@Deicide:
As per the spoiler threads, those are the new versions of his "Buggy Balls", the "Magi Balls". He hid them within his body when he was captured and, since no one knew he had a Devil Fruit, the hidden weaponry was not found in his body search.
DAH!! I thought this chapter would have squashed that thought process! DAMMIT. Where's Ivotas?!? We no longer have any reason to believe they didn't know he had a Devil's Fruit. ON THE CONTRARY, we have tons of reasons to believe they did know. See, it's this kind of crap that leads to misconceived notions like this:
@Crossword:
I dunno, I kinda feel that the creatures and staff of Impel Down have been comically cutesified to a fault, not to mention their general incompetence until now.
I know you said "to a fault", but Oda always screws with our heads like this all the time. It's an ongoing gag of his to pull the rug out from under out legs; like Kizaru. I don't know about everyone else, but when we finally saw his goofy old face and attitude his "threat" dropped in my eyes. When he started mercilessly trashing all the Supernovae, it went back up. The problem is the expectations from the fans on Impel Down being this crazy dark and scary prison and torture house giving Oda more power in terms of screwing with us. We expected the minotaur to be this gnarly intimidating beast that punts babies off bridges, and then we get a cutsy moo-moo cow with a thirst for blood. It's just how Oda is. He's probably laughing at us right now. As for the incompetance issue, I know you have felt this way from the beginning and we have discussed it already, so I won't go into it. (Though you never did respond to my posts on the matter).