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Columnist for Toei (his words) explains why One Piece flopped in the US and why 4Kids isn’t solely to blame

Jman

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Daos Paragon

Daos

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Ok let me give you the real reason. It's going to be hard to take for One Piece fans.

One Piece looks like shit. Your main character looks like this. 

I remember seeing it on TV and changed the channel every time. I never wanted to give the show a chance because the artwork is just so off putting. I never watched an entire episode. No one really gave a damn about bad dubbing back then, hell..... we grew up with He-Man and Thundercats which had some of the worst voice acting known to man. The truth is the show just LOOKED AWFUL so people never gave it a chance.

luffy___one_piece_by_srmoro-d6kx0vu.jpg?

 

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MasqueradeOverture Luminary

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5 hours ago, QueenoftheDorks said:

Didn't they edit it pretty badly and replace the music?? Not to mention the dub was pretty mockable at the time.

Edits ended when FUNI did it in-house, and I will defend the Faulconer score to the death (minus the obvious lack of silence of course).

Voice acting was pretty bad, but standard for late 90's anime dubbing.

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Top Gun Centurion

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Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying what this guy is selling at all.  Essentially no one outside of 5 nerds knew how edited FUNi's version of DBZ was in the mid- to late-90s.  The sort of collective Internet consciousness that passed around information like that didn't exist yet.  (I like how he's taking credit for "leading a charge against FUNi" that I sincerely doubt ever amounted to anything.)  The 10-year-olds who made DBZ into a massive success didn't give a damn about edits; they were all about people yelling loudly and punching the shit out of each other and powering up to crazy levels.  It was the only thing remotely like it on TV at the time, and it absolutely exploded as a result.  Fast-forward to when OP debuted on US TV, and you're looking at a completely-different media landscape.  It was a much more crowded market as far as the genre goes, particularly considering how huge Naruto already was, and it was much easier for word about the edits to spread around.  The 4Kids treatment undeniably hurt OP's chances for huge success in the US, and combined with its unconventional style, it was put in a disadvantageous position from the get-go.

I mean at the end of the day, will One Piece ever be as remotely "mainstream" in the US as DBZ is?  Probably not.  But it is undeniably successful as far as anime titles go.  FUNi has cited it as one of their best-selling properties (seriously, my Voyage sets take up almost a whole huge shelf, and that's just through Fishman Island), and it's always in the most-streamed listings on Crunchyroll.  It's received multiple stints totaling hundreds of episodes on broadcast TV.  It's seen over 500 episodes dubbed in uncut form over more than a decade, and FUNi is starting the dub back up again at an expedited pace.  It's had a few movies receive limited theatrical releases, with the most recent one pulling in some good numbers.  None of these things happen to "failed" licenses.

1 hour ago, elfie said:

Honestly I cannot understand how One Piece is so popular in Japan. The anime is horribly paced, only one issue is adapted per episode, it's riddled with filler, the animation's awful, and the humor is repetitive and tiresome.

One Piece is so popular because everyone and their literal grandmother reads the manga.  Everyone watching the anime already knows the story and is just enjoying seeing it in another medium.

3 hours ago, Daos said:

Ok let me give you the real reason. It's going to be hard to take for One Piece fans.

One Piece looks like shit. Your main character looks like this.

Yes, we know people like Generic Anime Look #57 instead of anything that looks even remotely different.  Like, I won't deny that the look of the series can take people aback at first, but if they're even remotely open to something outside the norm, it's not all that difficult to get past.  Lord knows I got used to it pretty quickly. And you might have had more of a point if you had chosen a shot from the first year or two of the anime, but that picture looks just fine.

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Chapinator_X Hero

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It had one chance to make a solid impression when Naruto knocked it out of the park. Naruto’s success likely would’ve helped to continue opening up doors for shows like One Piece to arrive and act as a gateway into other Shounen Jump anime to be localized. 

But the first impression of One Piece filtered through by 4kidz’s creative decisions was a joke. The artwork was already kiddish enough, but this was increased tenfold with the terrible dubbing direction and changes that made it much more embarrassing to watch. It comes off like they were trying to mock their audience and treat them like they are experiencing bullshit baby watch night.

