in a hurry, will do short ones
Reader is asking if the smiley/sadface mark on Ace's hat had any meanings such as:
Sadface: Was it ok for me to be born into this world?
Smiley: Thanks you pops and Luffy for loving me, I'm glad I was bornHe also mentioned how Ace's expressions right before he died was correlating to it
Oda basically answers he was surprised when someone first pointed it out.
Meaning, it was coincidental.Oda did, however, mention that when Ace was first introduced, the fate he will follow as well as his story was already decided in his head.
The smiley/sadface mark though, was just a fashionable trinket, he didn't have any deep meaning behind it.
Ace's expression at his death just came naturally.The rest of the statement is long, expression why he smiled, what it means, how gentle it was, yadayada.
I think the bold portion is the most important information we got out of this.
Oda plans ahead. WAY ahead. But we already knew that.
So we finally get a confirmation on that whole smiley frowney thing?
Geez, Oda. This is the part where you're supposed to lie and tell us you meant to do it like that.
But anyway, it's nice that someone finally asked Oda about that.