Shopping Guide
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By onemall 
TL;DR
Portgas D. Ace has been dead in the manga since 2010 and is still one of the most heavily merchandised characters in ONE PIECE. That combination — enormous back catalogue, no new anime arc driving supply — is exactly what makes his figures confusing to buy from outside Japan. Half of what you will find was never sold in a shop, and the half that was has been out of production for years.
- Three product families, three different markets. Megahouse’s Portrait.Of.Pirates (P.O.P) is the premium scale line;[1] Bandai Spirits’ Figuarts ZERO is the mid-tier static line;[2] and everything branded KING OF ARTIST, DXF or Grandline Men is a prize figure distributed through arcade crane machines rather than sold.[3]
- Ichiban Kuji is a fourth channel — an in-store lottery run by BANDAI SPIRITS, where an A賞 or ラストワン賞 Ace exists only for the days the campaign is stocked.[4]
- The price spread is roughly 15× for the same character. At the time of writing, live Japanese listings run from about $31 for a sealed Figuarts ZERO Ace to about $146 for a P.O.P NEO-MAXIMUM Luffy & Ace two-figure piece.[6]
- Ace is a bootleg magnet. His flame effects and open flame-patterned coat are cheap to mould badly, and the premium scale lines are the ones being copied. Buy on photographs of the actual item, not on renders.
- Cheapest route — second-hand on Mercari Japan through a proxy, consolidating several boxes into one parcel. Neither Mercari Japan nor Yahoo! Auctions ships abroad.[6]
This guide covers what an Ace collector actually needs to know as of August 2026: which line is which, what each one should cost, how to avoid the fakes, and the cheap versus cheapest way to get one out of Japan.
Who Ace Is, and Why It Matters to the Merch
Portgas D. Ace is the second-division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, sworn brother to Luffy and Sabo, and the holder of the Mera Mera no Mi — the Flame-Flame Fruit. He is a headline character in the ONE PIECE canon,[5] and his story ends at Marineford, which is the fact that shapes the entire merchandise market around him.
Characters who are currently in the anime get new product. Characters whose story is finished get anniversary product — commemorative releases, memorial sculpts, re-runs timed to a Marineford retrospective or a film. That means two things for a buyer. First, supply arrives in bursts rather than steadily. Second, an unusually large share of the Ace catalogue is out of production at any given moment, so the second-hand market is not the discount option — it is frequently the only option.
The Four Channels, and How to Tell Them Apart
Every Ace figure you will see belongs to one of four categories. Identifying the category takes five seconds and tells you the entire price and availability story.
| Line | Maker | What it is | Typical live second-hand price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portrait.Of.Pirates (P.O.P) | Megahouse[1] | The premium scale line — large, detailed, expensive at retail, produced in limited runs | $100–$250+ for multi-figure and NEO-MAXIMUM pieces |
| Figuarts ZERO | Bandai Spirits[2] | Fixed-pose static figures, mid-size, mid-price; the sensible collector default | $25–$60 sealed |
| Ichiban Kuji prizes | BANDAI SPIRITS[4] | Lottery prizes — A賞 down through the letters, plus a ラストワン賞 for the final ticket | $25–$60 depending on prize letter |
| Prize figures (KING OF ARTIST, DXF, Grandline Men) | Banpresto, via amusement operators[3] | Crane-machine prizes. Boxes read 非売品 — not for sale. Never had a retail price | $6–$35 |
The letter on a kuji box is the grade. A賞 is the headline figure of that campaign, ラストワン賞 goes to whoever draws the final ticket, and the lower letters are smaller goods. A seller who lists “一番くじ エース” without the letter is either hiding a low-tier prize or does not know what they have — ask.
What Each Line Actually Costs Right Now
Three live listings on Mercari Japan[6] at the time of writing, one from each of the three tiers a collector realistically chooses between:
Note what the middle card tells you. A brand-new A賞 kuji figure is priced above a sealed retail Figuarts ZERO, even though nobody ever paid a shop price for it. That is the kuji premium: the campaign ran, it ended, and the only remaining supply is people who drew that ticket. It is the clearest example in ONE PIECE collecting of scarcity being manufactured by the distribution model rather than by the sculpt.
Spotting a Fake Ace
Ace is disproportionately counterfeited, for a structural reason: the premium P.O.P sculpts are worth copying, and his signature elements — translucent orange flame effects, an open coat, an exposed torso tattoo — are exactly the parts where a cheap factory’s shortcuts stay invisible in a photograph.
- Flame translucency. Genuine flame effect parts have depth and a gradient. Bootlegs come out flat orange, often with visible mould seams running through the flame.
- The tattoo. ASCE across the left arm and the Whitebeard mark on his back are tampo-printed on genuine figures — crisp, correctly spaced. Copies smear or misalign them.
- Box printing. Look for the maker’s licence marks and a Japanese-language spec block. Bootleg boxes tend to over-use English and reproduce photos at low resolution.
- Price. A “P.O.P” listed at prize-figure money is not a bargain, it is a different product. The genuine premium line trades in the low hundreds of dollars.
- Photos. The one rule that catches most of them: if the listing shows only the manufacturer’s promotional render and no photograph of the actual item in the seller’s room, skip it — on any site, in any country.
How to Buy Ace Figures From Japan: Step by Step
- Decide the tier before you search. Display piece on a shelf, or centrepiece? The Figuarts ZERO tier is around $30, the P.O.P tier is around $150 and up. Everything else is noise.