Whereas Naruto didn’t try to alienate audiences who were watching tween programming disguised as a violent and cool ninja show, 4Piece immediately dove into their magicians hat of the same embarrassing Saturday morning cartoon tropes that made the 90’s Pokémon dub fun to rag on. Who wouldn’t have had the impression that One Piece was a TV show for toddlers when it does more to mimic a Saturday morning cartoon than any of the middle/high school level content they would come to expect from the more successful shows Toonami has aired?

By the time Funimation picked it up, it was already damaged goods. Could you return to a faithful OP production and not think of the 4kidz rap theme song? Wouldn’t you have moved on to Bleach or Shippuden by that point? Did you expect the opening coming on and hearing the dulcet tones of Vic Mignogna instead of “YAYO-YAAAAA-YOOOO” to suddenly wash away any of the ill will and bad taste brought about by the years that 4Kidz defined what One Piece was in the West? It’d be a fools errand to think those put off by their first impression of One Piece would suddenly be on-board like those who religiously live and breathe the manga, no matter if it gets good by the time you get to Thriller Bark. 

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The1gairon Monster Mutant

The1gairon

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The only reason 4Kids got One Piece is because Toei desperately wanted it to air in America and basically just accepted the offer from the first Tom Dick and Harry who made one, and 4Kids, completely disinterested in One Piece and not having a clue of what it's about let alone what happens in it, only got it as a package deal for another show htey actually wanted. They realized their mistake once American cable standards forced them to edit out an entire arc, and they were horrified when it was revealed just how dramatic and perilous the content of the future arcs would be, so they gave up on it.

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Top Gun Centurion

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8 hours ago, imchapp.in said:

It had one chance to make a solid impression when Naruto knocked it out of the park. Naruto’s success likely would’ve helped to continue opening up doors for shows like One Piece to arrive and act as a gateway into other Shounen Jump anime to be localized. 

But the first impression of One Piece filtered through by 4kidz’s creative decisions was a joke. The artwork was already kiddish enough, but this was increased tenfold with the terrible dubbing direction and changes that made it much more embarrassing to watch. It comes off like they were trying to mock their audience and treat them like they are watching bullshit baby hour.

Whereas Naruto didn’t try to alienate audiences who were watching tween programming disguised as a violent and cool ninja show, 4Piece immediately dove into their magicians hat of the same embarrassing Saturday morning cartoon tropes that made the 90’s Pokémon dub fun to rag on. Who wouldn’t have had the impression that One Piece was a TV show for toddlers when it does more to mimic a Saturday morning cartoon than any of the middle/high school level content they would come to expect from the more successful shows Toonami has aired?

By the time Funimation picked it up, it was already damaged goods. Could you return to a faithful OP production and not think of the 4kidz rap theme song? Wouldn’t you have moved on to Bleach or Shippuden by that point? Did you expect the opening coming on and hearing the dulcet tones of Vic Mignogna instead of “YAYO-YAAAAA-YOOOO” to suddenly wash away any of the ill will and bad taste brought about by the years that 4Kidz defined what One Piece was in the West? It’d be a fools errand to think those put off by their first impression of One Piece would suddenly be on-board like those who religiously live and breathe the manga, no matter if it gets good by the time you get to Thriller Bark. 

In its uncut form, One Piece doesn't waste much time getting to the violent content.  Within the first 5 episodes you have Zoro's near-execution, Coby being held at gunpoint by Helmeppo, and Luffy's flashback featuring someone getting capped in the head and Shanks having his arm ripped off.  And if Toei hadn't toned the anime down from the original manga for the sake of impressionable children, you'd have a young Luffy stabbing himself in the face to prove he was pirate material.   Of course the kids watching the 4Kids cut didn't see any of that.  That spring-loaded...thing they edited Helmeppo's gun into still cracks me the hell up.

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Top Gun Centurion

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18 minutes ago, PokeNirvash said:

Technically, they did see one of Shanks' men cap that guy in the head, they just came up with the poorly thought-out excuse that he was firing blanks and not actual bullets.

I did not know that. That's hilarious. 

Even better was Jango threatening Kaya during the Kuro Pirates arc. "The chakram is too powerful! It will turn on you!"

