Why 4KIDS did not ruin One Piece

[Marcman2020]

okay, before you start with the flames, I want you to know that THAT IS NOT A JOKE. So please don't band me or close this thread only becuase I repeat, I am not kidding. I am a long time follower of One Piece, I've seen the sub and the dub. In all fairness, I honestly think 4KIDS has actually improved the anime rather than destroy it like so many One Piece fans think...

For starters, skipping the Apis arc was not a big deal, and cutting/fusing episodes together saves time and moves the story faster, making it less boring. As for cutting out the little garden arc... the fights weren't exciting anyway and most of the characters were annoying (The giants, Mr.3, etc)

Next comes the editting... is there anything really wrong with editting guns? Sure they are turned into super soakers/painted, but they still fire bullets. Not to mention the blood edits and tabacco edits are also very understandable... and does it kill you to have a sign wiped clean? Honestly, taking out english/japanese text does not make the anime better or worse in any way, it stays the same and is just as good...

Also, I highly doubt 4KIDS is racist, they are not trying to make kids not think Japan exists (We've seen lots of culture in the TMNT cartoon, and that was made by 4KIDS, wasn't it?) also, they kept Zolo (I like the name Zolo better than Zoro, his name won't feel like a rip off of the already existing Zorro) using Santaryu, and that's a Japanese word, isn't it?

now comes removing the music... I don't care for the One Piece original sound track, and putting more than one theme song/ending song gets confusing and annoying. 4KIDS only has to change a lyric or two in the intro when a new character is added, so it's easier to follow.

Finally, the voices. I admit, they're not as good as the Japanese voices (Cept Chopper, in the dub his voice is less annoying, same with Nami) Luffy's voice sounds like a good young boy's voice (his JP voice sounds too much like a girl) Zolo's voice is perfectly fine, Sanji's voice is good becuase it makes him sound tough/strong yet like a funny romantic like he's supposed to be (To be honest, the voice is perfect for him) and Usopp's voice leaves me in stitches.

It's times like this I wish 4KIDS got Naruto... I like Naruto, but the fights drag on too much to the point where it's DBZ, but with ninja's... I bet 4KIDS could take the Haku and Zabuza fight and trim it down to just 2 episodes. Maybe better voice actors as well (I dislike the voices of Naruto, Sakura, Orochimaru, and Chouji the most)

as I said, I'm NOT joking, I'm just letting you see my opinion, and maybe if you think about it you'll agree with everything I said. Otherwise, I'm sorry if you disagree. Besides, Oda, the original creator, hasn't said anything against the US dub, so I'm sure he's as fine with it as I am.

Besides, there are worse dubs than One Piece... Inu Yasha (Kagome was turned into a Valley-girl) Yu Yu Hakusho (Kuwabara sounds like an idiot) DBZ (the voice actors sound constapated X_X) Excel Saga (The voice actor to the main character, Excel, is SUPER ANNOYING!) I could go on forever, but you get what I'm saying.

[warp]

............................

this is the person who made that ytmnd with the horrible casting voices.

[RomanGod]

Lol. None of those dubs you mentioned are worse than One Piece's dub.

But if you like the dub, feel free to do so. I have no problem with that, in fact, I try to stop the people who will flame "dubbies" here.

However... One Piece does indeed have a bad dub. You may not like the original too much, so that's proboally why you like 4Kids tweaks. But it doesn't change that fact that they have changed too much. And that qualifies for a bad dub.

Anyways, people, don't be too hard on him.

[Malintex_Terek]

I agree in full, except

1) Sanji's voice sucks, Usopp's is good.
2) Luffy's is pretty bad.
3) The puns are bearable/understandable, but the dialogue is corny.
4) Skipping Little Garden knocked the OP anime out of synch with the manga.
5) Removing the music was dumb. Sure, the original orchestral isn't perfect and is sometimes overused and showcased at inappropriate time (id est, in Dragonball, characters had themes; in OP, situations had themes) but it was a whole lot easier to listen to.
6) 4Kids localisation is inconsistent because they proudly bear the insignia "SHONEN JUMP's" over their OP logo. Huh.

...

A lot of people here recognise how castrated the Naruto dub really is, so you're not alone.

[Throes]

$20 says this is a joke.

[l2agnarok]

I dont know what to say....well I do buts its too much!

