 Listen to me, Luffy. We have to live our lives with no regrets. One of these days, we'll go out to sea and live the life that we want to live. Freer than anybody. We'll make a lot of enemies and our lives will be in constant danger, but nothing's gonna stop us. We are going to be pirates. Hello and welcome to One Piece 101, the series that breaks down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. Today, we are going to be examining a classic fan favorite character, Portgas D. Ace. Portgas D. Ace, also known as Firefist Ace, is a world-renowned pirate who made his first appearance in the series technically right at the end of the Drawm Island arc, but we'll call it alabaster just because. Ace presents an interesting mixture of a very Luffy childlike personality mixed in with a shot of maturity and general intelligence. Not too much of the latter two features though, as Ace was well known for being quite impulsive, reckless, and in some cases highly impolite, doing things such as, you know, wiping his face on a woman's skirt, stuff like that. Although if we go with the Senor Pink Litmus test, then that simply makes Ace hard-boiled rather than impolite, but this nature can definitely be attributed to how Ace grew up. First of all though, Ace is one of the rare characters in the series who have the ever mysterious initial D in their name, and this is due to directly inheriting that from his mother Portgas D. Rouge and his father, the pirate king, Gold D. Roger. In fact, Ace's existence was a mere five months old and still within his mother's womb when Roger was executed, leading her to keep him in her womb for a further 15 months in order to protect him from a worldwide hunt for Roger's born. After finally giving birth to Ace, Rouge unfortunately passed away from exhaustion, and care of Ace was given to one of Roger's old enemies, Monkey D. Garp. Garp in a stunning display of parenting that he is well known for, then took Ace to Dawn Island in order to be raised by a group of bandits. And naturally, as he grew, Ace became a very lonely and violent child, when bounded by the world's hatred of his father, Roger. At the age of 10, Ace encountered a very young Monkey D. Luffy, the grandson of Garp actually, whom he had also brought to be raised by bandits. And while Luffy was keen to become friends, Ace was, uh, certainly not. At one stage, even planning to kill Luffy alongside childhood friend Sabo, when Luffy discovered their plans to become pirates. But after some shenanigan re-involving the Blue Jam pirates, the three of them developed a strong bond, and even became brothers through the ritual drinking of sake. At this point, it should be stated that even as a child, Ace was exceptionally strong, capable of hunting creatures many, many, many times his size. And at one stage, he had even fought and defeated Captain Blue Jam alongside Dadan, and proceeded to carry Dadan all the way back home. Furthermore, at the mere age of 10 years old, he also demonstrated an involuntary use of conqueror's haki, making him quite the prodigy. Sadly, tragedy would strike one day, though, as Sabo, who had chosen to set out on his journey to become a pirate, was seemingly killed by a world noble, prompting both Ace and Luffy to resolve to become stronger and to live their lives with no regrets. And so, at the age of 17, Ace left Dawn Island and began his journey as a pirate. And less than a year after embarking, Ace would find himself shipwrecked in East Blue on an island known as Sixus, where he met a man by the name of Masked Juice. As a threat of starvation loomed over them, the two would share a piece of fruit that, unbeknownst to them, was the Merimeranome. As Ace was the first one to take a bite, he inherited the powers of the fruit, which is a logear type that allows its user to conjure, manipulate, and become fire. The Merimeranome gave Ace incredible destructive power, said to have levelled entire towns and battleships with ease. With the fruit, Ace developed simple techniques such as the Hikken, literally meaning Flame Fist, in which he punches a column of fire at an opponent, as well as, you know, more apocalyptic techniques such as Dai and Kaiente, whereby Ace seemingly conjures a miniature sun to fire at very, very unfortunate enemies. However, in this particular situation, the Merimeranome allowed Ace and Masked Juice to escape Sixus on a ship they built known as the Striker, which was powered by the flames of the Merimeranome, and the two would go on to form the Spade Pirates, of which Ace would become the captain. Over time, Ace would recruit 20 members and a links into the Spade Pirates, and become a notorious captain in his own right, gathering a bounty of over 100 million berries, as well as being given an official invitation to become a warlord of the sea, which he declined, and after entering the New World, Ace even managed to find shanks and thanked him for saving his brother Luffy. And while at this stage, Ace had an ambition to take down all of the Onko, this meeting which shanks turned out to be purely pleasant. That would not be the same, however, when Ace set his sights on taking down another Onko, Whitebeard, who just so happened to be the greatest rival to his father, Roger. Before he could get to Whitebeard, though, Ace was intercepted