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Vamped Monster Mutant

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I couldn't get into One Piece because of the way it looks. I gave it a chance when it was coming on Saturday mornings because I watched everything on FoxKids/the FoxBox/ whatever

.... still couldn't get into One Piece.

Sometimes I can come back on a random episode in an anime I abandoned and get hooked on it (like Naruto) but when I tried it again with One Piece

*buff AF reindeer in a pink top hat emerges*

image.jpeg.d069e0616bf03d7c1d3b5b6f145ffe1e.jpeg

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Jman Super Hero

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12 hours ago, elfie said:

One Piece needs a Kai treatment.

See, I presume this is why they want to make the live action version and give it Game of Thrones money.

Am I the only one intrigued by the idea, even if it ends up being the most expensive trainwreck since Cats?  It is so antithetical to what Americans like in their anime that getting people on board will be very hard.

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Vamped Monster Mutant

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6 hours ago, QueenoftheDorks said:

"One Piece looks weird!" is clownery of the highest caliber and makes you sound as stupid as people who don't watch anime because "the eyes are too big" at least be creative and blame it on it being too long. At least then you don't sound ignorant.

MONSTA-X-Hyungwon.gif

 

giphy.gif

It doesnt look weird.

Spoiler

Its just fucking ugly

Some of the eyes in anime are too fucking big. Same thing with stupid big titties. Aesthetics are sometimes important 

>.> some how even with the weird body proportions in One Piece tits are still a priority.

People like what they like.

Spoiler

Chill out nerds. 

 

tenor.gif?itemid=4874061

 

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

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On 12/28/2019 at 11:42 PM, Top Gun said:

I mean at the end of the day, will One Piece ever be as remotely "mainstream" in the US as DBZ is?  Probably not.  But it is undeniably successful as far as anime titles go.  FUNi has cited it as one of their best-selling properties (seriously, my Voyage sets take up almost a whole huge shelf, and that's just through Fishman Island), and it's always in the most-streamed listings on Crunchyroll.  It's received multiple stints totaling hundreds of episodes on broadcast TV.  It's seen over 500 episodes dubbed in uncut form over more than a decade, and FUNi is starting the dub back up again at an expedited pace.  It's had a few movies receive limited theatrical releases, with the most recent one pulling in some good numbers.  None of these things happen to "failed" licenses.

I don't think that would have happened even if One Piece was localized well when it first came here. 

But I recently saw... I think was either Twitter posts or Youtube videos or something, where the dub for One Piece was being picked back up.  Apparently the dub had been stopped for years and hadn't gotten far into the time skip.  So even if I had kept watching where I left off, I wouldn't have had much more dubbed episodes to watch.  I had always assumed they were right on top of it.  They had plenty of time to catch up on the old episodes and I would figure were even giving it the simuldub treatment at this point.  So it's is really odd that the dub was just stopped for years, if it was one of Funimation's biggest most marquee shows.  That doesn't speak well to One Piece's success in the U.S.  And then Funimation started posting spoiler clips of One Piece, which pissed me the hell off, so I had to unsubscribe to their Youtube channel.  They spoiled a character's appearance and Devil Fruit Power.

Spoiler

I think it was Kaido.  They posted at least two clips of him and he hasn't even appeared yet in the last episodes I watched.

 

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

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On 12/28/2019 at 2:49 PM, Jman said:

Just remember someone has the rights to a live action version of One Piece and wants to spend more money on it than Game of Thrones.

Agree?  Disagree?

I always thought you turned heel on One Piece because of Moose, since you used to be one of its biggest fans and defenders.  So I'm not really sure why you did such a 180 on it, or why you're still making fun of it now.

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

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On 12/29/2019 at 8:52 AM, imchapp.in said:

It had one chance to make a solid impression when Naruto knocked it out of the park. Naruto’s success likely would’ve helped to continue opening up doors for shows like One Piece to arrive and act as a gateway into other Shounen Jump anime to be localized. 

But the first impression of One Piece filtered through by 4kidz’s creative decisions was a joke. The artwork was already kiddish enough, but this was increased tenfold with the terrible dubbing direction and changes that made it much more embarrassing to watch. It comes off like they were trying to mock their audience and treat them like they are experiencing bullshit baby watch night.

