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xparrot* to be honest, I'm still not entirely clear on what fanwank is. but if it's anything to do with excessive whining, oh yeah. it's here.
So the One Piece anime has been licensed. For real, this time.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=400
This isn't the first time a series has been licensed out from under me. I didn't freak when GetBackers was bought - little curious how they're going to be handling it, little ticked by what TokyoPop's been doing to it, but them's the breaks, and it could be worse. And FMA, other than the (now proving to be groundless) disappointment that finding fansubs would get harder and I'm not willing to wait years to see the conclusion, didn't bother me. From what I've heard, the dub might be decent, and it'll be on Cartoon Network, 'Adult Swim' one presumes, which has shown several top-knotch anime with minimum changes.
Neither of those series were bought by 4Kids, to be shown on Fox Saturday mornings.
Now, mind, I still haven't forgiven Fox for the travesty they wreaked on Escaflowne. But that was a miserable, short-lived failure for them, and in the long run it probably worked to the series' advantage; people got their curiosity piqued and had to locate the original to see how it ended.
4Kids, though. 4Kids is responsible for two of the most popular anime shown in the States - Pokemon, and YuGiOh. I confess to knowing little about YuGiOh except for the American manga releases, but from what I've heard, they did a fair butcher job to broadcast it on Saturday mornings. Moreover, 4Kids has never released the Japanese versions of their properties. The only DVD releases are the edited dubs. Apparently Japanese uncut releases of YGO and Shaman King are in the works - but YGO has been showing for well over a year now and so far, no Japanese.
Pokemon is a show for small children, and they still had to censor bits of it, and then run it into the ground until most American anime fen will commit seppuku before admitting to watching it. I admit, I watched Pokemon. I liked Pokemon; it's got the kawaii in spades. But that's all it is. And Yu-Gi-Oh has many loyal fans, but from what I've heard, even the Japanese version of the anime is flawed; most people seem to prefer the first season, and later arcs departed from the manga, to their detraction. For that matter, I was a DBZ fan, but I've not watched half the show - it's far too long and dragging.
But One Piece...One Piece, much to my surprise, is one of my favorite shows. It is a Saturday morning cartoon, the best Saturday morning cartoon ever; it's the cartoon I always wanted to watch as a kid. It should be available for kids to fall in love with. And there's also plenty of teens and adults who would get a kick out of it, given the chance. For what it is, One Piece is perfect; I believe it's one of the best anime out there. But I don't know if I'll be able to convince anyone of that after this fall.
I admit, I'm sort of looking forward to seeing what will be shown on Fox, out of morbid curiosity. I've been trying to figure out for some time how they could broadcast One Piece on network TV. It's a kid's cartoon, but a Japanese kid's cartoon, and Japanese children are so much hardier than our fragile American variety. There's blood. There's death. I want to see censors freak about episode 26, the chibi Sanji story - I'm almost positive they're not going to allow it, but they might have to invent new rules to censor it, since I doubt there's actually existing guidelines forbidding showing a child slowly starving...
How will they handle Sanji? A chain-smoking hero? It's going to be damned difficult to edit out *every* *one* *of* his ciggies. Say they're candy cigarettes? Maybe they'll make him a lollypop addict? And the boxes of matches are...umm...he's a pyro, too?
Now, the censors have it easier in OP than, say, DBZ; people, heroes or villains, don't die much in battle in OP. Luffy doesn't kill, and amazing numbers survive Zoro's attacks. Some deaths they probably can include - Kuina's, for instance, is non-violent and off-screen. But...Arlong Park? A woman is brutally gunned down before her daughters' eyes. Um. That's really, really hard to get around. She doesn't go to another dimension; you see her grave. And then Nami in ep 37...I'm betting there are censorship rules against self-mutilation. Maybe they'll just skip the Arlong arc. Or jump straight to the battles. Who needs backstory when there's action!
4Kids changed the music in YGO, kept most of the Pokemon music (though they padded the soundtrack, because apparently there's union rules about too much silence in a kid's cartoon? so I heard during the Escaflowne fiasco.) OP's one-part-classical/one-part-videogame/one-part-jazz music is as perfect a fit to, and as essential to what makes the show, as...well...the seiyuu. I'll cry to lose the "Oitsumerareta" BGM (the "Luffy's coming and he's gonna kick your ass" march)
The dub, of course...I'll try to avoid too much comment on that. I am a self-confessed sub-snob, but that's at least partly because I get attached to voices. Tanaka Mayumi is Luffy to me; with a different voice, it wouldn't really be Luffy. (I do this with American shows, too; I didn't watch past the first season of Real Ghostbusters because they replaced Lorenzo Music's Peter Venkman.)