[ModernRomeo]

I lol'ed at the comment that 4kids isn't racist.

If they weren't, then why did they make a black character white?

Sure, the character is minor, but it's the matter of the fact that they don't want blacks in their show.

[Marcman2020]

I lol'ed at the comment that 4kids isn't racist.

If they weren't, then why did they make a black character white?

Sure, the character is minor, but it's the matter of the fact that they don't want blacks in their show.

becuase the character looked too much like a black character from the old racist cartoons, and they did not want to make black people angry and be accused of being racist, so they colored him white to avoid making black people angry. Besides, Mr.5 stayed black, didn't he?

............................

this is the person who made that ytmnd with the horrible casting voices.

Yeah, long ago, but then I realized that the dub is better than the sub *shrugs*

$20 says this is a joke.

*writes a list of things I can buy with 20 bucks* >.> prepare to owe me, chump

[RomanGod]

That edit. Not really. I mean, they've left in Mr.5 and Miss Monday... And they look black.

I'm willing to bet that edit happened because the character itself looked like a parody of "Black Face" or whatever. I'm kinda sketchy on it, but I'm sure Wiki has a page on it.

[Malintex_Terek]

I'm willing to bet that edit happened because the character itself looked like a parody of "Black Face" or whatever. I'm kinda sketchy on it, but I'm sure Wiki has a page on it.

Wikipedia removed all 4Kids criticism from its articles.

[RomanGod]

Wikipedia removed all 4Kids criticism from its articles.

Actually, I was saying look up the article about "Black Face". I'm sure they have one.

[King Calamari]

One Piece isn't ruined to the people who had no idea what the show even was before 4kids got the rights to it. Then there's the people who've seen the original version and know exactly what was cut out or altered just to fit 4kids weird preferences. Ace=Trace, an entire Arc that comes into play several times during the course of the series, and other plot holes and character changes isn't being very faithful to the original story. Blood, guns, and other content that would never fly on american tv is understandable but they just went out of their way to make it terrible.

You say those other dubs are bad but only because you don't like the voice acting. They are available on DVD and they're all uncensored and uncut with japanese and english audio. One Piece isn't and I highly doubt it ever will as long as 4kids treats the established fanbase as unimportant.

[NGeno]

Actually, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is produced by Mirage Studios... And they are REALLY pushing 4Kids's limit with what they show on it...

[theAMAZINGboo]

I think this thread makes me want to commit suicide.

[The_green_samurai_ranger]

The GSR personally thinks that this follow has been watching the dub way too much. Many of your statements are true and have good basis for a decent pro's and con's topic but the thing that you're lacking is that One Piece was originally a teenage/young adult manga/anime. What 4KIDS has done is removed the adult situations and added in children's humor with america culture resulting in a terrible, plot holed, dub at best.

-I honestly do agree with Sanji having his cig removed, (my grandmum passed away from a smoking related illness, so cigs are not my friend to say the least), plus in America, our little ones are not educated enough to clearly identify that smoking isn't suitable for a person's health.

-The voices are not that bad now, as a voice actor works on a show for a decent amount of time, they understand how the character should be speaking, making the transition easier to that of what the character should sound like.

-Skipping some of the filler arcs were nice, and it did make the story go faster. The thing that made a lot of people upset was over the fact that Little Garden was removed, taking away a lot of the character's individual development for the series. Mostly Vivi's development, which was important for following events.

Arg I'm too tired to fully put all my opinions down at the moment. If this topic isn't locked tomorrow, I'll be back to finish the dicussion.

[Malintex_Terek]

OP might be aimed at Japanese adults/teens but it's written at a child's level and has the atmosphere of a cartoon. So, most of 4Kids' edits were understandable.

As I've said before, 4Kids: Heart Right, Head Wrong, Pockets Deep.

[taboo]

lol, justifying the destruction of someone's creation. Always fun.

[Alterpickle]

I don't agree. Pistols and guns didn't need to be changed at all, 4kids is just wasting their own time editing it. Just because they show guns, doesn't mean that 10-year olds will start shooting other kids with bullets. Look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was an example show you put, Leonardo is wielding 2 katanas and slashes his opponents with it, yet do you see kids running around with sharp blades?

Zolo I understand, because Zolo and Zoro sound the same if you pronounce it with the "Japanese" accent.