Whereas Naruto didn’t try to alienate audiences who were watching tween programming disguised as a violent and cool ninja show, 4Piece immediately dove into their magicians hat of the same embarrassing Saturday morning cartoon tropes that made the 90’s Pokémon dub fun to rag on. Who wouldn’t have had the impression that One Piece was a TV show for toddlers when it does more to mimic a Saturday morning cartoon than any of the middle/high school level content they would come to expect from the more successful shows Toonami has aired?

By the time Funimation picked it up, it was already damaged goods. Could you return to a faithful OP production and not think of the 4kidz rap theme song? Wouldn’t you have moved on to Bleach or Shippuden by that point? Did you expect the opening coming on and hearing the dulcet tones of Vic Mignogna instead of “YAYO-YAAAAA-YOOOO” to suddenly wash away any of the ill will and bad taste brought about by the years that 4Kidz defined what One Piece was in the West? It’d be a fools errand to think those put off by their first impression of One Piece would suddenly be on-board like those who religiously live and breathe the manga, no matter if it gets good by the time you get to Thriller Bark. 

Oh yeah that's right, Vic did the OP for One Piece, several of the themes, I think, actually.  So that's tainted now and can never be listened to again.  Didn't he also do the only good version of Dragon Soul that we kept asking Toonami to play but Demarco just kept playing all the other horribly sung versions?

But no, people probably weren't going to come back to it after that lol.  Though I will say that I still got into the show even despite the 4Kidz stuff, and I'm sure a lot of people got into the show through that version.  Though probably many more were turned off of it because of it.  Though I think even with the best localization, it would not have caught on huge like other shows.  Maybe it would be more popular than it is now, but I don't think it would have been a vast difference.

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

ben0119

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8 hours ago, EmpressAngel said:

Oh yeah, Swole Rudolph is clearly so much worse than this Wilford Brimley fursona that was running around DBZ. Totes.

toppo_artwork_dokkan.png

That's from Super, so not even in the same time period as when Dragon Ball Z and One Piece were both on back then.  I'd say there were probably more over-the-top and cartoonish characters in Dragon Ball, but DBZ got played first, so.  We also barely saw the cartoon animal people in DBZ like we saw in Dragon Ball too.

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Jman Super Hero

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3 hours ago, ben0119 said:

I always thought you turned heel on One Piece because of Moose, since you used to be one of its biggest fans and defenders.  So I'm not really sure why you did such a 180 on it, or why you're still making fun of it now.

1.  Even if you like the manga’s story, (and keep in mind I played Pirate Warriors 3 just to get relatively caught up a month ago) most people will contend that the anime...is a really bad adaptation of it.  The pacing is glacial to the point of parody.  The animation reflects the worst cost cutting methods of Toei.  And you’re better off just reading the manga.  
 

2.  I remain fascinated by the franchise, since it is an institution literally everywhere but the US.  Most of the people who wanted to beat down the lady who played Shuri when the fake rumor of her playing Nami hit?  French.

Despite 4Kids making “Yo Yo he took a bite of the Gum Gum” an eternal mark of shame, people still want to make OP a thing in the US.  $9-$10 million an episode.  For even an 8 episode, one hour per episode series, that is anywhere from $72-$80 million dollars.  Enough money for most of this forum to live comfortably on for a very long time.  And it’s being invested in trying to make One Piece the next Game of Thrones (even if The Witcher and The Mandalorian seems far more likely to capture that crown).  I cannot be the only one who finds that fascinating.

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QueenoftheDorks Elder

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5 hours ago, Jman said:

Despite 4Kids making “Yo Yo he took a bite of the Gum Gum” an eternal mark of shame, people still want to make OP a thing in the US.

Why do you assume its aiming solely for the US? Just because a US company is involved? There's nothing that states an American company can't develop a TV show primarily for an international market. They do it all the time for films. The last two Pirates of the Carribbean films were made for the international box office where it was still considered a hit franchise. It flopping in America made absolutely no difference to anyone at Disney.

