One Piece Vol. 59: The Death of Portgas D. Ace
- ISBN
- 9781421539591
- Publisher
- VIZ Media
- English release
- Pages
- 208
- Chapters
- 574–584
- Anime
- Season 14: Marineford ep. 457–516
The title printed on this book names what happens in its first chapter, so there is no way to shelve it without the spoiler. Chapters 574 to 584 finish Marineford and then walk away from it: nine chapters on the battle and its immediate consequences, and two that drop back years into Luffy's childhood, starting with chapter 583, 'Gray Terminal'. Chapter 580 is titled 'The War's Conclusion', which is the marker to use when working out where the fighting ends and the aftermath begins. Season 14 runs through all of it with no boundary. Counting the single chapter at the end of Vol. 56, this is the last of the four books the battle occupies, and it is the worst place in the run to start reading One Piece.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Whitebeard is not beaten by the navy: he is killed by Blackbeard and the crew Blackbeard brought out of Impel Down, which is the volume's second argument that the war is a handover rather than a victory. Blackbeard takes the earthquake power off the body and levels what is left of Marine Headquarters. The fighting is stopped by neither side, but by Koby, Luffy's friend in the Marines, and by Shanks, the pirate Luffy grew up wanting to be, who arrives late and is obeyed. Then the book does the thing that makes it more than an epilogue: it goes back to Luffy, Portgas D. Ace and a boy named Sabo, and starts explaining what the word brother has been covering. The last two chapters set up Vol. 60, and reading this book without that one leaves the flashback unfinished.
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