No-one Understands PORTGAS D ACE - His Life and Death Explained

A One Piece character analysis of Portgas D. Ace. Careful, this video contains SPOILERS!

In this video I discuss the role of Portgas D. Ace. Ace is the adopted older brother of the protagonist Luffy and the son of the former pirate king Gol D. Roger and Portgas D. Rouge. Before the main story of one piece ace sabo luffy all grow up together on Dawn Island. The Early DEATH of Portgas D. ACE - The Misunderstood HERO | One Piece
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#ace #onepiece #anime
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Thumbnail Artwork and Animations by me 🦊
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Silent Motion by Rafael Krux
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Cinematic Suspense Series Episode 005 by Sascha Ende
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The Art of Silence by Uniq
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Fairytail by Johnathan Segev
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Gymnopedie No. 1 by Kevin MacLeod
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I do not own One Piece, the One Piece manga or the One Piece anime.
© Eiichiro Oda, Toei Animation and Shueisha
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𝙲𝚘𝚙𝚢𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚛: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.

[craylik]

I'm not gonna lie, every time Ace gets criticised I die a little bit inside.


I think I love the character too much.

[UchihaDZoro-sepc]

"luffy, thank you for loving me" - Ace

That's Ace character finality. And it was glorious.

[staryty_]

There's a lot of tragedy behind Ace

1. He died because of who his father was.
2. He found the answer to his question when he was seconds away from dying.
3. He never knew Sabo was alive.

And that's why he's the first anime character that I have ever cried on.

[rezahydra]

Reminder that Garp literally asked Sengoku to not let him move from that area else he’s gonna kill Akainu for killing Ace. I can only imagine how both of them felt in that moment.

[AJJr-hclz]

Have you ever heard the tragedy of Portgas D Ace the wise? No? Well it’s not a story the marines would tell you.

[ImDKing]

Honestly, I want to learn more about Rouge and Roger meeting and that little short lived love story.

[superymariowest]

I think that the reason why so many people don't like Ace is because they're sour about losing him after having so little time with him.
I think he's an amazing character. He has a burden best described as "sins of the father" and although that weighs down in him, possibly pulling him into a childhood depression at some point, he does everything possible to live life as free and happy as possible. "He has no compelling goal" they say? Well, "I want to live life with no regrets" is compelling enough. His carefree demeanour and positive attitude aren't just a reference to Luffy, Roger, and Shanks, but further support his life philosophy of living a life of no regrets. One cannot regret being happy and carefree but they can regret being depressed and stressed out.
Furthermore, that pride that got him killed isn't just a plot device to get him killed, it is the quality of a King. Roger and Whitebeard were famous for not retreating until their entire crews were safe, Ace refused to turn his back on Bluejam as it would risk Luffy's life. In this case, he was protecting his "father's" legacy and was blind to the power gap between him and Sakazuki.
We have seen enough of him to get a pretty good idea of who he is as a person but not enough to feel the same for him as we do for any of the Strawhats.
That is, in my opinion, why many of the fanbase don't appreciate him as much as they should. It's a tragedy, really, that he hasn't had a chance to reach his full potential both in the world and in the fanbase but I believe it is what actually makes the tragedy factor better.

[anemarie]

I still don’t get how people can not like Ace ESPECIALLY after Marineford

He may not have gotten the slow growing character development that would usually make the audience emotionally invest in a character but he did develop, its peak was literally his death. The fragments of his life that was showcased to us bit by bit contrasts his initial introduction as the cool responsible older brother of Luffy (as seen when he appeared in Alabasta); those snippets of the past, like him talking to people in bars or where he asks Garp whether his life was a good thing makes you reflect on why he had been introduced that way and why he died that way. It makes you think about how all the things he did throughout the story was a means to justify his existence, his life, just to find the answer to the question he voiced out to Garp. And then you add in the memories of ASL, Sabo dying, and Luffy making Ace promise that he wouldn’t die and how that promise may have been considered a small justification of Ace’s life in the sense where he’d live for the sake of his younger brother or what not (but as found, it wasn’t enough for him to stop questioning his life).

Then when Ace was at the execution platform and everyone came in to save him, Ace is faced with the question “why are these people risking their lives for me?” which is aligned to his initial question of why him being born/his life was a good thing (because both questions demand for a justification of his existence and it’s worth for others to lay down their lives). He goes through a short stage of denial, telling the others to turn back, telling Luffy to get out, which was like asking them to abandon the significance of his life, the very question he had sought out to answer. But when Luffy denies and says he’ll save him because Luffy is his brother, it becomes a hint to the answer he seeks which we find out when he dies, is love. The love that other people have for him is what makes him significant to them. So many things within Marineford allowed him to work up to this realisation, Garp saying “I have no sympathy for pirates but for my family I do”, the Whitebeard pirates telling him to shut his trap and let them save him, and heck even when Whitebeard himself asked Ace if he was a good father to him; he mattered to them, he was loved by them, and that was all the justification they needed to believe that his life was a good thing. And only when he dies is when he fully accepts the answer he searched for and is immensely grateful not just for the love others had given him but for allowing him to find that answer.