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Jman Super Hero

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41 minutes ago, QueenoftheDorks said:

Why do you assume its aiming solely for the US? Just because a US company is involved? There's nothing that states an American company can't develop a TV show primarily for an international market. They do it all the time for films. The last two Pirates of the Carribbean films were made for the international box office where it was still considered a hit franchise. It flopping in America made absolutely no difference to anyone at Disney.

American company, American writers and producers, and it’s apparently been bought by a streaming service in Netflix whose whole thing is keeping their grip on the American market in the face of new competition.  Not to mention the ginormous amount of cash being thrown at the series.

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Top Gun Centurion

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And they're absolutely going to push it worldwide. It being US-produced doesn't change that for a second. In fact I'd wager that Oda agreed to a US production because he knows that Japanese live-action adaptations would never have the requisite budget.

And yes, Toei's adaptation has been notoriously poorly-paced and low-budget for well over a decade. At this point you either accept it and enjoy it for the merits it does have (acting and music primarily), or you stick with the manga. That being said, the show has received a serious breath of fresh air with the advent of the Wano arc and a new chief director. The past two episodes featured a massive fight with almost movie-level animation and direction.

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Jman Super Hero

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3 minutes ago, Top Gun said:

And they're absolutely going to push it worldwide. It being US-produced doesn't change that for a second. In fact I'd wager that Oda agreed to a US production because he knows that Japanese live-action adaptations would never have the requisite budget.

He did actually say it was one of the reasons!

But the American company agreeing with him is due to the streaming wars and everyone wanting to make the next Thrones, I would gather.

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QueenoftheDorks Elder

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2 hours ago, Jman said:

American company, American writers and producers, and it’s apparently been bought by a streaming service in Netflix whose whole thing is keeping their grip on the American market in the face of new competition.  Not to mention the ginormous amount of cash being thrown at the series.

There are only like three countries in the world who don't have access to Netflix. The biggest of which is China, but they still licence their shows to a Chinese streaming service. They produce original content for more than just America. As I said this feels exactly like a situation like Pirates of the Caribbean. They don't care if it make it in America because literally the rest of the world can make it into a hit. 

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Top Gun Centurion

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13 hours ago, ben0119 said:

I don't think that would have happened even if One Piece was localized well when it first came here. 

But I recently saw... I think was either Twitter posts or Youtube videos or something, where the dub for One Piece was being picked back up.  Apparently the dub had been stopped for years and hadn't gotten far into the time skip.  So even if I had kept watching where I left off, I wouldn't have had much more dubbed episodes to watch.  I had always assumed they were right on top of it.  They had plenty of time to catch up on the old episodes and I would figure were even giving it the simuldub treatment at this point.  So it's is really odd that the dub was just stopped for years, if it was one of Funimation's biggest most marquee shows.  That doesn't speak well to One Piece's success in the U.S.  And then Funimation started posting spoiler clips of One Piece, which pissed me the hell off, so I had to unsubscribe to their Youtube channel.  They spoiled a character's appearance and Devil Fruit Power.

The last episode Toonami aired was 384, and FUNi's last boxset of Fishman Island left off at 574, so you still could have watched nearly 200 episodes' worth of dubbed content between then and now.  As for why they took this hiatus, long-running series like OP get contracts negotiated in big chunks of episodes, and Fishman Island was as far as FUNi's previous contract with Toei extended.  We don't know if there was some sort of delay in negotiating a new deal (which can frequently happen when dealing with Japanese production companies), but even if there wasn't, FUNi simply may not have been able to handle working on such a massive property at that time.  Simuldubbing multiple series every season takes a lot out of your cast and production staff, and most of the main people working on OP are the most veteran FUNi regulars, so they're in high demand across a lot of series.  FUNi was dubbing Super for Toonami at that time, as well as finishing up Fairy Tail, so add that to all of the new seasonal shows and they may have needed the break.  FUNi still gave two OP movies actual theatrical runs during that time, as well as releasing a number of specials/OVAs, so it's not like they abandoned the property in the least.  Now that Super and Fairy Tail are done and FUNi has more room to work with, they're able tackle OP at an expedited pace, with "multiple teams" working on it.  OP often has significant characters not appear for extended lengths of time, so what I'm assuming they'll do is have those actors working on future arcs down the line to get a jump-start on them.  Poor Colleen's stuck yelling forever though.

