FUNimation licenses One Piece!

[Yūgi's BM]

If this does not prove God’s existence, I cannot tell you what will.

Originally Posted by animeonline.comSo let’s make it clear – what is going on?
HEISKELL: FUNimation will now be working on the adaptation of the One Piece anime. We have all DVD rights to the One Piece TV series, and we’ll be working on new episodes that will air on Cartoon Network in August.

Oh thank God.
HEISKELL: (laughs)

How’s this going to work? Are you guys going to start the series over, or what?
HEISKELL: No, no. We’re starting with the original Japanese episodes 144 through 205.

Why is that?
HEISKELL: Well, it was kind of a group decision between FUNimation, Cartoon Network, and Toei Animation. Cartoon Network wanted the series to continue from where the previous version left off. And FUNimation and Toei wanted to keep One Piece on TV – that’s good for everybody.

So what about episodes one through 143?
HEISKELL: It’s not 100% decided yet. We’re dubbing the show with an entirely new cast and we have such strict deadlines to meet for the Cartoon Network broadcast that [dubbing those first episodes at the same time

would end up being double the work for us. We want to do it, but it comes down to our production schedule – and if we can, we will. But if we can’t, then we’ll start with a DVD of episode 144-plus, and get to the first episode as soon as we can.

Actually, you guys can have comments on the article right? Like below the article, people add comments?

Indeed we do.
HEISKELL: Well, I’m not promising anything, but it wouldn’t hurt if people let us know in your comments whether they want us to start the DVDs with episode one, or episode 144. Or we might alternate between the two, like they were different seasons. They should let us know what they think. [Editor’s note: you heard the man - get to work, guys.]

So what are the DVD plans? They’ll be uncut, right?
HEISKELL: Totally uncut. What you see is what you get.

How will you release the DVDs?
HEISKELL: We know that One Piece is a long, ongoing show, and we’ve learned in the past from fan feedback, forums, conventions, and all the conversations that three to four episodes per disc just won’t cut it for such a long series.

So what we’re going to do is 13 episode releases at $49.98. We haven’t figured out if we’re going to do two or three per year. We just have to see with production and sales whether it’s more beneficial to do two or three a year, but we haven’t decided yet. This is our quickest production, and we have our A-team working on it, and this is top priority so all the wheels are going right now.

So it’ll be a three disc box set?
HEISKELL: Probably three discs, yes. We’re also trying to get some cool extras for the DVDs so it’s not just episodes. We’ll be doing a lot of good promotion for it.

And when do we get it?
HEISKELL: The uncut DVD won’t be out until sometime between November and February, depending on production.

Did Toei Animation offer One Piece to FUNimation, or did FUNimation ask Toei for One Piece or what? Who came to who?
HEISKELL: I would say mutual. We’ve been in discussions with them for a long time. We have a great working relationship with them and when the time came for One Piece, it was a good match.

So you were talking before 4Kids Entertainment stopped their dub?
HEISKELL: I’m not really sure.

Will the TV version be edited?
HEISKELL: Yes, but [production manager] Justin Cook can explain all that better. We’re going for a PG version on TV.

Any plans to release your TV version on DVD?
HEISKELL: Nope.

Several years ago, you guys grabbed the rights to a One Piece URL, which made people think you had the license. Do you still have the URL?
HEISKELL: (laughs) I think so.

What has Toei asked of you regarding the One Piece release?
HEISKELL: That’s also more a question for Justin, since he was there when the producer for One Piece came in and they talked about what they wanted for the release. Names, using the right verbiage, being consistent with the video games and the manga, so our writers will know what to call things. They didn’t really have any requirements for my department, but they had a lot for production.

Anything else that you want to tell anime fans?
HEISKELL: When there was first talk of [FUNimation] getting One Piece a few years ago, I was like “I want it. No one else can have it. It’s mine.” You know, as a brand manager. And now it’s mine! Ha ha ha! It almost makes me want to go on eBay and buy all those Mattel One Piece toys.

I can almost promise you could find them in the Toys ‘R’ Us bargain aisle. So you’re a fan?
HEISKELL: Oh yeah! I’ve been going to anime conventions for five years, which is where I first found out about One Piece. It’s just a good, solid story with good characters. There are a lot of shows out there that may look pretty, but it’s all style, no substance. Similar to Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Fullmetal Alchemist, it’s got both style and substance. The characters all have back stories, and some of them, very tragic back stories. All the characters are a little flawed, but that just makes you cheer for them more.

Any clues you can give us about what you’ll be doing to promote the series?
HEISKELL: Expect big things from FUNimation and Toei Animation at this year’s Anime Expo!]

Here’s an interview with Justin Cook (voice of Yusuke Urameshi of Yu Yu Hakusho) who will be the production manager.

