10 Heartbreaking Deaths In Anime
2. The Death Of Ace - One Piece
By the look of One Piece, it would be easy to forgive the uninitiated for their assumption that it is geared toward a younger audience. With colourful characters, unique abilities, and goofy animation and antics, there are definitely huge pockets of whimsy that carry One Piece through its more than 700-episode (and counting) run.
However, beneath the charismatic play between characters, there are often found tragic backstories. Similarly to Naruto, because these tragedies happened in the past and viewers were not privy to them until relevant flashbacks, they served more as character-defining moments that an actual loss.
Death was rarely a tool used during the main storyline. Villains would be beaten but not killed. Heroes would be battered beyond reason but still live to fight another day. It took nearly 500 episodes for a death to occur on-screen, and boy, was it a doozie.
Ace, Luffy’s adoptive older brother, is captured by the Marines and scheduled to be publicly executed. In true One Piece fashion, and on the heels of an earlier devastating loss, Luffy threw himself headlong into a campaign to break his brother out of prison and save his life.
The resulting arc was a jaw-dropping riot that partnered Luffy with old enemies and new allies. Every stage ascended in grandeur, pushing Luffy to his limits and hyping the audience for the inevitable all-out war between the Marines and the collective prisoners of Impel Down partnered with the White Beard Pirates.
After continuously injecting himself with, what was essentially straight adrenaline in order to keep fighting, Luffy was successful in breaking Ace free moments before his execution. A fist-pump-inducing moment followed as Luffy and Ace fought together for the first time on-screen and putting their bond as siblings, as well as their talents as fierce pirates, on display.
The euphoria was brief, however, as Ace gives his life to save Luffy from one of the fearsome Marine admirals. With a rollercoaster of a journey that preceded, the drop was steep, and the hearts of many viewers ended up in their throats.
As the dust settled and Ace fell, the audience was met with a deafening silence followed by a harrowing, guttural cry from Luffy as the episode ends.