Ace Novel Officially Licensed by Viz for English Physical Release next year
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This is amazing news! I had serious doubts that they were going to translate these. This makes it that much more likely that they'll eventually release the Law novel as well, it's even implied in their description by referring to this as the "first of two prose stories" for One Piece. This is going to be light-years better than the less-than-stellar fan translations, those are really tough to read.
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Hey, that's cool! Just curious, are these novels considered canon?
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Finally! So happy!
The novels are supervised by Oda, but they are not canon.
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Great that this novel is coming westward.
Now, the question is: will Viz compile the two volumes into one novel or release both separately? -
woopie, gonna wait for Law´s novel.
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Translating a novel would definitely be a big project.
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Hoping it's released as one complete volume, rather than 2 smaller ones like in japan
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Oh neat! I saw Stephen posting about going through the Vivre Cards on twitter so I was expecting an announcement for them being translated, making this come a little out of left field.
I think it's pretty likely the two parts of the novel will be compiled for the English release. My understanding is that English prose can fit a lot more words to a page than Japanese, and the market for manga spinoff novels feels like it would be too niche to rely on a part 1/part 2 release being marketable. But we'll see what they do with it.
Hopefully this opens to doors for other One Piece spinoff stuff like Wanted, the databooks and the rest of the One Piece Novel line of course. Maybe even that one old Loguetown Arc novel that's meant to follow the original canon outline for the arc as well.
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Oh neat! I saw Stephen posting about going through the Vivre Cards on twitter so I was expecting an announcement for them being translated, making this come a little out of left field.
I think it's pretty likely the two parts of the novel will be compiled for the English release. My understanding is that English prose can fit a lot more words to a page than Japanese, and the market for manga spinoff novels feels like it would be too niche to rely on a part 1/part 2 release being marketable. But we'll see what they do with it.
Hopefully this opens to doors for other One Piece spinoff stuff like Wanted, the databooks and the rest of the One Piece Novel line of course. Maybe even that one old Loguetown Arc novel that's meant to follow the original canon outline for the arc as well.
The combined page count for both volumes is 416 pages, and that's in Japanese prose. That's not too crazy if you take into account that popular YA series like Harry Potter had 400+ pages on some books.
The possibility of two separate novels isn't impossible when we look at the Naruto Itachi novel getting split into two volumes.
https://www.amazon.com/Naruto-Itachis-Story-Vol-Daylight/dp/1421591308/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/143-9227541-2318466?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1421591308&pd_rd_r=d56f3963-6aef-4c3e-a8c8-bd89c4c2c304&pd_rd_w=Ky0cn&pd_rd_wg=gTYEY&pf_rd_p=d66372fe-68a6-48a3-90ec-41d7f64212be&pf_rd_r=RFX4VPBF5HXKND3Q49HS&psc=1&refRID=RFX4VPBF5HXKND3Q49HS -
The combined page count for both volumes is 416 pages, and that's in Japanese prose. That's not too crazy if you take into account that popular YA series like Harry Potter had 400+ pages on some books.
The possibility of two separate novels isn't impossible when we look at the Naruto Itachi novel getting split into two volumes.
https://www.amazon.com/Naruto-Itachis-Story-Vol-Daylight/dp/1421591308/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/143-9227541-2318466?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1421591308&pd_rd_r=d56f3963-6aef-4c3e-a8c8-bd89c4c2c304&pd_rd_w=Ky0cn&pd_rd_wg=gTYEY&pf_rd_p=d66372fe-68a6-48a3-90ec-41d7f64212be&pf_rd_r=RFX4VPBF5HXKND3Q49HS&psc=1&refRID=RFX4VPBF5HXKND3Q49HS416 pages is pretty average for a novel, but it'll look pretty hefty lined up next to the regular volumes. And thinking on it, the market might be better than I gave it credit for; One Piece seems to be doing as well as it ever has in the west and the waters have apparently been tested by more Naruto novels than I would have guessed existed at all so…
Wait and see I guess
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Finally viz licenses more stuff with One Piece. One Piece doors, and data book next please.
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So I heard Law's Novel is going to be published in one single volume in april(I thought it aleady was?)
Any news from this one getting licenced by Viz?
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5/5/2020 By VIZ
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Cinco de mayo, huh.
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Cinco de mayo, huh.
I'm sure it has more to with Luffy's birthday haha.
I'm excited for this actually.
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Same here, very excited! But then, I refused to read the fan translation, was waiting and hoping for this novel to be localized, and it paid off!
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I wasn't even aware there was a fan translation.
Definitely buying.
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I don't remember him eating the fruit at the same time as Ace when reading the summary back then. I have to get this
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hey maybe don't put a torrent in the post saying that it's out
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Download link removed.
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i hope the fans buy this one so we can get more fun stuff outside of the volumes localised.
