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NEWS: 4Kids Cancels One Piece Production

Lots of jabber

Malintex Terek wrote:

Lots of jabber

One Piece's manga is selling quite well actually. I believe it made the top book scan list for it's most recent volume infact. I'd say that's more than strong enough for Viz to want the anime to find another distributor.

My only problem with Viz's translation is some 4kids name hold overs. I'm pretty ticked they changed his name from Zoro to Zolo after two years of the manga being around. If it was Zolo from the start I think I could have tollerated that a little more. Naruto and One Piece had harsher language initially but they've toned that down about a year or so ago for each. But yeah stuff like "Crap Geezer" don't really make One Piece look mature obviously. Visually both series have been uncensored so far I believe at least in the graphic novels. While the manji was edited in the magazine in the US that's the only Naruto visual edit I can think of. Shaman King had several visual edits in comparrison.

I don't think Viz promoted One Piece much when the anime came along because they didn't own the rights to even the video release at the time. You may have noticed now that YGO has died down you see a lot more One Piece covers and mostly Naruto ones.

Detective Conan is not airing on TV Tokyo nor was it ever. That was Yomuri along with Inuyasha.

Ishida-kun, why should Eyeshield 21 come to the US? The manga is here and Prince of Tennis has opened the door for sports anime on CN at least. Eyeshield has a better chance of being successful in the US than PoT does I'm sure if for no other reason than it being about Football instead of Tennis.

FUNimation have been getting a lot of 26 episode crap and really need something with actual depth and length.

They need to get more Lupin Specials, Ichigo 100%,Death Note,Katekyo Hitman Reborn,D.Grayman,Dr.Slump,Gintama,HunterXHunter,Jigoku Sensei Nube,Ninku and the Yu Yu Hakusho Movies,specials and OVAs.


The most likely situation is that One Piece should just stay in Japan like Eyeshield 21 and be watched on the net by American's. Like Eyeshield 21 it's got a very unanime feel that the kiddies and newbs just don't click with.

Ishida-kun wrote:

They need to get more Lupin Specials, Ichigo 100%,Death Note,Katekyo Hitman Reborn,D.Grayman,Dr.Slump,Gintama,HunterXHunter,Jigoku Sensei Nube,Ninku and the Yu Yu Hakusho Movies,specials and OVAs. The most likely situation is that One Piece should just stay in Japan like Eyeshield 21 and be watched on the net by American's. Like Eyeshield 21 it's got a very unanime feel that the kiddies and newbs just don't click with.

You ARE joking, right? I am adamantly pro-subs and will refuse to watch most dubs for more than five minutes, but this is absolutely ridiculous, you can't actually be serious when you say our best option is to download episodes illegally?　まじ!? o.0

The titles you listed, while I would also looooove to see here and picked up by someone other than Viz (unless they suddenly decide to be as thoughtful and caring with their treatment of anime as they are with the Naruto boxset) most likely will be Viz, if they come here at all. (I am DREADING what they do to my favourite crack Gintama, but what's done is done. Maybe someone else will pick up the anime. Ha ha ha. But again, at least it's here, and that's what really matters. Mostly.)

It's about a rubber boy fighting mutant clowns, gods and walking fish with a chef, a samurai, a walking midget reindeer doctor, Bart Simpson with an elongated nose and a bunch of sluts. It doesn't have that sort of child-epic feel to it, no does it have more 'normal' powers (Shoots fire from his mouth and fires Bees and stuff!).

One Piece's manga is selling quite well actually. I believe it made the top book scan list for it's most recent volume infact. I'd say that's more than strong enough for Viz to want the anime to find another distributor.

My only problem with Viz's translation is some 4kids name hold overs. I'm pretty ticked they changed his name from Zoro to Zolo after two years of the manga being around. If it was Zolo from the start I think I could have tollerated that a little more.

Naruto and One Piece had harsher language initially but they've toned that down about a year or so ago for each. But yeah stuff like "Crap Geezer" don't really make One Piece look mature obviously. Visually both series have been uncensored so far I believe at least in the graphic novels. While the manji was edited in the magazine in the US that's the only Naruto visual edit I can think of. Shaman King had several visual edits in comparrison.