I understand that dubs are a necessary part of Americanization, at least for a kids' show; little kids can't follow subs. But so few American companies comprehend how crucial voices are to making an animated char real, and 4Kid's track record could be better when it comes to dubbing. (Oddly, one OP star is one of the few seiyuu to be heard in America, and thanks to 4Kids, no less - Chopper's Ohtani Ikue is familiar to most of the population of the planet as Pikachu.)
Also subject to curiosity is the names. Pokemon and YuGiOh Americanized most of the Japanese names. One Piece's are not Japanese - Japanese words, in some cases, but not names, and they're all written out in English anyway, most places. They're also short and memorable, so I'm guessing they'll be preserved. I just hope the pronunciations come over right. No matter how it's spelled, "Luffy" does not rhyme with Puffy (Luffy the Vampire Slayer?) If they must I'd just as soon they went with "Roofy" to get it right. (Hopefully it won't come out as "Luffy D. Monkey", either, because then they're just setting themselves up for trouble, editing all those wanted posters...)(in the press release, his name is right. Except that press release summary was cribbed almost directly from the first volume of Viz's Shounen Jump OP. Is Viz involved with 4Kids somehow?)
At least we do have Viz, which other than changing the sound f/x, is doing a great job with the manga - the covers are even similar to the originals, and the translations thus far are smooth and colloquial and accurate. So people will still see the original One Piece...if v e r y s l o w l y (quality or no, 3 volumes a year is a tad lagging). And I still have my bootlegs and fansubs. Kaizoku fansubs as yet hasn't posted what they're going to do. I frankly hope they say screw it and keep up the project - they've put out some of the best fansubs it's ever been my privilege to watch, done with great attention and an unmatched love for the series. If 4Kids goes after them, or if it's against their standards, I couldn't fault them for retiring from the field. But I'll mourn their leaving, and hope very hard for a subbed DVD release ASAP.
As for the rest of it...well, I'm just resigning myself to a long future of explaining to people that the show I love so much is not that show kids watch when there's nothing better on the WB.
--There is one more problem with One Piece coming over here. Namely, if it does prove as popular as Pokemon or YuGiOh, there'll be merchandise. Japan was bad enough. I'm usually not that bad about buying stuff, but OP...I have no natural immunities to crew cuteness. Or Luffy in his Pirate King red coat. Luffy-tachi on lunchboxes, notebooks, cardgames...I am so screwed.
So the One Piece anime has been licensed. For real, this time.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=400
This isn't the first time a series has been licensed out from under me. I didn't freak when GetBackers was bought - little curious how they're going to be handling it, little ticked by what TokyoPop's been doing to it, but them's the breaks, and it could be worse. And FMA, other than the (now proving to be groundless) disappointment that finding fansubs would get harder and I'm not willing to wait years to see the conclusion, didn't bother me. From what I've heard, the dub might be decent, and it'll be on Cartoon Network, 'Adult Swim' one presumes, which has shown several top-knotch anime with minimum changes.
Neither of those series were bought by 4Kids, to be shown on Fox Saturday mornings.
Now, mind, I still haven't forgiven Fox for the travesty they wreaked on Escaflowne. But that was a miserable, short-lived failure for them, and in the long run it probably worked to the series' advantage; people got their curiosity piqued and had to locate the original to see how it ended.
4Kids, though. 4Kids is responsible for two of the most popular anime shown in the States - Pokemon, and YuGiOh. I confess to knowing little about YuGiOh except for the American manga releases, but from what I've heard, they did a fair butcher job to broadcast it on Saturday mornings. Moreover, 4Kids has never released the Japanese versions of their properties. The only DVD releases are the edited dubs. Apparently Japanese uncut releases of YGO and Shaman King are in the works - but YGO has been showing for well over a year now and so far, no Japanese.
