"Wan pîsu: One Piece" (1999) TV series 1999-????

Director:

Kônosuke Uda

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Release Date:

18 September 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Romance

Tagline:

Set sail for One Piece!

Plot:

There once lived a pirate named Gold Roger. He obtained wealth, fame, and power to earn the title of Pirate King...

Plot Keywords:

Pirate | Treasure | Navigator | Cook | Doctor

Cast

 (Series Cast Summary - 14 of 375)

Mayumi Tanaka	...	Monkey D Luffy / ... (432 episodes, 1999-2009)
Kazuya Nakai	...	Roronoa Zoro / ... (381 episodes, 1999-2009)
Akemi Okamura	...	Nami / ... (370 episodes, 1999-2009)
Kappei Yamaguchi	...	Usopp / ... (363 episodes, 2000-2009)
Hiroaki Hirata	...	Sanji / ... (343 episodes, 2000-2009)
Chikao Ôtsuka	...	Gold Roger (287 episodes, 1999-2009)
Mahito Ôba	...	The Narrator / ... (282 episodes, 1999-2009)
Ikue Ootani	...	Tony Tony Chopper / ... (280 episodes, 2000-2009)
Yuriko Yamaguchi	...	Nico Robin / ... (247 episodes, 2001-2009)
Colleen Clinkenbeard	...	Monkey D. Luffy / ... (206 episodes, 1999-2004)
Luci Christian	...	Nami (193 episodes, 1999-2004)
Christopher Sabat	...	Roronoa Zoro / ... (188 episodes, 1999-2004)
Kazuki Yao	...	Franky / ... (176 episodes, 2000-2009)
Sonny Strait	...	Usopp / ... (173 episodes, 1999-2004)

Also Known As:

One Piece (International: English title)
Shonen Jump One Piece (USA)
All'arrembaggio! - One Piece (Italy) [it]
Drake: To kynigi tou thisavrou (Greece) [el]
One Piece (Spain: Galician title) (series title) [gl]
Tutti all'arrembaggio (Italy) [it]
Um Parte (Portugal) (literal title) [pt]
Une Piece (France) (literal title) [fr]
Uno parte (Spain) (literal title) [es]

Runtime:

Germany:22 min | Japan:24 min (original version) | USA:21 min (edited version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English | Tagalog | French | Italian | Portuguese | Spanish | German | Thai

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Certification:

Australia:PG | Japan:U | South Korea:12 | Australia:G | USA:PG (TV version) | USA:TV-14 (uncut) | USA:TV-Y7 (edit) | Singapore:PG

Company:

4 Kids Entertainment

Trivia:

4Kids was the first dubbing company to dub One Piece. However, many fans of the original Japanese version detested the editing many episodes and scenes in 4Kids's translations received (editing out all mentions of death, getting rid of cigarettes or replacing them with lollipops, cutting out entire arcs, adding unnecessary jokes and puns in the heavily edited dialog and more). FUNimation eventually acquired rights to dub the series from episode 144 onwards, and eventually obtained the rights to episodes 1-143. The 143 episodes which 4Kids did edit were edited so heavily that they had been cut down to 104 episodes.

Quotes:

Nami: Luffy, who, or what, in the world are you?
Monkey D. Luffy: What do you mean?
Nami: Don't you think it's kind of odd that you smashed through all those buildings and you don't have a scratch on you?
Monkey D. Luffy: Nope.

Movie Connections:

Spin off Wan pisu: Anrimiteddo adobenchaa (2007) (VG)

Soundtrack:

We Are!

Redemption has finally come...

We all know the story by now. In June 2004, 4Kids bought the license to One Piece and decided to mock us by dubbing the first opening theme to the series "We Are". There efforts worked for a while, since virtually everyone fell for it.

Then.....that fateful day came. when it made it's premiere on the FoxBox (now known as 4KidsTV) on September 18th, 2004. Everyone was expecting the opening they were teased with the summer before, thinking that 4Kids would get it right. When the moment finally came for One Piece to make it's debut in America.......fans were unanimously horrified.

What we got was not the beautiful rendition of "We Are," but a bubblegum rap song performed by white people. But it only got worse from there, since the entire soundtrack for the series was replaced. No longer did we have the beautiful orchestral score of the original, but instead a chockful of stock music and scores that don;t fit any scenes at all.

Over the course of three years, fans had been treated to some of the worst voice acting in the business, from people who have too much emotion, to having an upbeat personality during very dramatic moments, and voices that mimic virtually every stereotype you can imagine, whether it's hoarse throat New Yorkers, southern hicks, among others.

To go along with the voices, the scripts have been altered indefinitely, featuring really bad puns, in every single minute of every scene, even from characters that would otherwise refrain from saying them.

Viewers were also treated to virtually every form of censorship known to anime history, from name changes (Zoro --> Zolo, Ace --> Trace, Smoker --> Chaser), to image alterations (rice ball to cookies), signs with words to signs with NO words, guns were changed into supersoakers (and in one infamous scene, a hammertoy), and other assorted variations.

Death was danced around in every single moment when they happened, even when it was extremely important to the plot (like Zor(l)o's old friend, or Nami's tragic past with Arlong) all for the sake of the little ones, who they assumed were too stupid or too easily frightened to understand.

The stories were also butchered for time, whether it was merging various episodes into one, switching and rearranging scenes from some episodes and putting them into another, and even resorted to cutting entire sagas from the show altogether.

The only reason the show was able to last this long was because Cartoon Network fully supported it after it;s fallout with the FoxBox. With lingering ratings and failed merchandising, including the lowest selling DVDs on the market (sold less volumes than Hikaru no Go), Toei finally had enough and pulled the license from 4Kids filthy little fingers and decided to give it to more competent ones, and that was Funimation, the people who brought DragonBall Z, Yu Yu Hakusho and Case Closed.

In April 2007, it was announced that One Piece would be given a complete makeover with n a new voice cast, new script translators, and all the music would be kept, with only the most minimal editing, and would premiere in it;s true form on Cartoon Network in August 2007 (pushed to September 29th), and when it happened, fans everywhere sighed with the most soul-satisfying relief they ever could. instead of a rap song, we were treated to an English dubbed version of Hikare E (OP 3 for the series), what followed was conformed it.

The new voice cast stunned viewers, as they now fit their characters; Luffy no longer yelled every line he says, Sanji no longer has a deep Brooklyn accent but now had a regular voice, Nico Robin was no longer a Southern hick but has a more mature and beautiful voice, and Chopper no longer went through puberty when he transformed into his beast form, but the voice that got the most praise from viewers was Ussop, who virtually right off the bat nailed down the role where the original voice could not. The only gripes were the name changes being kept, though that is easily forgivable since the uncut DVDs will have the originals.

Even though it's only been on for three weeks, Funimation's dub has shown more quality in these three episodes than 4Kids had for three years, and as the series goes on, things can only get better from here, so let us thank our lucky stars that our beloved Strawhat crew has been salvaged from the graveyard in the hands of 4Shame in the American market, and can now roam freely in the seas of Funimation for hereon after. Sail on Go Merry..... Sail on.