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I wanna get it as soon as I can, but unfortunately most Australian distributors get all of Viz's stuff a month after the American release date. I've got a local comic shop that usually imports the American releases itself, always getting them within a few days of the actual official date, but they've had to stop doing that with the virus. We're still waiting on volume 93 down here (hopefully arriving Monday). Not looking forward to the prospect of waiting a month for Ace, but what can you do.
Definitely hoping this leads to more novels and things like databooks being done. Maybe Wanted? Or a compilation of hard to find things like the mini volumes that promo movies and events?
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Has anyone received their physical copy yet? I preordered mine on RightStuf, but it still hasn’t shipped and the listing has said “Out of Stock” since the release date. Then I heard the OP Podcast guys haven’t received theirs yet either, and they ordered on Amazon. Anyone know what’s going on?
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My Amazon preorder is scheduled for a Friday, May 15 delivery. We will see.
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I bought it via iBooks. It's about 140 pages, don't know how it will turn out in paper, but it took me like 2.5 hours to get through the novel. All in, it was a great addition to the OP verse, I liked the narrative perspective they choose to go with. I hope the second part of the novel will expand on it. As well as the manga version of it by Boichi.
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Amazon says my order is shipped, and I should get it tomorrow. I do live in a rural setting.
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Reading it now. Just about done and it's… kinda ok.
! Basically if you ever wanted to read a Ace fanfic you got yourself covered. He's still not really interesting except shows that he's sad from time to time. I think a lot of the One Piece world loses it's translation into novels because none of Ace's crew felt quirky or interesting unlike minor chars created by Oda. The main character other than Ace was so bland to the point that he makes generic Isekai protagonist seem amazing.
! The Marine girl I had hopes for as was introduced as a badass female marine and I got the impression that she was going to be to Ace what Smoker is to Luffy. But she never is. To the point that Ace's filler crew even turn her into a joke. She has a bit more towards the end but it's nothing really anything fantastic. Cut/Paste the Coby/Other Marine trope.
! It continues the whole thing of Ace being adored by everyone because he's Ace.
! Ultimately you buy this because you are a fan of One Piece and/or Ace. It's a little too short and light (even for Light Novel standards) but it's a nice palate cleanser. I feel it could have done with another 100 pages to flesh out the chars a bit more. I bought this in hopes we may get the Nami and Robin content from the magazines eventually. -
Finally! So happy!
The novels are supervised by Oda, but they are not canon.
Source?
I mean, I know these aren’t written by Oda, but where was it stated these shouldn’t be treated as canon?
Though I guess arguably the lack of confirmation from Oda that the story is canon can also be considered proof I guess…but haven’t read anything either way.
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the source is this very forum!
“Some people asked me about the canonicity of Novel Ace. This interview from official OP website might be helpful.https://one-piece.com/special/usop/20180530_0891.html - Oda said it would be appreciated if the novel handles Ace. (Maybe this means editors asked Oda whether they can release Ace novel and Oda just approved it. It's ambiguous from the context if Oda mentioned Ace's name prior to editors or not.)
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Editors held meetings between Oda and the novel author. They used questions sheets which were prepared beforehand. Oda said, "I hope the author of Novel Ace will feel free to imagine Ace's personality as much as possible."
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Shueisha decided to release Novel Ace Volume 2 since Volume 1 sold well.- Novel author created the story. Oda and successive OP editors read it and gave him advices.
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Shueisha advertised it as official.- According to editor Sugita in 2017, the novel author and editor consulted Oda several times when creating the story.
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The name of Spade Pirates ship "Piece of Spadille" was created by Oda.”
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Sandman
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It sounds like Oda didn’t have plans to expand upon Ace’s story so he let the author do as he pleased, providing notes along the way presumably to not horribly misrepresent the story or character and Shueisha is considering it canon.
Seems like this says it is canon instead, at least through my interpretation.
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Wait, none of that confirms anything. So, it can still be canon if Oda confirmed it as so tomorrow
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Oh shoot the first came out and I didn't even realize!
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I bought both and am glad for it! Really hopeful Viz brings the other new novels (Law, Heroines, maybe the Straw-Hats episodes) and maybe even the old databooks or Vivre Card Collection!
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I bought both and am glad for it! Really hopeful Viz brings the other new novels (Law, Heroines, maybe the Straw-Hats episodes) and maybe even the old databooks or Vivre Card Collection!
same, give us everything!!!
tbh, i do find it very weird they havnt published Wanted! yet -
I'm almost done reading the 2nd Ace Novel, and it is so much more exciting than the first! They're both great, but the first novel is a lot of Ace interacting with brand new invented characters. While this one has him interacting with fan favorites like Jinbei, Aladin, Shanks, Thatch, Teech, & Whitebeard. It's really nice to see how it filled in the gaps of the mini flashback during Marineford
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apparently this has lots of cool info about the yonko?
