The One Piece saga is expanding with one more spinoff, this time focusing on one of the most popular characters in the series, Luffy's brother Ace.

Among the gigantic cast of One Piece, Portgas D. Ace is by far one of the characters who leaves the biggest impression on fans. Mainly because he's just an easy character to get attached to. First, the fact that he's Luffy's sworn brother and the relationship between the two is just endearing. Next, how Ace has cool and powerful fire powers, something pretty straightforward when it come to One Piece, usually full of fringe abilities. And now we'll get to see more of Ace via a new manga spinoff.

Everything we Know About One Piece Episode A, the New Ace Spinoff Manga

First off, this will be a manga adaptation of an already existing spinoff. One Piece Episode A was first published as a novel, in the One Piece Magazine books that started publication in 2017.

Moreover, the novel, and thus the manga, focuses on showing to fans a new side of Ace, not shown in past materials including the original manga by Eiichiro Oda. The story most notably focus on how Ace formed the Spade Pirates with Masked Deuce and his first encounter with Whitebeard.

In 2020, the Episode A novel already got a very short manga adaptation of only four chapters by Sun Ken Rock and Dr. Stone's Boichi. Looking at the announcement from the One Piece Twitter account, this new manga will be a longer adaptation of the novels.

The original One Piece Episode A novel was supervised by Eiichiro Oda and written by Shou Hinata who also wrote novels for Naruto, and Tatsuya Hamazaki who wrote novels for Saint Seiya, .Hack, Steins;Gate, and many of the One Piece movies.

When is the new manga coming out?

According to the announcement from the official One Piece Twitter, the first chapter of the One Piece Ace manga spinoff will be out in August 2022. More details will be revealed through the One Piece Magazine Twitter at a later date.

One Piece is going through many expansions and projects these days. First, there's a Netflix live-action series in production that will cover early parts in the series like the Nami and Arlong arc. Next, you have One Piece Odyssey, a brand new JRPG coming to consoles later in 2022. Lastly, there's a brand new movie, One Piece Film Red, launching this August 6 in Japan. What are your expectations for this new Ace manga? Let me know in the comments below!