Originally Posted by animeonline.com

First of all, how excited are you to have One Piece?
COOK: It’s great. We actually got our hopes up once before for One Piece, but to have it now and to have the chance to bring it back to the fans, to have the chance to restore it to its original luster and original clever dialogue is really our main goal. We want to capture the essence of what One Piece is and to bring that back as much as we can to a television audience. And of course, the uncut DVDs will be the original work in its entirety.

Bliss! So you’ll be using new voices of course.
COOK: Yes, and on the casting we are not trying to match either the Japanese voices or the former dub. We are looking at both sets of voices, but we don’t want our cast trying to imitate a voice that, in our opinion, might not necessarily fit that character.

Any plans for wacky accents?
COOK: If it fits the character, we might find a place for some kind of accent. In our brief history, we have found places in a show where an accent of some kind really fits. But we don’t want to force an international feel on the show when it already really comes across in the animation. And of course, a bad accent will usually be more distracting than even bad acting.

I think One Piece fans – including me - are concerned about Nico Robin’s wacky hick accent and Sanji’s God-awful Brooklyn accent.
COOK: I am almost totally certain that none of the Straw-Hat pirates, the main characters, will have any kind of accent at all.

And the pirate accent that everyone else seemed to have?
COOK: If you have a guy who is obviously a pirate with a peg leg and a hook for a hand, you might get away with a traditional pirate voice, but the production team really doesn’t want that just running rampant throughout the whole thing. We’re sure there will be some instances where it will be appropriate but we’ll never use an accent if we can’t do it perfectly.

Are there any announcements about who will be working on the dub?
COOK: There are two line producers that are working on One Piece at this time: Mike McFarland and Christopher Bevins. Of course, Mike McFarland was a line producer for Trinity Blood, and a voice director for Trinity Blood as well as Fullmetal Alchemist, a number of Dragonball episodes, and a couple of other series. And Chris Bevins worked on Burst Angel and Samurai 7. We have a very experienced lead staff working on the show. The head writers working on this are John Burgmeier and Eric Vale, both of whom are taking an equal chunk of the workload. As far as the cast, I can’t say as of yet.

I know Bevins at least is a pretty big One Piece fan.
COOK: Actually, both Mike and Bevins are extreme One Piece fans. Both have felt that so far, One Piece has been…a little lackluster in its performance and are both very anxious at the chance to step in and try to course-correct this ship.

That’s very diplomatic of you.
COOK: Well, you’ve got to understand that when One Piece first went on the air [here in the U.S.], it was at a very different time slot than what we’re looking at now, so a lot of the standards that they were held to, we aren’t. Instead of Saturday morning at 9 a.m., we’re looking at Saturday night. There is a very different set of standards for that time slot.

So what else will FUNimation’s TV version not be doing?
COOK: What I can say for sure is that there will be no smoking in One Piece-land, as according to Cartoon Network, consumption of alcohol will be missing from the show, and obviously, a lot of the violence and gore will be missing.

I know as soon as I say, “No smoking,” everyone’s mind immediately goes to Sanji and his sucker, and we will be continuing that. The whole reason the sucker is there is that it’s just too much work to repaint everything in the shot to remove the cigarette. You have to consider, for every one second of footage that’s aired, there are 30 individual frames that need to be painted. So, for a three-minute scene of Sanji with a cigarette in his mouth, that’s easily a week to two weeks of work, doing nothing else but that for eight hours a day.

We’re much more concerned with finding a cast that fits the characters and brings the characters to life to whet the appetites of the fans so that they want to go check out the uncut DVD version of the show. And I think the change in voices and the script styling of the show will be enough to get the fans interested in the original series. We know we’re going to have to ask for forgiveness on the missing violence and the missing cigarettes, but there’s nothing we can do about that besides not air it on TV at all.

And it’ll still be totally uncut on DVD.
COOK: Yes.

So then what about the character of Smoker, who smokes two cigars at the same time? The previous version edited them out and renamed him Chaser.
COOK: Well, there’s actually an exception with cigars and pipes. All we have to do is get rid of the smoke and the burning bit at the end. For whatever reason, [the FCC broadcast standards] are more concerned with getting rid of cigarettes. But cigars and pipes can be shown, provided they’re not lit or being used.

But there are other shows like Naruto, which airs close to the same time as One Piece will, in which characters are seen with cigarettes with just the smoke removed, though not main characters like Sanji.
COOK: We have been asked not to do that, though we did ask if we could. We’ve been asked that before. “Why can the show before you or after you do this and you don’t?” We’re just going with the orders we’ve been given. We’re not sure why other shows can do certain things but it’s not okay for One Piece. In the Jaya saga, there is a pretty major character who smokes all the time on the island. That’s an instance of a character that smokes all the time, as well as having the cigarette in his mouth, where we have to decide if we can replace it with a toothpick or edit out the smoking altogether. Basically, it’s going to be a group effort to decide how to best handle it without steering away from the idea and the feel of One Piece.