And of course FUNi posts clips from current Japanese episodes on social media.  Even if they watch the dub, pretty much everyone who's a OP fan is either current with the Japanese broadcast or is trying to get current.  It's too damn big of a series to afford to fall behind for a few years.  It's also so huge that spoilers are just about inevitable.  Just accept it and roll with it.

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The1gairon Monster Mutant

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17 hours ago, Top Gun said:

And they're absolutely going to push it worldwide. It being US-produced doesn't change that for a second. In fact I'd wager that Oda agreed to a US production because he knows that Japanese live-action adaptations would never have the requisite budget.

And yes, Toei's adaptation has been notoriously poorly-paced and low-budget for well over a decade. At this point you either accept it and enjoy it for the merits it does have (acting and music primarily), or you stick with the manga. That being said, the show has received a serious breath of fresh air with the advent of the Wano arc and a new chief director. The past two episodes featured a massive fight with almost movie-level animation and direction.

Is anyone annoyed at how sketchy the new season is drawn? Or is that just how current anime needs to be done?

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

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On 12/31/2019 at 8:50 AM, Jman said:

1.  Even if you like the manga’s story, (and keep in mind I played Pirate Warriors 3 just to get relatively caught up a month ago) most people will contend that the anime...is a really bad adaptation of it.  The pacing is glacial to the point of parody.  The animation reflects the worst cost cutting methods of Toei.  And you’re better off just reading the manga.  
 

2.  I remain fascinated by the franchise, since it is an institution literally everywhere but the US.  Most of the people who wanted to beat down the lady who played Shuri when the fake rumor of her playing Nami hit?  French.

Despite 4Kids making “Yo Yo he took a bite of the Gum Gum” an eternal mark of shame, people still want to make OP a thing in the US.  $9-$10 million an episode.  For even an 8 episode, one hour per episode series, that is anywhere from $72-$80 million dollars.  Enough money for most of this forum to live comfortably on for a very long time.  And it’s being invested in trying to make One Piece the next Game of Thrones (even if The Witcher and The Mandalorian seems far more likely to capture that crown).  I cannot be the only one who finds that fascinating.

1. I dunno the episodes I have watched didn't look that bad or seem so slow-paced.  Maybe I haven't gotten to those episodes yet.  But there's a difference between liking the manga and not liking the anime and just not liking the franchise in general, which is what you inexplicably started making fun of, and continued to do even after that pest was removed.

2. Who is Shuri?  And yeah, anime is popular in France, right?  That's how stuff like Totally Spies came about?

That could be money sink, a money pit for Netflix.  But Oda had control over who got picked to play the characters in Funimation's dub supposedly, I wonder how much control he will have over this.  It would also take them eons to cover the material if they go anywhere near to faithfully adapting the story.  Even seriously trimming it down would still go on forever.  Not sure if they know what they're getting into here.  On the other hand, the showrunners wouldn't have to worry about getting totally exposed after they run out of material like what happened with Game of Thrones.   Haven't played any of the Witcher games yet.  Should probably get on that.  I loved season 1 of Mandalorian.  The Borgia and Medici style political drama that happens to take place in a fantasy world that is Game of Thrones never interested me.  Though apparently one of the other questionable things Benioff and Weiss did was minimize the fantasy elements...

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ben0119 Monster Mutant

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On 12/31/2019 at 8:03 PM, Top Gun said:

The last episode Toonami aired was 384, and FUNi's last boxset of Fishman Island left off at 574, so you still could have watched nearly 200 episodes' worth of dubbed content between then and now.  As for why they took this hiatus, long-running series like OP get contracts negotiated in big chunks of episodes, and Fishman Island was as far as FUNi's previous contract with Toei extended.  We don't know if there was some sort of delay in negotiating a new deal (which can frequently happen when dealing with Japanese production companies), but even if there wasn't, FUNi simply may not have been able to handle working on such a massive property at that time.  Simuldubbing multiple series every season takes a lot out of your cast and production staff, and most of the main people working on OP are the most veteran FUNi regulars, so they're in high demand across a lot of series.  FUNi was dubbing Super for Toonami at that time, as well as finishing up Fairy Tail, so add that to all of the new seasonal shows and they may have needed the break.  FUNi still gave two OP movies actual theatrical runs during that time, as well as releasing a number of specials/OVAs, so it's not like they abandoned the property in the least.  Now that Super and Fairy Tail are done and FUNi has more room to work with, they're able tackle OP at an expedited pace, with "multiple teams" working on it.  OP often has significant characters not appear for extended lengths of time, so what I'm assuming they'll do is have those actors working on future arcs down the line to get a jump-start on them.  Poor Colleen's stuck yelling forever though.