Pokemon is a show for small children, and they still had to censor bits of it, and then run it into the ground until most American anime fen will commit seppuku before admitting to watching it. I admit, I watched Pokemon. I liked Pokemon; it's got the kawaii in spades. But that's all it is. And Yu-Gi-Oh has many loyal fans, but from what I've heard, even the Japanese version of the anime is flawed; most people seem to prefer the first season, and later arcs departed from the manga, to their detraction. For that matter, I was a DBZ fan, but I've not watched half the show - it's far too long and dragging.
But One Piece...One Piece, much to my surprise, is one of my favorite shows. It is a Saturday morning cartoon, the best Saturday morning cartoon ever; it's the cartoon I always wanted to watch as a kid. It should be available for kids to fall in love with. And there's also plenty of teens and adults who would get a kick out of it, given the chance. For what it is, One Piece is perfect; I believe it's one of the best anime out there. But I don't know if I'll be able to convince anyone of that after this fall.
I admit, I'm sort of looking forward to seeing what will be shown on Fox, out of morbid curiosity. I've been trying to figure out for some time how they could broadcast One Piece on network TV. It's a kid's cartoon, but a Japanese kid's cartoon, and Japanese children are so much hardier than our fragile American variety. There's blood. There's death. I want to see censors freak about episode 26, the chibi Sanji story - I'm almost positive they're not going to allow it, but they might have to invent new rules to censor it, since I doubt there's actually existing guidelines forbidding showing a child slowly starving...
How will they handle Sanji? A chain-smoking hero? It's going to be damned difficult to edit out *every* *one* *of* his ciggies. Say they're candy cigarettes? Maybe they'll make him a lollypop addict? And the boxes of matches are...umm...he's a pyro, too?
Now, the censors have it easier in OP than, say, DBZ; people, heroes or villains, don't die much in battle in OP. Luffy doesn't kill, and amazing numbers survive Zoro's attacks. Some deaths they probably can include - Kuina's, for instance, is non-violent and off-screen. But...Arlong Park? A woman is brutally gunned down before her daughters' eyes. Um. That's really, really hard to get around. She doesn't go to another dimension; you see her grave. And then Nami in ep 37...I'm betting there are censorship rules against self-mutilation. Maybe they'll just skip the Arlong arc. Or jump straight to the battles. Who needs backstory when there's action!
4Kids changed the music in YGO, kept most of the Pokemon music (though they padded the soundtrack, because apparently there's union rules about too much silence in a kid's cartoon? so I heard during the Escaflowne fiasco.) OP's one-part-classical/one-part-videogame/one-part-jazz music is as perfect a fit to, and as essential to what makes the show, as...well...the seiyuu. I'll cry to lose the "Oitsumerareta" BGM (the "Luffy's coming and he's gonna kick your ass" march)
The dub, of course...I'll try to avoid too much comment on that. I am a self-confessed sub-snob, but that's at least partly because I get attached to voices. Tanaka Mayumi is Luffy to me; with a different voice, it wouldn't really be Luffy. (I do this with American shows, too; I didn't watch past the first season of Real Ghostbusters because they replaced Lorenzo Music's Peter Venkman.)
I understand that dubs are a necessary part of Americanization, at least for a kids' show; little kids can't follow subs. But so few American companies comprehend how crucial voices are to making an animated char real, and 4Kid's track record could be better when it comes to dubbing. (Oddly, one OP star is one of the few seiyuu to be heard in America, and thanks to 4Kids, no less - Chopper's Ohtani Ikue is familiar to most of the population of the planet as Pikachu.)
Also subject to curiosity is the names. Pokemon and YuGiOh Americanized most of the Japanese names. One Piece's are not Japanese - Japanese words, in some cases, but not names, and they're all written out in English anyway, most places. They're also short and memorable, so I'm guessing they'll be preserved. I just hope the pronunciations come over right. No matter how it's spelled, "Luffy" does not rhyme with Puffy (Luffy the Vampire Slayer?) If they must I'd just as soon they went with "Roofy" to get it right. (Hopefully it won't come out as "Luffy D. Monkey", either, because then they're just setting themselves up for trouble, editing all those wanted posters...)(in the press release, his name is right. Except that press release summary was cribbed almost directly from the first volume of Viz's Shounen Jump OP. Is Viz involved with 4Kids somehow?)
