haven't ignored how oda's been drawing a more youthful depiction of ace for a while now. like my first thought on the recent cover story was "yup, that's exactly teen ace from the light novels", compared to 6 yrs ago.
could be reaching so pinch me, but oda might be integrating the whole novel lore into the manga. old flashbacks during marineford weren't weak but the second novel did thankfully solidify (and expand) how efficient ace was with haki and trained diligently with his devil fruit powers which led him to earn whitebeard's respect. novel also makes it clear how Spade Captain Ace was an early reflection of Water 7 Luffy.
the timeline is as usual a muddle to decipher but landing on wano seems to have occured before or after meeting shanks (in vol#2), immediately followed by ace confronting jinbe. and i like to think all this happened shortly after he turned 18, leaving the rest of his time to be devoted on the moby dick.
oh stupid toei like the visuals don't look that off but you can tell the maturity apart in them so anime kind of switched 'em up. like it's the brat in the right one who landed on wano with his hot-headedness. while the left is finally the adult who can flaunt his younger brother's bounty poster to jinbe and his shipmates. he was a boy once (pre-wb) and then he grew too (post-wb)!
