“Onepiece”Why did Portgas D.Ace become laughing stock as a “loser” in Japan,when he died.

The trigger is the line that Captain Akainu of Navy said in ONE PIECE Volume 58, Episode 573 “The Name of This Era is “Whitebeard”.

Luffy and the members of the Whitebeard Pirates rescued the main character’s older brother Ace, who was captured by the Navy and was on the verge of execution, after a fierce battle, and this line was issued in a situation where all that was left was to escape from the battlefield.

Ace was furious. Furthermore, he attacked Akainu, who continued to provoke him, but his Devil Fruit abilities were incompatible and he was easily defeated. After that, when Akainu attacks Luffy, Ace protects him and dies.

Why is he made a joke of?

　If only this scene were cut out, it would be the scene where “Ace got enraged when Akainu made fun of Whitebeard, the person he respected, and then died to protect his brother.”It may not look like a scene that will make readers laugh so much.

　In a nutshell, his inability to ignore it led him to die for riding cheap provocations, thereby smearing mad on Whitebeard’s face and wasting all the efforts of those who went out of his way to help him.This inadequacy caused some readers to laugh.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at why Ace is ridiculed.

First of all, this is not the first time that Ace has shaken off the restraint of his friends and stands out, and is in a crisis.Ace chased after Blackbeard, ignoring Whitebeard’s restraint, and was brilliantly defeated.This war was started to clean up for Ace`mess, but Ace once again shows his inability to learn by taking on Akainu’s provocations and risking his life.
Moreover, compared to Blackbeard’s betrayal, in which Ace’s comrades are killed, this is nothing more than Akainu’s verbal abuse, so the problem is far less serious.

As will be described later, Akainu’s remarks are irrelevant, and the veteran sailors who have spent more time with Whitebeard than Ace ignore Akainu’s words, saying they are visible provocations” and let them speak as they please”. However, among the dozens of crew members who listened to Akainu’s words, only Ace, who should not be the most provoked, reacted to Akainu’s words and stopped him.

Even Luffy, who has a reckless personality when it comes to his friends, is on the side of stopping him, saying, “Let’s go Ace, the old man is prepared…”.Originally, Luffy is the type to discern the essence of things at the heart of it, but while his brother calmly watches the battle situation, Ace is brasshing and angry, which emphasizes Ace’s lack of resistance to agitation.

In the first place, Akainu had no intention of provoking the Whitebeard Pirates, and Akainu, who had hated pirates since he was young, simply said what he thought.He had no intention of stopping Ace, and when Ace purposely approached him, his reaction was “?”.
(In the anime version, the tone was modified to be provocative, but when Ace stopped him, he tilted his head).

　It would be better if Ace, who was trembling with anger, defeated Akainu, but Ace was easily repulsed by Akainu.
(By the way, at this time, Akainu’s incomprehensible line, “Magma is superior to fire,” is often made into jokes.)
Immediately after this, Ace’s stomach was pierced and he died, so even if Ace was furious, he could not to fight back Akainu even only once.

　Ace’s battle record doesn’t look good, such as being defeated by Blackbeard, equal to Jinbei on land, and being killed by Akainu.
(Though, Blackbeard would later become the Four Emperors (with the addition of Gura Gura fruit).)
(Jinbei withstands the attacks of the Four Emperors, Big Mom, and can serve as a lord. In this way, there are many depictions of Jinbei’s pure personal fighting power as a high-ranking Shichibukai.)
(Even though Akainu was attacked by Whitebeard’s wrath after this, he went on a rampage against the 13 Whitebeard Pirates captains and the former Shichibukai Crocodile.)
(In this way, it is also true that the opponent was bad for Ace.)

　Whitebeard gives his last captain orders to his companions who have traveled together for a long time.
“All of you!! make sure you survive and reunite with each other on the new world !!!”
The final parting between Whitebeard and Ace was a touching scene that clearly shows the love between the two.Despite this, Ace ignored his orders and died, leaving his last words to the great pirate Whitebeard’s family unfulfilled.

　Ace’s death confirms the strategic defeat of Edward Newgate, who fought for his life to protect him.After that, the Whitebeard Pirates were defeated by the Blackbeard Pirates in the “Payback War”, and the pirates under the Whitebeard Pirates were destroyed one after another by Edward Weeble, who claimed to be Whitebeard’s son.It is unknown how the battle with Blackbeard and Weeble would have turned out if Ace had lived, but Ace’s death would have had a great impact on the sailors.

　Portgas D. Ace has many people he could call his parents.His birth parents Roger and Rouge, his pirate parents Edward Newgate, his foster parents Vice Admiral (at that time) Garp and the bandit Dadan.Ace’s death grieves all of them, and even those who survived the war alone are “triple unfilial”, and all including the dead are “quintiple unfilial”.

One of the reasons why Ace acted like this in the first place is that “Ace’s father, Roger (and Ace, who inherited it), hates being insulted and harmed by his comrades.”
Of all things, that information comes out of the past recollection after Ace’s death, that is, the setting that was revealed later, and there was not even a particularly suggestive depiction until then.In other words, in the story, the action was taken because Akainu uttered a taboo (insult to his friends) that Ace couldn’t stand”, but at the time, the readers who were actually reading it couldn’t have known this fact, and he took a cheap provocation. ’ will give you the impression.