At least we do have Viz, which other than changing the sound f/x, is doing a great job with the manga - the covers are even similar to the originals, and the translations thus far are smooth and colloquial and accurate. So people will still see the original One Piece...if v e r y s l o w l y (quality or no, 3 volumes a year is a tad lagging). And I still have my bootlegs and fansubs. Kaizoku fansubs as yet hasn't posted what they're going to do. I frankly hope they say screw it and keep up the project - they've put out some of the best fansubs it's ever been my privilege to watch, done with great attention and an unmatched love for the series. If 4Kids goes after them, or if it's against their standards, I couldn't fault them for retiring from the field. But I'll mourn their leaving, and hope very hard for a subbed DVD release ASAP.
As for the rest of it...well, I'm just resigning myself to a long future of explaining to people that the show I love so much is not that show kids watch when there's nothing better on the WB.
--There is one more problem with One Piece coming over here. Namely, if it does prove as popular as Pokemon or YuGiOh, there'll be merchandise. Japan was bad enough. I'm usually not that bad about buying stuff, but OP...I have no natural immunities to crew cuteness. Or Luffy in his Pirate King red coat. Luffy-tachi on lunchboxes, notebooks, cardgames...I am so screwed.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-09 01:29 pm (UTC)Anyway. Good points. Feel your pain, and am actually kind of glad I that where I live, kids who love One Piece do so because they've read the manga. ^_^ Non-butchered manga too, despite the name issue. Or name issues, rather. For example, there's the random translation of "Bon Clay" to "Häggsyren", which is confusing. Hägg = hagberry bush (similar to chokecherry), syren = lilac, and there's a Swedish saying about the time "between hägg and syren". What this has to do with "Bon Clay", I don't know, and it puzzles me. Was it just to come up with something? All names with discernable meanings are translated in the Swedish manga, so Karue is "Nebbi" (Beaky?), and so on. But does "Bon Clay" actually mean anything? Was it too odd to have an English-sounding name where all others are Swedish or "original"?
Um, yes. Translation is still what's more on my mind, because it's what I have experience of. I think I'm trying not to think about what could be done badly with One Piece, clinging to the hope that they'll just take the script, translate it, voice-act it, and then air it. Like it is. With the music. With the abuse of small children - there's a lot of that going around! (Did the little kid who spotted Mr. 2 get killed by the number 1 pair, or just really, really hurt?) With the death. But even with a bit of editing... can they kill that which is the heart of the show? The bit about the dreams and friendship? I'd like to think it's so pervasive that you just can't miss it, no matter what censors do. Because, well... it's One Piece.
...not making much sense right now, no. I had no idea I was so stuck on what they've done with the Swedish manga. ^^;; (Sigh, Ace will probably be "Esset", or something. Except there is that tattoo...) O, and if there's any terrible spelling it's because my odd Swedish characters kill the spell-check.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-10 06:36 am (UTC)Name changes do irritate me, but they're not that big a deal compared to other issues. Am curious what's going to be edited...the thing is, judging by 4Kids' track record, doing something like cutting the entire needs-mucho-censoring backstory of the Arlong arc would not be inconceivable... >_>
no subject
Date: 2004-06-10 07:03 am (UTC)And I don't want my OP being cut. *hugs OP tight to protect it* Though it would be awfully neat if it could air on TV. Any cut version here would bring out little tiny mini-purists, ten-year olds saying "Hey, it didn't happen like this in the manga!". And I'd laugh. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2004-06-10 07:16 am (UTC)at least our little cousins would notice, I think; thanks to our training they're becoming quite discriminating about their anime, and are getting old enough to read subs...we watched the first few eps with them, will have to show them more sometime. especially after fall!!
no subject
Date: 2004-06-09 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-09 04:59 pm (UTC)...Sorry, just had to say that. 4Kids and FoxBox together turned absolute kick-@$$ Captain Iruma into a sissy with limp seaweed for brains. Spark Lenses became Torches. Take Me Higher by V6 went byebye and got turned into some stupid half-assed rap.
So yeah...REMEMBER ULTRAMAN TIGA.
That's all I gotta say. Good luck w One Piece.
*poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-09 08:49 pm (UTC)And yes, I cannot agree more than removing, or changing the music to One Piece will change an integral part of the show's charm. I love OP's music, it's simple, but fits like a glove, I love openers and the endings, and the little sprinkle of themes that runs throughout the individual arcs, one that comes immediately to mind is that quirky little tune they played during Bon Clay's introduction scene, and the vauderville like tune they played during Mihawk's visit to Shanks that they ended using whenever the mood becomes playful.