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I recall that behind Doma, A.O and other crews invading Whitebeard’s territory there was the influence of another Yonko, whose identity was not specificied.
Can someone report a literal quote from this part?
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Finally found a break in my novel-reading schedule to give the first volume a go (second one's been ordered, but who knows how far off it is with all the stuff happening) and to be honest… it wasn't that great. Barely more fleshed out than a cliff-notes version of Ace's journey.
! The opening chapter where he meets Deuce was pretty strong, with some time to build character interactions and actually establish the island they both washed up on as a setting. Everything between there and Sabaody… well, we get told a lot has happened, but shown basically none of it. A chapter each for Skull, Mihal and Kotatsu's recruitment instead of a paragraph would have gone a long way to make the story feel like a living, breathing extension of the One Piece world. (I also want this because Skull was by far the most entertaining member of the crew and I would have loved to have seen more from him)
! I'm having a hard time pinning down what the age rating for the novel was meant to be. I see regular One Piece as a young adult kinda series, but the prose here is limited enough that it couldn't be targeting anyone above the barest possible minimum of what young adult could include. Also a lot of One Piece's brand of comedy (which the authors here did make a clear effort to capture) just doesn't flow the same without the visual exaggeration the manga brings to it.
! Most interesting lore from the first volume was the story of Davy Jones. I could be wrong, but I don't think we'd ever heard the legend in full in One Piece before. Probably not anything relevant long term, but I enjoyed it.Final verdict is that it's a cool concept and the beats of the story fit right in with Oda's One Piece, but the execution is too bare bones to really make the most of it. I think Boichi's manga version is going to feel a lot more natural for the storytelling style when it's all out. I'll still read the second volume when it gets here, but I think I'll adjust my expectations for it accordingly.
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Finally found a break in my novel-reading schedule to give the first volume a go (second one's been ordered, but who knows how far off it is with all the stuff happening) and to be honest… it wasn't that great. Barely more fleshed out than a cliff-notes version of Ace's journey.
! The opening chapter where he meets Deuce was pretty strong, with some time to build character interactions and actually establish the island they both washed up on as a setting. Everything between there and Sabaody… well, we get told a lot has happened, but shown basically none of it. A chapter each for Skull, Mihal and Kotatsu's recruitment instead of a paragraph would have gone a long way to make the story feel like a living, breathing extension of the One Piece world. (I also want this because Skull was by far the most entertaining member of the crew and I would have loved to have seen more from him)
! I'm having a hard time pinning down what the age rating for the novel was meant to be. I see regular One Piece as a young adult kinda series, but the prose here is limited enough that it couldn't be targeting anyone above the barest possible minimum of what young adult could include. Also a lot of One Piece's brand of comedy (which the authors here did make a clear effort to capture) just doesn't flow the same without the visual exaggeration the manga brings to it.
! Most interesting lore from the first volume was the story of Davy Jones. I could be wrong, but I don't think we'd ever heard the legend in full in One Piece before. Probably not anything relevant long term, but I enjoyed it.Final verdict is that it's a cool concept and the beats of the story fit right in with Oda's One Piece, but the execution is too bare bones to really make the most of it. I think Boichi's manga version is going to feel a lot more natural for the storytelling style when it's all out. I'll still read the second volume when it gets here, but I think I'll adjust my expectations for it accordingly.
I put the spoilers in spoiler tags.
I've had both volumes on my shelf for weeks, but hearing that
! Davy Jones is mentioned definitely makes me want to hurry up and read them.
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I put the spoilers in spoiler tags.
I've had both volumes on my shelf for weeks, but hearing that
! Davy Jones is mentioned definitely makes me want to hurry up and read them.
Whoops, didn't even think to spoiler novel details. It makes sense, given how less accessible it than the manga.
Don't set your hopes too high, it's not a long section or anything like that, but it is nice to get that frame of reference about the myth for the next time the name comes up in canon.
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I finally got round to reading the second volume. Where the first one was a bit of a disappointment, this one was a pleasant surprise. It's still never going to pass for anything close to literature (or the manga's level of quality) it was a much more engaging read. Nothing plot-wise stands out as a necessary or particularly noteworthy addition to the story, but if nothing else it's good to have a better feel for what kind of person Thatch was, given how much of the story was set in motion by his death. I was a little let down by how little screentime most of Ace's crew got throughout the book, given that the whole previous volume was about recruiting them and (just barely) establishing them.
Also, it's a bizarre choice to change from first person to third person narration between two books in the same series. Who does that? I'm not necessarily going to make that out as a complaint, given that the third person works a lot better, but it's weird, and it threw off after reading the first few pages expecting them to pick up Deuce's narrative.
