest floating upwards keeping it in tension
This touches two of my biggest interests (one piece and putting engineering where engineering has no right to be, like an anime) and I autistically love you SO MUCH pls marry me at the neurodivergence altar
A bit disappointed on how you didn't go into further detail on the logistics of how to simulate each biome of the jail, and what would the energy source used to power the whole structure.
Ah fair point, there’s a lot of interior systems going on in here, the mechanical/electrical/plumbing and definitely the Heating/cooling systems would be an interesting discussion , unfortunately I’m not super well versed in those trades like I am with the structural system. Thanks for the feedback!
Unfortunately, Sanjuan Wolf (the tallest dude in the world) being comfortably (height-wise) imprisoned on the bottom level of the prison throws off your estimate. He's estimated to be up to 180m tall, so 300 meters for the entire Impel Down tower doesn't work.
he can change his height . he has the giant giant fruit. when he was imprisoned he was smaller. whats crazy is snajuan with his fruit can travel the ocean because he can grow so tall that most of his body is outside of the sea. mans op but got one shotted by garp
Honestly someone should introduce you to the geography person of one piece Tekking 101 but Matt is kinda shy but he's the geography savant of the one piece vearth
Reading the recent chapters I'm led to believe this was actually a normal tower that got flooded by the rising sea level due to islands being destroyed, just like what happens in Water Seven
@@chaotixthefox nah, they would've slowly upgraded it to more and more resistent to water as it rose It probably took years for the water to rise to the current level, so they had time Again, just like Water Seven
tbh, even in the world of one piece impel down is pretty flawed. they say that the further you get down, the worse the criminals get. and if thats the case, then that means that most of the criminals would be at the top levels, which are the smallest ones, while the few bad criminals get a huge floor to themselves lol. great video dude. keep it up!
@@Ascent037, Luffy broke in and out of Impel Down; Black Beard broke in and out of Impel Down; Shiki broke out of Impel Down; Morley broke out of Impel Down, and Buggy broke out of Impel Down too meaning that it’s really not the perfect super max prison the Marines claims it to be.
@@Ascent037 , I’m not architect or an engineer, so I can’t really say if pirates and revolutionaries breaking in and out of a super max prison like Impel Down is because of the Marines needing an architect or engineer like this person, but them having Magellan as the Main Warden is definitely one of the biggest examples on why revolutionaries and pirates are easily able to break in and out of a super max prison no difficulty at all.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr yeah i mean the first couple of levels are good at making it hard to escape, like the freezer level or the lava level but at some point prisoners are too strong for that like with haki and stuff thats why its not great
If those are solid stone blocks and they get cut, ground and finely interlocked (Incan stonework, Eddystone lighthouse by Smeaton, Angkor Wat stonework) no binding grout requirred. Now the interlocked cutting as mentioned could possibly redistribute and pass on loads, making cracking less of an issue, mostly because compression, not tension. I can also see a more cone shaped structure with a continuous diameter tube as the insides of Impel Down could be beneficial as there would be quite a lot of weight resting on the bottom while keeping the bouyancy comparatively small (at the bottom) and depending on the angle of teh outer cone somewhat constant with less sections submerged the higher up we go? And to make Impel down Water tight, preasure would be our friend without grout as it would "elastically" deform the mostly flush ground stones and press them tightly together to make them water tight. Additionally the heat and cold of the levels could actually be driving the convection inside the open cason that would be Impel Down and the lowest levels without said air circulation would be filled with toxic gases and little oxygen as heavier gases go down there, not to mention the 4°C which would seep into those levels down there over the centuries, so climate controlls are as necessary as a big as swamp drain pump at the very bottom, unles they manage to dry out the air at the bottom and force and use the room temperature and super dry air to forcefully evaporate some of the dew at level 6? That would make it colder, sure but if you put hot air into a cold environment that would mitigate some of those issues. Here is teh "fun part" though, level 5 is teh icy hell and level 4 is the fiery hell, we could drive an HVAC cycle with that and have convection be the by product, which makes the lower levels more "livable", especialy level 6 and if we make use of level 3 we could even attempt to have it play a role in the "filter drier" of our bigass, submerged HVAC that would be Impel Down. I'm too tired to entertain this seriously and make some estimates, but some of those things could be made workable, maybe not practical, but certainly workable.
Hah wow, awesome comment! Yea, perhaps a binder-less solution is more possible in a situation like this is we have the precision to do it. As I think about it, the bricks would probably need to interlock uniquely to help create a watertight interior. I never really considered the Heating and cooling implications of the building, that’s so funny! The cauldron level would certainly get the air moving!
This channel needs to be waaaay bigger. You have a really nice voice to listen to and the cadence makes me want to keep watching throughout. I hope your channel continues to grow
Here is an interesting thing to consider regarding water pressure and especially Sea Kings: Impel Down might be reinforced with Seastone. That would practically turn it invisible for Sea Kings (just like the Marines Warships), but it is also an increadibly durable material that could possibly withstand the insane waterpressure at such depths. It might even help with waterproofing the building? But idk about that.
Totally agree that seastone could be the right solution, though I’ve kinda steered the conversation around it since it has such incredible properties it might as well be the fix all… and I didn’t think would make for a great talking point
I thought the seafloor in one piece was 10 km at its deepest part and I imagine impel down must be relatively huge or in really shallow sea and the currents around it might be why it's shallow due to the gates of justice.
Yea, that’s totally right at fishman island, which isn’t far away… I was guessing based on the visuals cues, and even then could still be off by an order of mag it use or two!