His character development was not something explicit or served on a silver platter, it was something fragmented, messy, and short, a perfect representation of him and also a nice portrayal of him as a character and individual. The fragmented development was enough to have the audience to mourn and sympathise, not just because he was an extension of the main character, or merely Luffy’s older brother, but because he only had realised his dream, his answer to life, at its end, death. Man didn’t die while achieving his dream, he achieved it through death and that’s probably the most heartbreaking and ironic thing about One Piece because there’s the implicit theme of living out/living for your dreams.

I’m probably overanalysing, and yes Ace is an important plot device but it’s just really sad to find people discount him as a character even after all that happened :((

[candiedskull]

Wait, people thought Ace didn't get developed enough for the emotional impact? Luffy's reaction was likely meant as the main source of emotional impact. But I loved Ace as a character, I still feel a sad twinge even now since he died so suddenly, esp as we learn more and more about him. I think we were supposed to evaluate him as a character more so by how many people were willing to die for him, over on screen development.
Ace hated living in the shadow of his father, and knew at the end simply how happy he was to be loved, and that was a major enough resolution to his conflict. He was loved for being him, not the son of Roger

[floriandolder]

"Burning Hatred", "Flaming Admiration", "Burning Will"...someone sure had a lot of fun with his script...


But seriously, this was a really good video. Ace is such a great character in my eyes and I am always a bit sad that he is disliked by so many. Also, people often miss out on the beauty of how Ace turned his back to the enemy, giving up both the face of his father and his pride for his little brother.

[GeassStudioR]

I’m glad that present-day deaths aren’t a casual trend in One Piece. Oda understands how character deaths must hold a significant value to the story in which it shakes the plot and its characters to the core. Character deaths shouldn’t be casually thrown around solely for the sake of shock value

[carrot]

Ace's trait of not turning back whoever the enemy is was like a double edged sword I guess. He will always be my favorite character. ｡:ﾟ(;´∩`;)ﾟ:｡ On a side note, seeing Luffy's smile hearing Ace's story in Wano makes me proud of him.. just having to see his emotional breakdown over Ace's death was heartbreaking and made me think if he'll manage to be able to deal with it, good thing he did.

[californiapenguin]

I teared up watching this video. “Thank you for loving me.” The Marineford war was probably one of the happiest moments of Ace’s. After living his whole life questioning whether he should have been born, he finally realized the answer to that question and saw how much other people loved him and valued his life and how much his life was able to make other people happy. If I was Whitebeard, I think those words from Ace would make the whole war worth it even in hindsight. Marineford is brilliant in so many ways and alone would make One Piece a masterpiece in my eyes. Congrats on 40k!

[Ohara-the-Fox]

Hey scholars! If we manage to get this video to 500 likes till tomorrow, the next video will be out next Monday! 🦊

[harnoorsingh]

Ace is written very well and is NOT a plot device





Also literal FLAMES

[FireFistAce.]

HE DESERVES ALL THE LOVE BEST CHARACTER IN ONE PIECE

[cemiller]

Ace's death messed me up when I saw it the first time... Hits me even more since I've had a sibling pass away a couple years ago.

[paindepices]

At first, I didn't care for Ace. Because of that, I didn't really pay attention to him and more or less concluded that he had been designed to die and "force" Luffy to get stronger.
Silly me
Re-reading one piece in order to remember the whole thing and continue where I had stopped a long time ago, I decided to pay a bit more attention to his character. Not because I was looking for a new favorite character, but because people's (sometimes massive) love for him was intriguing.

I realised that his death didn't only had an impact on Luffy, but also the rest of his crew. Ace's death is the final cement of the crew, of their friendship; their family. It made Luffy want to get stronger in order to protect what he had left : his family. And it drove the Mugiwara - devastated (for a lack of better term? I can't translate my opinion properly) that they weren't there to help their captain - to get stronger as well. (And because of that, I think the crew's composition shouldn't change after that. And if Jinbei joined them, it's just because he was there and lost Ace too. He had his place from the beginning)
And not only Ace's death affected the Straw Hats, it had a strong impact on the world as a whole : pirates, Marines, random people on random islands, emperors, etc. It gave them all new ambitions, vision of the world, opportunities, and many other things. And above all this; it gave Ace a purpose.

It didn't turn me into a fangirl; but I'm glad I took the time to think about the character I didn't care about and learned to appreciate him. They all have something to tell if we let them talk after all ^^

[miriamthebestsubscriber]

Ngl I cried during this whole video😭
Since the beginning I loved ace and always payed attention to him, so when he died I felt like luffy, that overwhelming sadness and heartbreak was too much. But in the end, ace himself transfers that Will of Love not only to luffy but me the reader as well. It made me appreciate the straw hats even more and even made me loathe the Marines and akainu deeply. It really made me realize that death is final and the world in one piece needs changing.

Ace did so much to the story and my emotions than I thought he would at first, so I'm really glad I'm not the only one that sees that, or that can word it better, thank you ❤

[Erika-oxtq]

what do people mean Ace didn't have enough character development to make is death impactful. when ace died I cry so much, and when I tried to continue watching I couldn't see through all the tears.