by Jinbei, who out of respect for the man who protected his home of Fishman Island, bought Ace for five days non-stop until they both collapsed of exhaustion. After which, Whitebeard arrived on the island, but rather than swiftly engaging in retribution, he offered Ace the chance to join his crew and become one of his sons. Of course, a very stubborn Ace did refuse, but he was knocked out and forcibly brought aboard the Moby Dick. When Ace woke up, he was already acknowledged as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, and the rest of the Spade Pirates had also been absorbed into the crew. Refusing to accept this, Ace attempted to kill Whitebeard many, many more times, much to the amusement of the rest of the crew, however, he eventually gave in after hearing Marco's description of the father-son relationship that Whitebeard has with the rest of the crew. At one stage, Ace even revealed his lineage to Whitebeard, who simply laughed and remarked that he was nothing like his father, and furthermore, that everyone was a child of the sea. And this is what really solidified Ace's relationship with Whitebeard, as he became the father Ace never had. As time went on, Ace would rise to become the commander of Whitebeard's second division and garner an individual bounty of 550 million berries. However, one day, the commander of the fourth division, Thatch, would be murdered by Marshal D. Teach, another member of the crew, in order to attain the Yummy Yummy No Me, an action in which Ace sought immediate vengeance, and despite the protests of Whitebeard, he set out to find and deliver justice to Teach. And this hunt for Teach led Ace to a reunion with his younger brother, Luffy, on the island of Alabasta, even offering the young pirate an opportunity to join Whitebeard's crew, to which Luffy plainly refused, prompting Ace to give Luffy a piece of his Vivia card so that they could meet up once again in the future. Eventually, Ace's hunt would lead him to Benaro Island, where he engaged in combat with Teach, now known as Blackbeard, and despite Ace's incredible power and mastery over the Merimeronomy, he was completely overwhelmed by Blackbeard and his newfound abilities in the Yummy Yummy No Me. Blackbeard then handed over a defeated Ace to the Marines in exchange for a position as one of the seven warlords. Ace was then taken to level six of Empow Down, coming to share a cell with his former enemy and current friend Jinbei, and sentenced to be executed. This execution had two purposes. Firstly, to be used to lure and confront Whitebeard on favorable terms, and secondly, the fact that Ace was Roger's son, which were going to be revealed to the world, necessitated his death in the eyes of the world government. As a result, Ace's very existence served as a catalyst for the Paramount War, which saw the Whitebeard pirates and his allied forces as well as Luffy invading Marineford in order to save Ace. And while Ace would eventually be freed from his shackles thanks to Luffy, this war would end in complete defeat, as Ace would be killed by Akainu during an effort to save Luffy's life. In his final moments, Ace thanked everyone for loving him, despite his bloodline, and offered that his only regret in life is that he would not be able to see Luffy live to become the pirate king. He then passed away in classic Will of De-style with a smile on his face. Shortly after, Whitebeard would also meet his demise at the hands of Blackbeard, and following the war, the two were buried side by side. But despite no longer being in this world, Ace lives on in the minds and hearts of all those he encountered during his journey. Whether it be the bandits who raised him, the loving crew he found himself a part of, the countless individuals he touched along the way, or his two brothers, Ace is still a huge presence in this world, embodying the classic one-piece quote, of when do you think people die? They only die when they are forgotten. And by that mantra, Ace is still very much alive and well in the series today. Some more fun facts about Ace. Ace has two particularly strong comical quirks. One is his infliction of narcolepsy, causing him to often fall asleep at very impractical moments, while the other is the fact that he always seems to dine and dash. In order to properly thank Shanks for saving Luffy, Ace went so far as to ask Markano to teach him how to beep a light in preparation for his eventual meeting with the Yonko. During his time with the Spade Pirates, one of many islands they visited was the land of the Samurai Wano, where Ace met Tama and promised to one day take her out to sea with him when she became a beautiful konoichi. Universal Studios Japan has gone so far as to build a monument replica of both Ace and Whitebeard's graves, complete with the epitaph, Ace, may your soul be eternal. Your brave soul will always be with us. Ever since his introduction in the series, Ace has been consistently phenomenally popular, so much so that even after his death, he ranks as the fifth most popular one-piece character, as of the most recently conducted poll. And finally, a truly useless fact. In the event that Ace was born a girl, she would have been named Anne. But that pretty much does it for podcasty Ace. 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