Obviously, there were a lot of extreme edits that were made previously, like replacing guns with cork guns or water guns. What are your plans for that?
COOK: We have not been asked to remove the guns. I think that is probably due to the time that it’s being shown. There still is some violence due to that that cannot be shown. For example, if someone is decapitated, we would probably choose not to show the actual decapitation, but leave it to the viewers’ imagination as to what happens, but the sound effect would be there. Also, instead of showing blood pouring from a wound, it would just be a clean slice, or when there’s a punch we’ll have a flash, and just not show the connection.

We’re looking for ways to change it as little as possible, to cause the least amount of interruption. We have to edit out some things to get it on TV but we’re going to try to make up for that by giving the audience the most we can with the acting. This is something I feel we have a lot of experience with; building an ensemble cast is something that both Mike and Chris have a lot of experience in and have done before in numerous shows. I think we’re in store for a bunch of very fun episodes.

What about name changes? Zoro was changed to Zolo, possibly because of a legal issue with the Zorro character, but that Luffy’s brother Ace was changed to Trace, seemed arbitrary.
COOK: As far as Ace is concerned, I feel inclined to stick with Ace as the name. Every script that we’re writing goes through approval with Toei, and they have requested that we stay as close to the manga, as released by VIZ, as possible. They want us to keep character names, place names, item names as they are in the manga. Ultimately, what you read in the manga will be what you hear in the anime. I have no intention of changing names. Now the edited TV version may change some things to match up with what was done in the past, but the uncut version will most certainly have the original names.

Most importantly, will you use One Piece’s original score?
COOK: We plan to. We feel that the original vision, the scope and soundscape of One Piece is wonderful. We will only try to polish the existing canvas, and add slight coloring with our new cast.

What about the opening and closing music?
COOK: It’s still under discussion, but I assure you we will not be using the “Gum-Gum Rap.”

So you’re starting with the Jaya arc?
COOK: Yes, episode 144, according to the original Japanese numbering, but episode 105 according to the numbering by the former dub house.

4Kids removed a lot of the non-canonical filler arcs entirely. Are there any plans to do that?
COOK: If we do have to lose some episodes, I think it’s preferable to lose a filler saga than to lose storyline from the original manga. However, once again, it will all be available uncut.

You mentioned that Cartoon Network had some requirements, but what about Toei? Have they required anything of you besides sticking close to the manga?
COOK: Not really. We told them what was going to be necessary for us to bring this show to a television audience, and we just want to bring One Piece back to the fans. And Toei was very excited that we felt that this was a successful venue for One Piece.

I heard rumors that Toei wanted to have a female voice actress voice Luffy, like Mayumi Tanaka does in Japan.
COOK: That was a request that came from very high up, from the person without which One Piece would not exist. Obviously, it had a lot of thought behind it. However, at FUNimation, in recent years, we’ve brought in more and more kids to do voices. I mean, after 52 episodes and a movie of Fullmetal Alchemist, I can’t imagine Alphonse being played by anyone but Aaron Dismuke, that anyone else could have pulled off the genuine sincerity and innocence of that character. I think that worked really well against the backdrop of the rest of the cast for that series.

Now, will that work for One Piece? I don’t know, but as with any casting decision, I don’t think you can pick one voice for a character without hearing them with the rest of the cast. And even though Toei did make the request for a female voice actress, they are also very understanding of American television and what we have to do. We said we would definitely meet their other requirements for casting but we wanted to be free to explore the option of bringing in a younger male actor or perhaps a very talented older actor who could perhaps do a voice that would be very convincing for Luffy’s character. Right now, Toei is open to hearing any auditions we are considering.

Personally, I think that a male voice would be easier for an American audience to buy, make it easier to suspend disbelief. If you lose that even for a few moments, your audience can become jaded and more critical and become distracted by things outside the story. Obviously, there’s a lot of pressure to have a really good script and a really tight voice cast so that fans of the show will be really happy with who’s playing their favorite character. We want people to be excited about Sanji’s character, about Zolo’s character.

Do you have a favorite character or story arc from One Piece?
COOK: I’ve watched quite a bit of One Piece and I’ve read even more than I’ve seen, but as far as favorite characters go, I’m weak and I always choose the main character in almost every show. Luffy’s character really captures the essence of innocence, loyalty, a need to do what is right, and sometimes, just an idiot’s heart. It’s so unique to Japanese shows to have these kinds of selfless characters that I don’t think are on television enough.

