FUNimation acquires One Piece license
Posted by Luke Campbell
at 09:50:24 PM EST on 4.15.2007.
FUNimation recently announced that they have picked up the rights to One Piece, the popular pirate anime about Luffy and his loyal crew. The license was previously held by 4Kids, and many fans have complained about the English dub job as well as edits made for the US audience, including the removal of entire story arcs and sometimes confusing edits to storylines, along with the "edit-only" DVD release of the series. In an interview with Anime Online, FUNimation Marketing Director Lance Heiskell revealed the following about the plans for One Piece:
- FUNimation will pick up One Piece at episode 144. 4Kids handled episodes 1-143, but edited so much out that 4Kids' last episode is numbered 104. FUNimation's episodes will first appear on Cartoon Network in August.
- The Cartoon Network episodes will feature similar editing, but the DVD releases will be uncut. The DVDs will be released in 3-disc boxsets, and will feature 13 episodes for $49.99. There is no plan to release the TV-edited episodes on DVD, but the first 3-disc box should be available sometime between November and February.
- While current efforts are being focused on dubbing episodes 144-205, it is unknown if FUNimation has plans to go back and redo the dubbing for episodes 1-143.
- It is unknown if that godawful pirate-rap song at the show's beginning will be changed, but this fan has his fingers crossed.
More news is set to be revealed at this summer's Anime Expo, so we'll keep you posted. This should mean great things for One Piece fans and perhaps an explosion in the show's popularity as well; several years ago FUNimation picked up the rights to Dragonball Z and has released nearly the entire run of that series uncut and with their own dub job, so hopefully One Piece enjoys a similar fate.
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