'One Piece' Special Shares Amazing Ace Shout-Out

One Piece recently premiered a new TV special, "Episode of Skypiea," and while it recapped the events of the Skypiea arc as expected, fans didn't expect to see such an awesome shout out to fan favorite character Portgas D. Ace.

During the credits of the special, fans can see a heated depiction of Ace as he fights a powerful Blackbeard and fans certainly did not expect the extra treat in the already packed special.

Directed by Konosuke Uda, "Episode of Skypiea" recaps the events of the fan-favorite Skypiea arc. Much like "Episode of East Blue," which retold the events from the beginning of the series, and how each of the early Straw Hats joined the crew before they ventured into the New World, the new special puts a different spin major battles of the arc such as Luffy's final battle with Eneru.

And also just like "Episode of East Blue," the credits for the Skypiea special features new footage. In "East Blue," fans saw what other major characters such as Sabo or Doflamingo, were doing during the East Blue arc of One Piece and now fans can imagine Ace was fighting Blackbeard during the Skypiea arc.

The shout out to a battle between Ace and Blackbeard might be all too brief, but fans can see as a worn down Ace makes a final stand against the foe as he summons a large fireball to contend with Blackbeard's darkness powers.

This isolated island battle only sparks the imagination of fans, and now they can imagine yet another cool moment for Ace. If you want to see One Piece: Episode of Skypiea yourself, the special is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan.

The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. Eiichiro Oda revealed some news about One Piece's future in a recent interview as well. Stating that he was about 80 percent done with the manga at this point with the Wano arc, fans are worried that the series may be coming to an end sooner than they thought. But it wouldn't be wrong to infer that the ending will most likely still be years away given how much of the world there is to explore.