As reported in the ToonZone forums by the marketing director for 4Kids, “I am sorry to say at this time there are no additional episodes (of One Piece) being adapted by 4Kids Entertainment.”.
I’m sure this will both sadden many One Piece anime fans, while other will rejoice. I know there’s a lot of controversy over the huge amount of edits imposed by 4Kids to the One Piece anime – what do you think?
Here’s another Anime release you guys might be interested in. Beet: The Vandel Buster. I’ve never been a fan of Dragonball, Naruto, Avatar, or the like, but I’ve had many friends who were, or still are. Furthermore, being that this is IlumiToon’s first Anime release, I figure we might as well give it some exposure. The series was created by the animators of Dragon Ball Z, and the recently canceled One Piece (Read here).
Here’s another anime release you guys might be interested in. Beet: The Vandel Buster. I’ve never been a fan of Dragonball, Naruto, Avatar, or the like, but I’ve had many friends who were, or still are. Furthermore, being that this is IlumiToon’s first anime release, I figure we might as well give it some exposure. The series was created by the animators of Dragon Ball Z, and the recently canceled One Piece.
I heard the news a few days ago, and I rejoiced.
I’d rather never see One Piece dubbed in English than have 4Kids continue on the project.
I wonder if the manga releases will change back to using Zoro instead of Zolo since they supposedly switched because of the dub.
Katie – Good point. I would imagine many fans are thrilled too. As for the name change – it’s hard to say. I would assume that Viz Media would keep things the same for consistency’s sake, but you never know.
Perhaps the fans will demand it!
That was what was so strange, they started with Zoro and changed it after the dub started, so odd.
Katie – That is very odd. Since they switched it previously, perhaps they’ll do it again?
I did a little research and Wikipedia had some information for those uninitiated (including me), in One Piece the character’s English name is ‘Roronoa Zoro’. In the U.S. manga chapters 1-49 (first print editions). He appears as ‘Roronoa Zolo’ in the U.S. manga chapter 50+, the UK editions and new editions of 1-49 and US/Canada/UK/Australia dubbed anime.
His name was possibly changed in the North American English versions due to trademark reasons and in order to match up with the dub by 4Kids Entertainment. His family name of Roronoa comes from the real-life French pirate François l’Ollonais.
Interesting!
Considering how unwatchable I found the few episodes I did see, I’m interested to see how the quality will change after this. As a huge fan of the comics, I was just appalled by how sloppily the anime was handled by 4Kids.
I think I’ll just sit back and patiently keep an eye on what happens.
hi, folks. i’m in China, and i’ve watched 291 episodes of one piece which is original from Japan. we’ve got Chinese subtitles. why you guys bother to adapt it? just add the english subtitles and that’s enough, isn’t it?
Eye – I’m not sure how the quality will change. Perhaps they’ll release the whole series in un-edited form – I think a lot of fans would prefer it that way.
konanku – 291 episodes – wow! Good question about why bother to adapt it. The main reason was that 4Kids Entertainment (who produce the FoxKids shows) wanted to market the show to the widest audience in America.
Since there are certain things they did not want children to see on television, they decided to make massive edits to the animation – things like deleting whole scenes, changing blood color, changing smoking, etc. A lot of fans who had seen the original Japanese anime noticed these things and were not happy either.
Regarding the subtitles issue, I think there are still many people who would not watch it with subtitles. Check out Rachel’s great article on subs and dubs for a little more insight than I can come up with here!
OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! I LUV ONE PIECE!!!!! I WANT ONE PIECE!!!