However, there is a depiction of Ace disguised as a Marine and punching a Marine who seems to have complained about Whitebeard despite being infiltrated into a naval base for some reason.
[(In the frontispiece series “Ace’s Blackbeard Great Investigation” (Episode 286, or in the main volume, Vol. 13 of the Enies Lobby edition)]
“Based on this, it can be said that Ace’s personality of “he very much dislikes insulting his comrades” has already been described. ”
(For the time being, readers can understand the contents by the title of each Vol)
However, it was a special format outside of the main story, in which only one picture was drawn of Ace hitting a marine, and not only was there no dialogue, but it was a series of frontispieces.As a result, this fact was not shared by the readers, and was perceived as ‘‘a depiction of Ace suddenly getting angry at the insults of his comrades”.And it goes without saying that the urgency of the situation in the Summit War of Marineford is extraordinary.

Even so, it is ironic that Ace, who said, “My father is Whitebeard, not Roger,” fails because of the temperament he inherited from Roger at the very end of his life.

Whitebeard was undoubtedly the strongest pirate in the war, and no matter what happened, the family ties of the Whitebeard Pirates were never broken.Details will be explained later, but at the time Ace took on the provocation, Whitebeard wasn’t a “loser” at all, and he could have been a “victor” as long as Ace was still alive.However, with Ace’s death, the Whitebeard Pirates, which Edward Newgate cherished most, broke up.In other words, Ace’s own negligence made Whitebeard a “loser” as Akainu made a fool of him.

Because of these, Ace is said by a part of Japanese fans to be “the man who single-handedly destroyed the Whitebeard Pirates.”

Is Whitebeard really the loser?

Akainu claims that ‘‘Whitebeard was a loser who led an empty life,” but this is not at all true.

Akainu: Whitebeard was prevented from becoming king by Roger.
It’s true that Whitebeard and Roger fought many times, but at the same time, they had a bond that allowed them to drink alone.
(In other words, it can be said that it was a relationship that was written as a strong enemy and called “tomo”).At the final banquet, Roger gives Whitebeard a glimpse of how to get to Raftel, in other words, the way to become the Pirate King, but Whitebeard dismisses him as not interested.
Whitebeard wasn’t prevented from becoming king by Roger.

Akainu: “Even after reigning over the sea for decades, I can’t become a king and gain nothing.”
Whitebeard was born as an orphan on a poor island called “Sphinx” in the New World.
For that reason, from the time he was young as a sailor of a certain pirate group, what Edward Newgate most wanted was not the title of Pirate King or treasure, but a family.
Far from getting nothing, Pirate Whitebeard already had more than enough of what he wanted most when he died, and Akainu‘s claim pointing is nothing more than Akainu’s one-sided sense of values.
In fact, even Doflamingo, who participated in the Paramount War, later said, “Whitebeard didn’t sit on the throne, he reigned in front of the chair,” so it’s not like he “didn’t sit” on the throne.(However, Ace seems to have wanted Whitebeard to be the Pirate King…).

Akainu: “I’m stabbed to death by an idiot called my son who got on the hook. After all, the Whitebeard Pirates are a family farce.”
Ace once targeted Whitebeard’s life more than 100 times, but Whitebeard never hesitated to call Ace his son.For Whitebeard, the person who tried to kill him was also his son, and he had the strength and capacity to accept it.The fact that he was stabbed by Squard was due to illness and old age, and this does not shake Whitebeard’s convictions.

Akainu “Whitebeard dies as a loser”
At the time of the exchange with Ace, Whitebeard released Ace, and each of the fleeing Aces was surrounded by captains who were powerful Shichibukai class, and Akainu was no longer able to do anything.Whitebeard has already achieved the strategic goal of “Rescuing Ace”.
On the other hand, on the navy side, on the contrary, they exposed a fiasco of ‘‘recapturing a prisoner on the verge of execution”, and after this, the navy headquarters, which is a symbol of justice, was destroyed in pieces, and the prestige of the navy was increased by subjugating Whitebeard. However, Whitebeard’s head was stolen by former sailor Blackbeard, a pirate.
If only Ace was alive, Whitebeard would have died as the winner and Akainu would have been the loser of this war.

Anime version Akainu “There are people who say that Whitebeard protects the peace of the territory with that name, but he’s just glaring at small fish opponents.”
Sakazuki’s thoughts aside, what he’s doing is almost the same as the the Seven Warlords of the Sea officially recognized by the World Government.Or rather, that’s what the Navy should be doing in the first place.

Akainu: “The Whitebeard Pirates, a group of cowards who were afraid to leave as soon as Ace was released.”

This is not for Whitebeard, but for the crew, but the Whitebeard Pirates are here to rescue Ace, so it’s only natural that they should release Ace and leave immediately. Rather, it is the pinnacle of stupidity that remains behind.

Unprecedented “Losers Boom/Great Defeat Era” in Japan

　The word “loser” became popular as an internet meme because many Photoshop images were created based on this scene. In 2015, the MAD was posted on Nico Nico Douga as shown in the related video. Photoshop itself has been around for a long time, but at the end of November 2018, the number of videos posted on Nico Nico Douga suddenly increased. Tags such as “unprecedented loser boom” and “great defeat era” were born to refer to this situation. It is unknown why the number of posted videos increased in 2018. One theory is that in episode 918, which was released around the end of September, the line “You look like Ace…” drew attention, but its relevance is still unknown.

This is why Portgas D. Ace is ridiculed as a “loser” by some Japanese fans.

Source:https://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E6%95%97%E5%8C%97%E8%80%85