As for the music, that was one of the fustrating things that 4kids edited. I could understand openings and endings (although the rap is TERRIBLE), but the original BGM shouldn't be removed at all. Their excuse of making it more western is seriously rubber bull to me.

And DBZ, Inuyasha, and Yu Yu Hakusho are better DUBs in my opinion. I don't know about the voice acting, but at least they don't edit more than half of the entire series.

[CosmicDebris]

XD

No, that post really is a joke.

Thanks for your really long post of all the reasons why the dub sucks.

But you're right, 4kids didn't ruin One Piece, One Piece will always be great, they just made a terrible English adaption.

[gogoedward]

The problem is that almost all of your reasoning is opinion based.

You don't like how slow the original anime moves, not everyone feels that way. I for one feel that splicing, cutting, merging etc episodes is uneccesary and shouldn't be done at all (maybe cut a scene or two if you really can't show it, but that's it)

You prefer dub Nami and Chopper, again a matter of preference. And in the case of voice acting, the complaints come less from the voice actors themselves (sans Usopp and Sanji, special cases those 2) and more from the bad voice direction (they sound so forced, so unnatural, and overal just bland, Nami can't even pull off convincing anger anymore) AND the bad script writing (the out of place puns, the bad jokes, the inconsistancy in how characters talk etc) I agree about Zoro's voice, and I actually don't have many problems with the English cast. Granted, it could be better but the real problem is the voice direction and the AWFUL script writing.

Editing is a problem. I'm not talking about signs and guns (which I've goteen used to with the dub) and yes they don't detract very much. The problem I have is that they're so unecessary, almost as if they feel the need to make extra changes for no legit reasons.

The real problem with the edits is how they reaarange scenes, and cut and paste random things in and out. Also, there's been proved inconsitancies with their editing (random shots that still have blood or whatever they tried to cut out, the guns are still green even during black/white flashbacks, the infamous double scar Luffy and Croc grabbing Mr.3's "shoulder") And the unecessary name changes (NOT Zolo and Chaser, those make sense. I refer to Nebra and Trace mainly)

Another opinion matter is characters you find annoying. I for one loved Little Garden, and Mr. 3 is an entertaining badguy (who has quite the large fanbase from what I can tell)

4kids being racist, a bad arguement and the whole "black guy to white guy" thing was actually an attempt to NOT be seen as racist (they've had issues with the "black face" looking characters like Jinx in the past) The whole racist arguement is just fanboys ranting about 4kids.

The original music being replaced, again a matter of opinion. Personally, I feel that the music really had no reason to be changed and if rumors are true (about 4kids being too cheap to buy the music rights) than that's just plain crappy. I mean if you're oging to buy a series, get the whole thing.

Also, again a matter of opinion, their music doesn't fit the series as well. They have a few ok sounding musical scores, but overall it just doesn't feel right. (I started with the dub, and after hearing the Japanese score only a few times I immediately enjoyed it more)


As far as the Naruto dub goes, its a good dub by all technial means. The only "problems" people have with it is really the voice acting, and that's totally up to the viewer. And once again, you may not like how slow paced things are, but not everyone feels the same way.


As far as Oda probably agreeing with you, I'm sorry but that I HIGHLY doubt. Since Oda works with Toei on the anime, and Toei is in business with 4Kids I doubt he can say too much negative without business people getting at him.

And even if that isn't the case, why would Oda prefer to see the animated form of his series changed in so many ways? Granted the anime is based off of the anime, BUT its still Oda's One Piece. As a writer myself, I know how seeing your work changed can affect you and it isn't a good feeling.

And who's to say that Oda has even seen the dub? They don't air it in Japan, and anythign he HAS seen probably hasn't been anythign too major in terms of changes (unless he's watched the entirety of the dub, the major changes could go unoticed VERY easily)



ONce again, this is all opinion, and I'm just voicing mine. I respect people's opinions, and I watch the dub, started with the dub, I have ntohign against fans of the dub. HOWEVER, to say that 4kids made the show better, I'm sorry but I can't agree with that or even understand it.

I watch the dub regularly in addition to fansubs and subbed DVDs, don't totally hate the dub and I can see reason in most of what they do. But to say its better? I honeslty don't understand why someone could say that except for small opinion based matters (which were the only reasons you had)