And of course FUNi posts clips from current Japanese episodes on social media.  Even if they watch the dub, pretty much everyone who's a OP fan is either current with the Japanese broadcast or is trying to get current.  It's too damn big of a series to afford to fall behind for a few years.  It's also so huge that spoilers are just about inevitable.  Just accept it and roll with it.

I guess you don't remember that I had been watching the show past that on my own for a time.  Looks like I left off at 512.  So I would not have had much more at all if I had kept watching.  I'm trying to remember if Toei is one of those companies that does baffling things and is difficult to negotiate with.  I want to say yes, since it took forever to get Kai and Super, didn't it?  I seem to recall some odd things going on with them.  Hasn't the old joke of Funimation just having 12 voice actors died a long time ago?  They don't have to use all those people in all the new shows.  Super has not been going on for that long.  Oh, so you're saying Fairy Tail was prioritized over One Piece, huh? =3 Was any of that dubbed?  Yeah the whole thing of characters not appearing for hundreds of episodes.  It's annoying in general, but for the purposes of dubbing, yeah, they should have the actors just record everything for all their disparate appearances, and not just go episode by episode with everyone.  Colleen Clinkenbeard did complain about that before, but she is sticking with the role I guess. I still can't believe her range.  I forgot that she played Erza, and also Luffy.  But besides the "tough girl" voices and boy voices she can also do the girly voices!

Funimation didn't seem to start doing that until recently, or at least, I didn't notice them before.  I think they were posting new dub clips I guess, because I don't remember such an influx of One Piece clips before.  Whether your assertion that "pretty much everyone" does that is correct or not, doesn't mean I'm going to do that.  I don't do what everyone else does.  I do what I want.  For whatever reason, not any particular reason that I can recall, I fell off watching the episodes where I was.  Maybe it was because I mostly finished that arc and wanted to focus on other things, or I just got generally side-tracked with other stuff.  I have a lot of shows (not anime) I follow and hobbies and other stuff to do.  Either way, what you just said is another strike against trying to get new people into the show.  Hundreds of episodes (which should be a selling point!) and a galaxy-size minefield of spoilers await the new viewer.  And they better not dare fall behind!  Even still, the only spoilers I ever had before were years ago from specifically watching videos about One Piece (Read Right to Left episode, don't even know if that guy is still around,) at a time when I thought I wouldn't get back into the show, or stupidly clicking on a spoiler tag (though they still shouldn't have posted it as the first reply in a character fan club!)  I don't google One Piece hardly ever and don't look it up on social media.  Same as I wouldn't do with any show I'm not current on and wouldn't want spoilers on.  So I shouldn't be getting spoilers if I'm not seeking out videos or posts on the show.  And I don't think Youtube counts as social media.  Either way, the least they could do is not use spoiler thumbnails, so I don't get spoiled from notifications for a video I didn't even click on.  It is unfortunate, because I will probably miss out on other stuff I would've liked to know about, since I had to unsubscribe from their Youtube.  I guess maybe I should start trying to watch it again, if they are dubbing the series again, which I didn't even know they stopped. :|

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PenguinBoss Superstar

PenguinBoss

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Oh hey, we shitting on One Piece in here?

Personally, I just thought it was boring. I read the manga when Shonen Jump came out and found the art style off-putting, but I could maybe get over that or it could grow on me. Then the main character ends up being dumb as a rock, stabs himself in the face, and becomes super stretchy. Anything interesting that popped up couldn't make up how ugly and tropey it was. And by the time Luffy pulled a sharkman's teeth out to use against him, I was done. I tried watching the anime, but it moving at a snail's pace did nothing relieve the boredom I felt reading the manga.

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