So I've heard you guys who are One Piece fans going on and on about how bad the 4kids dub was.

Well it looks like tonight, the Funimation dub of One Piece begins on Cartoon Network. So here's your chance to prove those of us who suspect that the show was pretty terrible even before the dub wrong!

I'll say this much: the opening sequence has already proven to be 50,000 times better without even being that impressive a piece of music or all that great a sequence. Not that it had to try hard.

So what are your thoughts on this new dub, One Piece fans? The voices seem pretty similar, but somewhat less annoying I guess. The writing....it's too soon to tell, I think. I haven't been assaulted by puns yet, so that's a good sign!


As a bit of history for those not familiar with the situation (which might be like two of you, since One Piece seems pretty popular here):

One Piece is another Shounen Jump property, like Naruto, Bleach, Kenshin and Dragon Ball. So if you've seen any of those, you have a good starting point for figuring out what One Piece is like. Only replace ninja, shinigami, samurai and karate aliens with pirates. It's been running on Cartoon Network for some time, and it's been popular among the Japanese, and people who watched fansubs, for a lot longer. Most people seem in agreement that the dub that was given to the earlier episodes was seven kinds of awful, and drained all of the quality out of the show. 4kids dropped the license a while back (since I imagine the only people watching were die hard fans of the series, who hated what they were doing but kept watching anyway), and Funimation picked it up. Tonight Cartoon Network picks up where the 4kids dub left off with the Funimation dub, with what I'm told is the "Skypeia Arc" or something like that.

I've got no complaints here, I was amused and entertained. I think they did a good job and can't really complain about the voices since they did say they were attempting to stay away from the Japanese voices.
Solid A from me.

Unfortunately, I only caught the last few bits due to a late night at work.  The voices I did hear though (everyone except Sanji and Chopper) sounded alright.  Usopp's VA must not have a very broad range though as I immediately recognized the "Krillin from DBZ" in his voice but for what it was, it works.  And yeah, the lack of pun bombardment is a good sign methinks.

Oh, and I love how they actually showed an ending theme and the music was pretty good.  I'm not a huge One Piece fan so everything I know of it is from 4Kids' dub, which is sad I know, but I really liked the music the ending theme for tonights show had so I'll probably look out for some subs of earlier episodes and start from there since it seems Funimation is merely picking up where 4Kids left off.  It would have been nice to see how they handled the whole Arlong thing which I hear is a hell of a lot more epic than the butchery 4Kids pulled off.

I haven't watched it yet, but a friend told me it was a huge improvement over the original one.
I hope so, though It really can't be as bad as 4kids's work with it.

I don't like the new voices. Sanji and Usop especially were pretty bad. Maybe if they had those voices from the beginning I'd like them.

Better voice actors, but is it censored? If so, then it's not gonna be as enjoyable as it could be. I mean, will they use guns instead of water canons, will sanji smoke a cigarette instead of a lolipop? Will there actually be blood in it like the comic? If no, then it's just not going to be enjoyable. I'm not saying blood and gore and guns and cigarettes and cursing are what makes the thing good, but in one piece's case, it's just not enjoyable without those things. In any case, the characters don't sound nearly as annoying. I remember wanting to hang the guy who originally voice luffy in the 4kids version, his voice was so annoying.

... they replaced the guns with water guns? Sanji sucked on lollipops? no Blood? LOL HA HA sounds like the butchered it, any idea where i can see this monstrosity ? (i'm in the UK) just so i can see how bad it is?

EDIT: what else did they do to kiddyfy it? i gotta know 

No cursing, sanji has a gay new yorker accent. Luffy ALWAYS yells, ALWAYS, and a lot of the scenes and shit were edited out. However, this new funimation dub seems to be far superior to the original 4kids dub. Less kiddy, not as annoying voice actors, however I haven't seen much battling in the ep. I viewed and I kind of skipped some parts just to see if it was quality, without wasting my time actually watching it before identifying whether it's good or not. So, I have yet to see whether this one has all the rest of the things, or whether it's all censored like bullshit to be turned into a kid's cartoon. Imo, adult cartoons shouldn't be censored and watered down to be made for children, not even ren and stimpy. Adult themed shows directed at adults and teens belong for teenagers and adults to view, and children's shows belong to children. No exception.

i know what you mean, despite its childish apearance, its got a fair amount of adult things in it.

Yea, and because of it's childish appearance, some idiot got the bright idea to chop it up into little tiny pieces and make a kid's show out of the left over body parts. Same thing happened to yu yu hakusho when adult swim dropped it, and toonami picked it up. Only that one was so edited that it actually didn't make sense. Like, originally he finds the guy in the dark by putting a cigarette on him so he can see the lit cig. In the other version, "omg, we can't have cigarettes! lil kids are watching even tho looney toons has it and no one complains, lets take that out and have him magically find the guy, who cares if he can't see in the dark and it doesn't make sense! we'll make millions! bwahahahaha!"

One Piece is not an adult's show. It is a show for twelve year olds. Yes, it's been watered down a bit because America has different opinions of what its twelve year olds can deal with than Japan, but it has never been "adult." You can generally assume this about anything that was originally serialized in Shounen Jump. Or really, any magazine with the word "Shounen" in the title. I mean there's no shame in watching shows aimed at a younger audience, but don't delude yourself into thinking it was aimed at adults just because it had to be censored over here.

Also, modern reshowings of old shows like Looney Tunes are often censored as well, and even Disney cartoons get redone or left out because there's offensive stuff in them. A lot of that's things that we've come to realize are racist, rather than things that are imitable acts or whatever, though. And cigarettes are a pretty major one. The film and television advisory boards have some pretty sweeping rules and fines about the appearance of cigarettes on things even when they're aimed at adults.

No offense, but it sounds like there trying to make the wold seem nicer to kids in America. I mean sure there is a limit to what to show to young kids, but its kinda pathetic to take out stuff like cigarettes and blood, and to turn guns into water guns?
Epically after films like Pirates of the Caribbean, i mean the world is a nasty place and the kids have to learn some time or another. Editing out stuff like blood and cigarettes is just stupid and doesn't protect them from anything.

Also, the romans used to show their kids pictures of nudity and sex to teach them of it, and it was acceptable in that society, and they all turned out fine. Many children have grown up in days where they actually experienced death and gore and mayhem irl, rather then on tv, and they turned out fine. Kids are too overprotected these days it's not even funny. Here's an idea, let's put bubble wrap on everything so they don't fall and get a booboo, because god forbid they ever learn what pain is!