I don't think Viz promoted One Piece much when the anime came along because they didn't own the rights to even the video release at the time. You may have noticed now that YGO has died down you see a lot more One Piece covers and mostly Naruto ones.

Frank0115932 wrote:

Al Kahn may had ruined OP, but he also ruined FFO and UM:T, and he also made another mistake by signing MDRM and MMP (2 shows that has some loli) onto its list.

Yeah i heard HGT was GTRB with MRMRMR and &EWFGJIASF jesus is it so hard to type names of shows PLEASE.

Frank0115932 wrote:

Al Kahn may had ruined OP, but he also ruined FFO and UM:T, and he also made another mistake by signing MDRM and MMP (2 shows that has some loli) onto its list.

But really what shows...was Frank talking about? I got One Piece but then FFO? all i can guess is Friendly Friend Omar. And i'm sure thats not right, ::

Sketchor wrote:

Malintex Terek wrote: Lots of jabber One Piece's manga is selling quite well actually. I believe it made the top book scan list for it's most recent volume infact. I'd say that's more than strong enough for Viz to want the anime to find another distributor. My only problem with Viz's translation is some 4kids name hold overs. I'm pretty ticked they changed his name from Zoro to Zolo after two years of the manga being around. If it was Zolo from the start I think I could have tollerated that a little more. Naruto and One Piece had harsher language initially but they've toned that down about a year or so ago for each. But yeah stuff like "Crap Geezer" don't really make One Piece look mature obviously. Visually both series have been uncensored so far I believe at least in the graphic novels. While the manji was edited in the magazine in the US that's the only Naruto visual edit I can think of. Shaman King had several visual edits in comparrison. I don't think Viz promoted One Piece much when the anime came along because they didn't own the rights to even the video release at the time. You may have noticed now that YGO has died down you see a lot more One Piece covers and mostly Naruto ones. Detective Conan is not airing on TV Tokyo nor was it ever. That was Yomuri along with Inuyasha. Ishida-kun, why should Eyeshield 21 come to the US? The manga is here and Prince of Tennis has opened the door for sports anime on CN at least. Eyeshield has a better chance of being successful in the US than PoT does I'm sure if for no other reason than it being about Football instead of Tennis.

Because Eyeshield 21 is one of the weirdest and most unanime anime series in the history of anime.and it's very odd and original. POT is likely gonna flop REAL bad, unless the goth girls can't resist it's "bishonen goodness".

I am a HUGE Eyeshield 21 fan and I don't want it on American Tv. If the anime does somehow make it here,Bandai will possibly get it since they own the rights to the dvd releases in Japan. IT CANNOT BE DUBBED, Why,cause it has the most distinctive, best fitting and odd character voices ever. Not to mention they would have to get the rights from the NFL for all the refrences and the clips of the NFL during the commercial break. Monta=Joe Montana and the Jerry Rice training stand up thing.

steventheeunuch wrote:

It's about a rubber boy fighting mutant clowns, gods and walking fish with a chef, a samurai, a walking midget reindeer doctor, Bart Simpson with an elongated nose and a bunch of sluts. It doesn't have that sort of child-epic feel to it, no does it have more 'normal' powers (Shoots fire from his mouth and fires Bees and stuff!).

Haha, oh, I needed that. Thanks steven.

Sketchor wrote:

One Piece's manga is selling quite well actually. I believe it made the top book scan list for it's most recent volume infact. I'd say that's more than strong enough for Viz to want the anime to find another distributor.

Huh. I guess November being the month the volume was distributed to major chain stores, not to mention being so close to Christmas, had anything to do with a 4/10 ranking slot? Naruto's volume still topped the list, and at that, we have no idea about the distribution between rankings.

Whenever I talk about the OP manga popularity, I do so in "relative" terms; is the popularity of OP, in either manga or anime form, proportional to its popularity in Japan? Let's look at the big three anime/manga:

Bleach (anime) - unknown
Bleach (manga) - yes
Naruto (anime) - yes
Naruto (manga) - no (exceeds Japan's popularity)
One Piece (anime) - no
One Piece (manga) - heck no

As of yet, Bleach's anime status popularity is still unknown, but what we do know is that the OP manga is an average seller, below the "ultra" popular titles of VIZ Media like Ranma 1/2, Inu-Yasha, Rurouni Kenshin or Fullmetal Alchemist, yet above the poor sellers such as Beyblade or Flame of Recca, the latter of which is notable since it's also a ninja manga yet gets no synergy bonus from Naruto.

