One Piece. Better in Japanese?

aesling · Post by **aesling** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:36 pm

Ok, so I watched the first two episodes of One Piece on CN last Saturday and I have to say I wasn't terribly impressed. I know that people have been commenting on the editing done by the American licensers and I was wondering how much they changed it. Aside from the English VA's (which drove me crazy) and that crappy rap theme song (which I think we all agree should die) did 4Kids butcher it? Is the Japanese version of the series more enjoyable?

Malificus · Post by **Malificus** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:40 pm

I think beer was changed to water, wasn't it? But really, the main vioce I couldn't handle was Luffy's ten-year-old generic hero voice.

lenu · Post by **lenu** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:45 pm

I'll keep this as nice and as simple as possible. Personally I think that the Japanese version of One Piece is very enjoyable and it's one of my favorite series. I like it because it's funny, adventurous, and I like the characters.

But that ..."thing"... that is being broadcasted on CN and Fox isn't One Piece, but a heavily edited, Americanized version. The voices are some of the worst ever, if you think Luffy's is bad just wait to hear Usopp's and Sanji's, though Zoro's is well done. I honestly don't see the rational behind that rap intro. As for the edits, saying that 4kids butchered it would be an understatement. It's like an entirely different show. All the edits are made in the interest of being "kid friendly."

Some of the edits they did in the first 2 episodes were: devil fruit changed to "cursed fruit"; beer changed to water, or juice; Luffy hitting Coby changed to Coby asking if Luffy was going to hit him, then Luffy saying he was "about" to; the post that Zoro was tied to had the top part cut off to make it look less like a cross; and the onigiri the little girl offers Zoro when he was tied to the post was changed to cookies. The edit done to the post that Zoro's tied to I can understand, but the cookies just confuse me to no end. There's more edits in those episodes, and even more in later episodes, but it'll take to long to describe them all.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:46 pm

I can't really bear to watch the Dub to compare, but from whay I saw of it, i shuddered to think how serious plot lines were / will be treated...

This sums up the treatment of One Piece quite nicely.[/url]

Heero_Yuy84 · Post by **Heero_Yuy84** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 1:44 am

Funny story regarding the rap.

Someone interviewed 4Kids and asked about the use of rap in another of their licenses (F-Zero)

Their answer:
We liked how it sounded.

That said, they're planning to drop an entire episode arc from this series because they can't make it kiddy friendly (for reference: The Arlong arc)

What does this tell us?

Zaphod_Beeblebrox · Post by **Zaphod_Beeblebrox** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:10 am

Didn't they also change a gun to a strange boxing-glove-on-a-spring thingy?

I think it's in about ep 2 or 3, when Helmeppo is threatening Coby...but from what i've heard it's as bad as the official translations of Naruto (Byakugan = 'The all seeing Evil Eye' my ass!), only they changed the pictures too...

OtakuMan22 · Post by **OtakuMan22** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 8:37 am

Okay, I'll bite. Time to throw my hat in.

I have heard many things about what they've done to anime they've licensed. Not just One Piece, but F-Zero GP and Shaman King too. Shaman King I can tell differences quite easily thanks to the manga from Viz (Without the real One Piece and Shaman King in manga form, we would be deprived of ALL of the One Piece and Shaman King goodness here in the US).

There is, however, ONE possible chance for redemption on the part of 4Kids. IF they release an un-cut, un-censored version of the show, WITH ALL EPISODES INTACT, then they will be spared of my wrath. I have reason to believe that with enough of a push, they would be willing to do this. After all, it's what they're doing with Shaman King.

One other thing that caught my attention. Were there people griping as much about this back when DBZ first hit the airwaves? I recall no one complaining about "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" being replaced by "Rock the Dragon" when it arrived stateside.

So why One Piece? Why now? Is it perhaps because cutting One Piece would cause cutting off a lot more than a shot of blood?

:Sigh: It seriously needs to get onto cable like DBZ did. That made it much better (less editing is needed for cable TV).

~Otaku-Man

lenu · Post by **lenu** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:08 am

OtakuMan22 you're in luck, 4kids has confirmed that Uncut DVDs of all their properties will be released by FUNimation. FUNi has already released uncut DVDs for Shaman King and Yu-Gi-Oh, and I've heard that uncut One Piece DVDs will be out later this year.

Heero_Yuy84 · Post by **Heero_Yuy84** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 10:53 am

I dunno...considering so far they only seem to have released the first two uncut SK DVDs and just taken their sweet time with the rest, we could be waiting a while...

p.s. As for why no one bitched about DBZ. You're kidding right? It was thanks to DBZ that Funimation was public anime enemy #1 for ages. It wasn't until Blue Gender and Kiddy Grade came about that they had any chance for redeeming themselves.

Rurounikeitaro · Post by **Rurounikeitaro** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:53 am

I don't care what anyone says, Usopp's Dub voice is hot!! Reminds me of Rock Lee!! Omote Renge!!