And the voice acting! I have watched the pilot of One Piece, the one that shounen jump initially did with the different set of seiyuu cast, and oh how different that was, Luffy cannot be played by anyone else but Tanaka Mayumi, I don't even know if I can tolerate a different Nami, the mere force of Akemi Okamura shouting "Arlong! Arlong! Arlong..." in that one scene just totally broke me. The OP cast is perfect with their comedic timing, so damn perfect, sometimes their reading of a line can crack me up more than the words will.
Moreover, having Luffy shout the word "friend" around somehow lacks the punch of a mere "nakama".
It's just a sad, very sad day for North American OP fans.
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 01:22 am (UTC)Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 06:41 am (UTC)"Brothers in arms", maybe, but that's even more awkward. The best translation the way he uses it would probably be "family", actually, but that would probably just confuse the issue farther.
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 07:10 am (UTC)Oh, ramling! My favourite thing to do!
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 07:31 am (UTC)argh, it would be awkward to leave "nakama" in the Japanese when it's a dub, not a sub, but it's gonna lose something no matter what they do...
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 08:14 am (UTC)Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 08:34 am (UTC)Associates? Companions? Teammates? just "mates"?
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 09:32 am (UTC)Ah, the wonderful world of translation. ;)
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 07:09 am (UTC)Anyway. Yes. Censoring some of the more extreme stuff would undermine much of what makes the series so great; one of One Piece's major strengths is its characters, and what makes them more than just crazily-powered cartoons is that you know where they come from, what they're overcoming and what they're aiming for, what made them what they are. Toning down the violence also could impact the nakama theme, which is what I love most about the series...how far they'll go for each other. Generally killing and dying isn't allowed in American cartoons, but it sort of loses the point, if Luffy is not putting his life on the line for the dreams of his friends...
(also, if they edit out all the blood, per normal 'toon practices, there is one major (and friggin' fantastic) battle that *will not make sense* -the end of Arabasta, won't say more for sake of spoilers.)
Changing the music will be unforgiveable, because there's no reason; the voice acting, well, dubbing kids' shows is a necessity, but really, you gotta feel sorry for the American VAs. The OP main cast are all perfect (could anyone but Nakai do Zoro's annoyed "Ehhh?"), so the VAs would have impossibly large shoes to fill, even if they are blessed with talent and a good script...which given 4Kids, is unlikely. [& where'd you get the original pilot? most curious!!]
Well, we'll see. I really am curious about how bad it's actually going to be...and we'll always have fansubs!
(ps. welcome! glad you like my ficcy~ ^_^)
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 06:32 pm (UTC)I got the original pilot from a chinese fansubber BT site, as well as the rest of the episodes. There is, unfortunately, no english subtitles available.
And yes, I too, am morbidly curious about how they're going to hack it apart.
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 07:03 pm (UTC)hmm, are these Chinese bittorrents still online anywhere? I don't know Chinese, but I don't mind watching raws - good practice for my Japanese!
Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-10 09:55 pm (UTC)Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-12 10:57 am (UTC)Re: *poke head in here*
Date: 2004-06-13 02:33 am (UTC)The only version of pilot I got is with movies, it's around 45 mb, do you have any program that I can use to upload the file to you?
no subject
Date: 2004-06-20 06:04 pm (UTC)Oh, but it might be like Shaman King was and they just show NASCAR or football or something when it shows in other states. Stupid Georgia ::kicks Georgia::. Now I'm getting disappointed and I haven't even been disappointed yet. Damn.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-01 06:29 pm (UTC)Incidentally, the real reason they stopped running the butchered Esca because their old Kid's department was bought out by Disney, and Disney wanted to do something with Esca and chose to yank it.
Most Fox affiliates, probably quite reasonably, have stopped running Fox's kiddie programming. This makes sense -- last time I bothered keeping up with it, all the good stuff which they'd promised to run in that season either was quickly picked up & given a better time slot by another network or wasn't run at all.
Incidentally, I'm told by one of those few people who lives in an area where FoxBox is getting run that Shaman King actually managed to be run pretty much unaltered.
T^T
Date: 2004-07-02 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 03:55 pm (UTC)