Diamond also tells me that OP's manga distribution for October was about 1,200 specialty stores, which is average for a typical VIZ Media product but vastly inferior to the typical 3,000~4,000 for Naruto and in light of OP's Japanese status.

Sketchor wrote:

My only problem with Viz's translation is some 4kids name hold overs. I'm pretty ticked they changed his name from Zoro to Zolo after two years of the manga being around. If it was Zolo from the start I think I could have tollerated that a little more.

Yes, consistency is one of the largest flaws of the VIZ Media manga; if you read the front covers, they've switched translators something like four times already, which contrasts other SJ titles like Death Note, which AK_of_Troy has had full reign over from the start.

Sketchor wrote:

Naruto and One Piece had harsher language initially but they've toned that down about a year or so ago for each. But yeah stuff like "Crap Geezer" don't really make One Piece look mature obviously. Visually both series have been uncensored so far I believe at least in the graphic novels. While the manji was edited in the magazine in the US that's the only Naruto visual edit I can think of. Shaman King had several visual edits in comparrison.

This is the wrong term to use in this instance, but "ecchi" material has yet to make its way into OP, which explains the lack of edits; come Arabasta there's a great deal more, which would probaby be edited. Manji have been almost completely removed from OP in magazine and volume form, whereas as you noted the Naruto volumes preserve the manji.

Sketchor wrote:

I don't think Viz promoted One Piece much when the anime came along because they didn't own the rights to even the video release at the time. You may have noticed now that YGO has died down you see a lot more One Piece covers and mostly Naruto ones.

That is correct, VIZ Media did not trademark anything in the OP manga until 4Kids came around, which is their own fault since by that time Shueisha had purchased its equity in VIZ Media and therefore should have bequeathed all rights and trademarks for certain translations onto VIZ for the manga. This, however, does not explain why the manga of all products, not the anime (which in the last series of magazines is all that is promoted, not the manga) was not hyped when it first came out. We know full well that the ASJ magazine had enough popularity to immediately sell out of issue #1, so to not promote the additional titles in the magazine like Naruto or One Piece only worked toward sabotaging their later status when DBZ and YGO died down.

Naruto was an unusual case since it had a large fanbase that contributed heavily to its success prior to the anime's launch; One Piece lacked that, so it was all the more imperative for VIZ to over-promote OP in order to convince enough people to find the merit in the title. As noted by steventheeunuch in my first quoted passage, there's a lot of features to the OP manga that a lot of people would dislike, so it was of the utmost importance for VIZ Media to assure people that the series wasn't just some ugly child's doujin.

There was only one promotional advertisement of this type I can remember, and that was a slightly favourable review in "Animerica" once a year or two ago. VIZ should have trumpeted the qualifications of Eiichiro Oda (Tezuka Award winner, most popular Japanese manga-ka, assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki of Kenshin fame), its massive history of sales (fastest manga to reach 100,000,000 circulated volumes, third highest selling manga in history) and the praise for the OP manga (where Kouta Hirano [Hellsing], Akira Toriyama [Dragonball, Dr. Slump], and Masashi Kishimoto [Naruto]) simply to build up hype. Where was all that?

Compared with how frequently I see Kishimoto's name nowadays in various news articles like "most influential people in the anime/manga industry" or "richest manga-ka in Japan", it's not surprising that few people have heard of, let alone are fans of, Eiichiro Oda. Heck, even the private Tite Kubo is more well known.

Why wouldn't someone expect One Piece to be as popular over here? For mainstream audiences, it is the most western in style of all the mentioned popular shows. Bleach is very Japanese in the end (though I don't know how they are dubbing it) and I would expect that would be a turn off for much of the audience.

Well, for one thing, One Piece has to be one of the most butchered editting jobs ever done in the history of U.S. anime releases. Also, pirates just are not that popular in america. The only pirate movies I can think of that are really poular are Treasure Island and Pirates of the Carribean.