One Piece: Ace’s Story—The Manga

This manga is a comic adaptation of the One Piece: Ace's Story novel, drawn by Boichi and released in two collected volumes. It shifts the spotlight away from Monkey D. Luffy and onto his sworn brother, Portgas D. Ace, following Ace as he sets out on the sea under his own flag rather than in anyone else's shadow. Determined to build a name that stands entirely on its own, he begins recruiting a crew and charting a course through the dangerous, pirate-filled world of the Grand Line.

The central figure is Ace himself, a confident and headstrong young captain whose fire-based abilities make him a formidable fighter. Around him gathers the first incarnation of his crew, the Spade Pirates, a small band of misfits and wanderers who gradually come to function as a found family. Among them is a scholarly companion who chronicles their voyage, giving the story a firsthand perspective on how Ace's legend first took shape. Their shared travels supply the series with its humor, its camaraderie, and its sense of open-ended adventure.

The primary conflict grows out of Ace's ambition to prove himself in a sea ruled by terrifying rivals and overwhelming powers. Every island and every opponent tests whether he can hold to his own definition of freedom while the wider world of pirates presses in around him. This edition also collects two bonus one-shots, so the total chapter count extends beyond the main adaptation. The result is a self-contained, spoiler-light look at a beloved supporting character's earliest days as a captain.

One Piece: Ace's Story originated as a light novel, and this manga edition adapts that prose work into comics. The drawing duties were handled by Boichi, who gives the adaptation its own visual identity distinct from the main series. The Japanese title is ONE PIECE episode A, and the English-language release comes through VIZ.

The adaptation ran from September 2020 to December 2021 and is now complete. It was collected into two volumes, with a total of six chapters. That chapter count includes two special one-shots, "ONE PIECE: Roronoa Zoro, Umi ni Chiru" and "Nami vs Kalifa," which were folded into the numbering alongside the adaptation's regular material rather than being separate releases.

Because its source material is a light novel, this manga sits outside the production lineage of Eiichiro Oda's original manga. It belongs instead to the broader set of spinoff projects that retell or expand corners of the One Piece world, here focusing on Ace's story and translating it from prose into sequential art.

This manga occupies a spin-off position within the broader One Piece franchise. The parent series, written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, centers on Monkey D. Luffy and his crew as they pursue the legendary treasure. This entry shifts focus to Portgas D. Ace, a major figure from the main story, and adapts the light novel One Piece: Ace's Story into comics. It is therefore an adaptation of an existing prose spin-off rather than an original arc of the flagship serialization.

The artwork comes from Boichi, and the series ran from 2020 to 2021, collected across two volumes and six chapters. That chapter count also covers two bonus one-shots, so the Ace material itself is shorter than the total suggests. The result is a compact companion piece that expands a corner of the franchise's world without retelling or replacing the central narrative.

Readers can approach it on its own, though familiarity with the parent series adds context to Ace and his place in the larger story. It belongs to a family of One Piece side works, including novels and other adaptations, that broaden the franchise beyond the mainline chapters.