- Search in Japanese. エース alone returns thousands of unrelated items — it is a common word. Use the line name: フィギュアーツZERO エース, ポートレートオブパイレーツ エース, 一番くじ ワンピース エース, KING OF ARTIST エース.
- Filter by condition. 新品未開封 for sealed, 未開封 for older sealed stock, 開封済み for opened. On prize figures, opened is normal and costs 20–40% less.
- Check the prize letter and the campaign name. For kuji items, A賞 and ラストワン賞 carry real premiums; a lower letter often means a towel or a glass, not a figure.[4]
- Run the fake checklist above before you commit, especially on anything claiming to be P.O.P.
- Consolidate. Figure boxes are light and bulky, so you pay international shipping on volume. Buy the Ace, the Sabo and the Luffy in the same window and send them in one parcel.
- Check your import threshold. The United States revoked its $800 de minimis exemption on 29 August 2025, so US-bound parcels are dutiable regardless of value.[8] Japan Post’s suspension of US-bound mail ended on 14 April 2026, so EMS and Sea Mail are running again with published per-destination rates.[7]
Watch for the two-figure sets. A large share of the best Ace sculpts are Luffy & Ace or Ace & Sabo pieces, because his story is a brotherhood story. If you want an Ace on the shelf, the two-figure sets are frequently better value per figure than a solo release of comparable size.
What Proxy Fees Look Like
Service fees are per item and capped, which is what makes a cart of several figures cheap to run.
| Source | OneMall service fee | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercari / Mercari Shops | price × 3% | ¥200 | ¥300 / ¥1,000 |
| Yahoo! Auctions | (winning bid + tax) × 3% | ¥200 | ¥300 |
| Rakuten / Suruga-ya / ZOZOTOWN | price × 3% | ¥50–¥200 | ¥1,000 |
| Any other Japanese shop (LinkBuy) | price × 5% | ¥200 | ¥1,000 |
For reference, competing proxies charge flat fees as of 2026 — Buyee ¥500 per order, ZenMarket ¥500 per item and ¥800 for Mercari, Neokyo ¥350 per item. On a ¥4,070 Figuarts ZERO the percentage fee is ¥200; on the ¥29,000 P.O.P set it is capped at ¥300. Flat fees do not care what you bought, and that is the whole argument.
The Bottom Line
Ace is a finished story with an unfinished merchandise catalogue: constant commemorative releases, four incompatible distribution channels, and a bootleg problem concentrated exactly where the money is. Get the line name right and the rest is straightforward. OneMall buys on Mercari, Yahoo! Auctions, Rakuten and Amazon Japan from one account and holds purchases for 90 days, so a Whitebeard-crew shelf arrives as one box rather than five. Building out the wider collection? Our Pokémon trainer figure guide explains the same channel logic in another franchise, and Yahoo! Japan Auctions in English covers the auction side, where the out-of-production scale figures surface first. New to proxies? Start with the cheapest proxy fee comparison and the best-proxy buyer’s guide. Ready? Search live Ace figures on OneMall.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Portgas D. Ace figure?
For most collectors, a Figuarts ZERO at around $30 is the right answer — it is the mid-size static line that Bandai Spirits built for display.[2] If you want a centrepiece, Megahouse’s Portrait.Of.Pirates line is the premium tier,[1] and its Luffy & Ace pieces trade around $150 second-hand.
Why are some Ace figures so cheap?
Because they were never sold. Prize figures branded KING OF ARTIST, DXF or Grandline Men are distributed to arcades as crane-machine prizes,[3] and their boxes say 非売品 — not for sale. Their second-hand price reflects supply alone, which is why large figures land in single digits.
Can I still get Ichiban Kuji Ace prizes?
Only second-hand. Ichiban Kuji is an in-store lottery run for a fixed campaign period; the official site runs a store finder and an online arm, 一番くじONLINE.[4] When the tickets are gone the channel closes, and the prizes move to Mercari and Yahoo! Auctions.
How do I know an Ace figure is genuine?
Check the flame effects for depth and mould seams, check the ASCE arm tattoo and back mark for crisp tampo printing, look for maker licence marks and a Japanese spec block on the box, and be suspicious of a premium-line figure at prize-line money. Above all, buy from listings that photograph the actual item.
Does Mercari Japan ship to my country?
No. Mercari Japan is a domestic marketplace with domestic delivery only,[6] the same as Yahoo! Auctions. A proxy buys on your behalf, receives the parcel in Japan and forwards it — which is also what lets you combine several sellers into one international shipment.
Is it cheaper to buy Ace figures on eBay?
Rarely. Export resellers buy in the same Japanese marketplaces and then price in their own margin plus shipping. The exception is a seller local to you clearing a collection, where you save the international leg entirely — worth checking before you order from Japan.
References
- Megahouse, official product site (Portrait.Of.Pirates / P.O.P line). https://www.megahouse.co.jp/
- Tamashii Web, Bandai Spirits official collector site (Figuarts ZERO). https://tamashiiweb.com/
- Bandai Namco Amusement, official site (amusement-machine prize business). https://bandainamco-am.co.jp/
- 一番くじ倶楽部, BANDAI SPIRITS official Ichiban Kuji site (store finder, 一番くじONLINE). https://1kuji.com/
- ONE PIECE.com, official portal (character database and goods sections). https://one-piece.com/character/
- Mercari Japan, official marketplace. https://jp.mercari.com/
- Japan Post, EMS international service and rate tables. https://www.post.japanpost.jp/service/send/oversea/list/delivery/ems/index_en.html
- International Trade Administration, de minimis value guidance. https://www.trade.gov/de-minimis-value
Last updated: 2026-08-11.