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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.