The best thing the second book brings to the table is the prose outright stating a number of things about the world that were mainly just inferred in the manga. (this is all spoiler free, by the way, most of this comes up incidentally as the narration reflects on the world and sets the scene) Things like how the "Four Emperors" title comes from the size of a pirate's organisation and their ability to manage a vast territory both politically and logistically, rather than it coming from their raw individual strength (something some people could definitely stand to keep in mind), or that the Five Elders are considered servants of the Celestial Dragons rather than leaders of them (think back to the debates over Sakazuki's talk with the Elders in chapter 793, when he asks if the orders came from higher up than them) or that Roger's reputation as an evil plunderer and bringer of destruction is the result of a World Government propaganda campaign meant to discredit him because he got too close to the One Piece and its secrets.
While obviously there's some flexibility in these things given that Oda didn't write the novel himself, and third person prose doesn't necessarily imply objectivity, because focalisation is still a thing and it's possible Ace and Deuce are mistaken about these things, I'm pretty willing to take it all as canon at this point.
I also checked out the Boichi version of volume one. It's a world of improvement over the novel version. One Piece's exaggerated style and humour work so much better in a visual medium, and the things he added - the wrecked Viking ship and the local bird monster - add the kind of worldbuilding texture the novel was sorely lacking with its blistering pace and paper-thin descriptive style (how Deuce ever expected to make the next Brag Men writing like that, I'll never understand). It's a shame Boichi looks to be skipping over the Isuka part of the first volume, I would have loved to see how he could have made it feel a bit more One Piece, I get that having him draw the whole saga from both volumes is probably a bit much with his own series to worry about.
My final opinion on the novels is that they're far from the worst way to burn a couple hours, but they fall far short of being essential parts of the One Piece canon. Go in with low expectations and you'll probably have an alright time. I'd definitely be on board for the Law novel and the Straw Hat stories/Heroines collections if they get translated as well.
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The thing I like about the second novel is the relationship
! between Ace, Thatch, and Blackbeard. Knowing what we know about Blackbeard now, every interaction he has in the novel just feels so much more sinister. I can believe that he was genuinely enjoying his time in Whitebeard's crew. He is aware of the Pirate's Code, feels really strongly about it, yet is still willing to turn on Thatch the moment the Darkness Fruit was found. He's unscrupulous.
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@Bond:
The thing I like about the second novel is the relationship
! between Ace, Thatch, and Blackbeard. Knowing what we know about Blackbeard now, every interaction he has in the novel just feels so much more sinister. I can believe that he was genuinely enjoying his time in Whitebeard's crew. He is aware of the Pirate's Code, feels really strongly about it, yet is still willing to turn on Thatch the moment the Darkness Fruit was found. He's unscrupulous.
! You have to wonder how many times Ace thought back on the conversation where Blackbeard joked about Thatch stealing Ace's fruit while he was out hunting the man. Nothing hurts like looking back on the kind of enormous red flag you can only recognise in retrospect.
! But also I agree that the extra Blackbeard characterisation is an excellent and welcome addition to a villain who has such a presence but so few onscreen appearances in the main story. -
Also, it's a bizarre choice to change from first person to third person narration between two books in the same series. Who does that? I'm not necessarily going to make that out as a complaint, given that the third person works a lot better, but it's weird, and it threw off after reading the first few pages expecting them to pick up Deuce's narrative.
I think this is because each of the 2 novels are written by different people. The author of Volume 1 is Shou Hinata, and Volume 2 is by Tatsuya Hamazaki.
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Aye I also read volume 2. Was tons better than volume 1 but a lot of the stuff was reminding you of old ground which is fine.
I felt Ace was a bit more unlikeable in this one but it never really got to the point where he was being unlikeable while everyone else was praising how cool he was like in volume 1. It was nice to kind of pull him back a little and let other characters take centre stage.
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@Elektrik:
I think this is because each of the 2 novels are written by different people. The author of Volume 1 is Shou Hinata, and Volume 2 is by Tatsuya Hamazaki.
Still, you'd think there'd be some kind of series style guide to keep it comprehensive across different writers. The two volumes might as well have been released as standalone stories rather than the first and second parts of the set. The only other books I can think of that made the same mid-series change was James Ellroy's LA Quartet, and that too is more like four loosely connected standalone stories than it is an actual series.
Aye I also read volume 2. Was tons better than volume 1 but a lot of the stuff was reminding you of old ground which is fine.
I felt Ace was a bit more unlikeable in this one but it never really got to the point where he was being unlikeable while everyone else was praising how cool he was like in volume 1. It was nice to kind of pull him back a little and let other characters take centre stage.
I don't know if I would call him unlikable, personally, but the character flaws that would eventually lead him to his death were definitely a lot more front and centre in the second volume. I think it benefits his arc to have a few more moments demonstrating his proud stubbornness in face all logic saying what he's doing is a bad idea before the big finale at Marineford.