Hannyabal

Tall and barrel-bellied, Hannyabal looks like a demon crossed with an Egyptian pharaoh. A hannya mask shapes the upper half of his face, his brow ridge curling into hornlike points above a heavy jaw, while a long pharaoh-style chin and a striped nemes headdress complete the underworld motif. Like the rest of the Impel Down staff he sports tiny bat wings and a pitchfork, and his personal armament is the double-bladed halberd Kessui.

Earlier in his career he wore the plain white guard uniform, and as vice warden he often went shirtless. After Bentham stole his original green-striped nemes, he adopted a replacement crowned with a jackal-like fox head and trimmed in blue. Following the two-year gap he dressed much like Magellan, minus the horns, and had clearly put on weight. Flashbacks show him as a plump child, barefoot in a leaf skirt and cast as a fire dancer.

Ambition defines Hannyabal. He habitually blurts out that everything around him is already his, then sheepishly walks it back, and his frequent slips of the tongue expose both his hunger for power and a darkly comic streak. To impress the prisoners and earn the guards' respect, he strides into the Freezing Hell of Level 5 nearly naked and unarmed. His single overriding wish is to seize the warden's chair from Magellan, and he will let relatively harmless inmates slip away if it might pin the blame on his superior.

Beneath the buffoonery runs a far more serious man. When genuinely dangerous criminals threaten to escape, his selfishness evaporates and he commits everything to stopping them. Unlike most Marines who preach Absolute Justice, Hannyabal does not condemn pirates as inherently evil; he opposes them because their crimes and their fame terrify ordinary citizens, and he became a jailer precisely to shield the weak. Even battered to the edge of death, he forces himself to stay conscious and keep prisoners contained, a stubbornness that echoes Luffy himself.

Twenty-two years before the present, a thirteen-year-old Hannyabal discovered the escaped Shiki perched on the rafters of Level 6, and he cried for help from then vice warden Magellan, though not before demanding a promotion. By the Impel Down arc he had risen to vice warden, greeting Boa Hancock and Momonga, overseeing Hancock's inspection, and escorting the visitors down to meet Ace and Jinbe while never quite suppressing his urge to call for Magellan's resignation.

When Luffy's infiltration threw the prison into chaos, Hannyabal was posted to guard the stairwell between Levels 3 and 4. He toyed with letting the intruders pass to discredit Magellan, but instead crushed Buggy and Galdino without a scratch, proof that within Impel Down only Magellan outmatched him. Bentham then knocked out his men, disguised himself as Nami, lured Hannyabal into a storeroom, and stole his clothes and nemes to impersonate him. Freed hours later, Hannyabal snapped into grim competence as escapees pushed toward Level 6, mobilizing the staff and finally taking up Kessui to confront the breakout himself.

He made his stand on the stairway to Level 3, his flaming naginata burning Luffy badly enough to force Gear Second, yet he refused to yield even under a barrage of blows. He delivered an impassioned defense of the prison's purpose before Blackbeard suddenly crushed him underfoot, letting the prisoners flee past. Magellan, arriving too late, thanked his bloodied subordinate and named him the only worthy successor. Two years later Hannyabal achieved his lifelong dream and became the warden of Impel Down, later celebrating Magellan's return to duty.