Forum - View topicREVIEW: One Piece DVD Season 1 Part 1
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BrothersElric
 Posts: 1996 |
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Hmmm, that's interesting, the comentary on my box set was there just fine.........
Anyways, yeah, the reviewer hit it pretty much dead on though. As a huge and long time shounen fan myself, the whole idea of "it get's better" I wouldn't say is meant to degrade the earlier episodes either, it's just that as good as those episodes are the truly greatness that is this series typically isn't until latter is all. It's all the same for OP as well, although yeah, the Captain Kuro arc (plus the up and coming Zoro backstory episode) are the only pre-Arlong episodes that truly captures that greatness. But really, I guess it all depends on what your tastes are early on, if you like how it starts off or not. I guess the best comparison I could make is to some of your stuff like Harry Potter or the Super Hero comics movies, where the first few movies/books is just the introductory stage but still pretty darn good nonetheless, but isn't truly great until the latter movies/books when it really gets into the meat and potatoes of things. |
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WolfWood37
Posts: 16 |
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On disc one in the episode listing, there is a staff commentary audio track on the first episode, just turn the commentary on when you play the episode.
It features Mike McFarland(ADR Director), Colleen Clinkenbeard(Voice of Luffy), and Christopher Sabat(Voice of Zoro). |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3013 |
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Minor quick in the review. Notice the parts I bolded in the following paragraph.
"Along with the honing of the narrative formula, awkward flashbacks and the occasional embarrassing dramatic flourish in the music also attest to the series' fledgling status. However, even at this early stage the series' execution is more positive than negative. Eichiro Oda's peculiar artistic aesthetic—lanky, cartoony character designs, cluttered settings, bizarre clothing, and lots of distorted angles and ominously shadowed faces—allows the series to pull off the seemingly impossible feat of being totally silly and deadly serious at the same time, setting up hilarious sight gags (Buggy's ignominious defeat) and vicious brutality (Kuro's attack on Kaya's butler) with equal aplomb. Director Kônosuke Uda soon learns to turn the flat look of the series to his advantage, using lightning pans, overlapping panes of animation, and jumpy editing to give the fights a unique energy. And composer Kouhei Tanaka backs it all up with unexpectedly catchy symphonic and modern themes that, in Uda's hands, are pure piratic bliss. In the meantime awkward flashbacks and the occasional embarrassing dramatic flourish in the music attest—along with the honing of the narrative formula—to the series' fledgling status. " Aside from the strange sense of Deja Vu I got when reading that paragraph, nice review. 
EDIT: Seems it got changed now, so nevermind. Last edited by Mad_Scientist on Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3187 |
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yay! im so happy! i can sell my bootlegs and buy something legit. but i wonder...how many of these half season sets will they actually pump out?
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1685 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Don't sell your bootlegs and victimize someone else. Be a man and eat them.
Not necessarily literally. But if you do, post pictures. 
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 315 |
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A review, that even as a diehard fan, I totally agree with. It's probably a big Achilles heel in the series, the fact it seems to start rather slow and plainly. It's really easy to watch the first 10 episodes and think, "Meh, this is just going to be a generic Shonen Action series, no thanks." You wouldn't BELIEVE how many people I've seen act like this. It's kind of frustrating that we have to wait probably by the end of the year when the third or fourth set comes out and things get REALLY good.
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Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
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Oh come on, the dub theme is done wonderfully. The ED is meh, but the OP is great.
My only issue with the dub (as someone who hasn't watched it subbed, granted) is that there's too much swearing at parts (episode 7...). It just feels unnatural. |
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whoisfriend
Posts: 369 |
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Although mentioned a few posts up, it bears emphasis. The staff commentary IS there. Under episodes on the first disk, just below the first episode, is "With Commentary" |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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My only regret so far is that it dropped ten dollars the day after Amazon shipped it.
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steev-sama
 Posts: 41 Location: USA |
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This version of One Piece brought tears to my eyes. Even if you dislike the dub, which I enjoy, the quality subtitles Funimation brings us is worth it alone. I am a little nervous about buying all these sets though. Since everything is moving toward HD it makes me wonder if Funimation will ever release this series on Blu-Ray, especially since the series changes to HD around episode 300. That is obviously a long way from happening, but still, One Piece is one of my favorite series and owning the first 300 episodes on standard DVD is a bit of a downer.
Also, I must admit, marathon mode is very funny. In an era that tries to get its occupants to get up and move around, Funimation gives us a good a good reason to sit on our arses for 5 uninterrupted hours. This shows that Funimation actually thinks about what fans would want, we all being lazy bastards in all..
I law'd. |
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Toshirodragon
 Posts: 166 |
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Fell out my seat laughing here
OH ANYTHING would be better than the horror that was 4kids! Now if mine would just GET here! Darned free shipping from Deep Discount 
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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I was going to post my thought on this set in the other One Piece thread, but I'll just post them here instead.
The set in itself is great. Yeah, it's pretty much a bare-bones release, but all that mattered is the dub. And it's great. But the fact that they went out of their way to put a commentary track made it all the more special. Sure I can complain about very minor mistakes in the dub about how they said certain lines, how FUNi forgot to close a parenthesis in the credits, or how they didn't placed credits in the opening (that's actually the biggest gripe I have with this one), but I'll let it pass because I finally have uncut One Piece. =D
In comparison to the Japanese script in that episode, it followed it in terms of dialogue and swearing. And they are pirates after all. :P
FUNi owns the license for every OP episode as of Febuary of this year (they only had up until episode 206 before that), so if they plan to release every episode, which depends on how well it sells, and taking into consideration the ridiculous length of the series, it could easily be 30+ sets. |
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Ligene
 Posts: 137 Location: Mary-land! |
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I've been debating whenever or not I should buy this; because firstly I've never really seen the series, only caught snippets (liked what I saw), and secondly, I like series that won't take an eternity to finish. Broadening my horizons and not keeping myself chained to one series in particular because it's so damn long and I'm a minor without a job (do the math; when I do get money, it's barely enough for a normal DVD).
Another reason to buy it though is because FUNi's dub is a god's send. I liked it ok cut, I wanna see it uncut now. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I probably will not pick this up, mainly for the factor that I doubt they will be able to get everything out by the time I go to Japan. And when I do then I'll be watching everything on R2. But, I am happy that Funi has pulled this through, because it was badly needed compared to what we had during the dark ages.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4807 |
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And that's just taking into account where the Japanese broadcast is right now.
I really appreciate the favorable review for this set. I only started watching the series when the FUNi version first premiered on Toonami; I've seen about 140 episodes (and counting), and I'm swiftly catching up to the start of that broadcast. It was only after I'd seen several episodes and started to fall in love with the general zaniness of the show (and trust me, it didn't take long) that I really came to appreciate how heinous 4Kids' treatment of it had been. FUNi's rescue of the license came as a godsend to its fans over here, and I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on this first release. It's true that the first several episodes do start out a bit slowly (which is only to be expected for a series that could very well reach 700 episodes in its entirety), but even by the end of this set, one starts to see what makes this show so great. I can't wait until a few sets down the line, which is about the point when I realized, "Holy crap this show is amazing and I freakin' love these characters." Seeing as how the first set has been hovering in the best-sellers list at RightStuf ever since preorders started, I'm cautiously optimistic that it'll wind up being the unqualified success that FUNi needs it to be. |
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