In American TV, you’ll sometimes have that sense of that Greek hero, but it’s usually skewed by mixing doing what is right with what is politically correct. Many times, that character gets muddled in trying to make things okay with everybody. One Piece is a show that begins with stereotypes and then breaks the molds. They start with characters that you think you’ve seen in every show, and then systematically break those characters down so that each one of them has to reconsider who they really are and what they stand for.

We have Eric Vale (Trunks of Dragonball Z) and John Burgmeir (Tenshinhan, Dragonball/Z/GT) writing the new scripts from ‘Tomato’s’ translated scripts. This new English adaptation looks promising.

[oakzap425]

Very happy to hear this.

Hope the redub and re-release it.

[TheVileOne]

All very good news. I'm not a big One Piece fan, but I'm happy for the fans who from this news must be really happy to hear.

What's funny is that Funimation was the one that delivered fans from the 4Kids crap. When some years ago, it was Funimation that anime fans were bemoaning.

[SupahSaiyangirl]

now that funimation has some credentials to show more people are more accepting to them(DBZ, FMA, Shin chan, and others) and funi is less harsh than 4kids when it comes to editing. I dont blame 4kids though the fcc has strict guidelines to what can be shown to kids on saturday mornings and if you want your show to air youve got to follow the rules. Realizing that they would make more money in this time slot than the toonami block(who does make a lot of money but not as much) they did what they could and that was the result. I mean one piece could be unedited and air on adultswim but their key audience has gone to bed by then and theres no money to be made in that.

Compared to 4kids, funi is the lesser of two evils and they do try by giving you the option of watching the watered down versions on t.v. and buying the really expensive boxsets with most of the violence intact.

But i dont know if this will make one piece popular in america,naruto already has the title under its belt. But it might save the series from sinking. For most i believe the 4kids fiasco turned most away from the series permently, and for some this may be seen as little too late. But this is funimation we are talking about they whored out the DB series which has been going strong for over 22 yrs, hell they still have games and merchandize coming out! If anyone one can do it its them.

[TheVileOne]

Naruto succeeded where One Piece failed miserably.

Naruto did everything right. One Piece did everything wrong. Naruto had a quality English dub, with as little changes as possible made. Edited yes, but death was still death. People still died. Blood remained. And other things. It wasn't severely hacked up and sanitized like 4Kids with One Piece, because they thought that was the only way for it to look buyable at Wal-Mart.

[Dorian Gray]

Never really got into One Peice because of the 4kids dubbing and editing but it's good that FUNimation is bringing it back.....

4Kids did one thing right as far as dubbing and that was Pokemon...but now that 4kids has been dismised from or dropped Pokemon it turned to crap as far as voice talent goes....even though I didn't really like the show the voices were a perfect fit

[Yūgi's BM]

Originally Posted by Dorian Gray

Never really got into One Peice because of the 4kids dubbing and editing but it's good that FUNimation is bringing it back.....

4Kids did one thing right as far as dubbing and that was Pokemon...but now that 4kids has been dismised from or dropped Pokemon it turned to crap as far as voice talent goes....even though I didn't really like the show the voices were a perfect fit

Meh, I actually prefer this new talent pool that TAJ Studios uses compared to 4Kids'.

[TheVileOne]

It's Pokemon, and I just can't let myself like Pokemon because it's freaking Pokemon.

Mike McFarlund is in charge of the dub of One Piece and that's great news.

Who do you guys want Funimation to use for the main characters?

Remember they have a whole talent pool of voice actors from Fort Worth/Dallas, Houston, and even LA and elsewhere to work from now. Funimation's gotten a lot of crossover actors from outside of Texas for some recent shows like Scott McNeill.

[Yūgi's BM]

Originally Posted by TheVileOne

It's Pokemon, and I just can't let myself like Pokemon because it's bad.

Mike McFarlund is charge of the dub of One Piece and that's great news.

Who do you guys want Funimation to use for the main characters?

Remember they have a whole talent pool of voice actors from Fort Worth/Dallas, Houston, and even LA and elsewhere to work from now. Funimation's gotten a lot of crossover actors from outside of Texas for some recent shows like Scott McNeill.

Technically FUNi doesn't really import actors, I'm not sure why McNeil ran down to Texas do FMA but outside of him Schemmel (NYC) and Hebert (LA) who were regulars on DBZ still return for the video games and stuff.

Although Schemmel did work on the 4Kids English Adaptation of One Piece I don't really see him running back to FUNi to reprise those roles.

At the time I'd really like for Edward Elric's actor (I can never remember how to spell his last name!) to voice Luffy (or some other male). Chris Sabat seems almost destined to play Blackbeard and Whitebeard but I think he'd make for a great Franky too.

[TheVileOne]

Wrong. Funimation is doing more importing now.

McNeil did work on Samurai Seven in addition to FMA. Same with Carrie Savage who I think is doing other Funi shows now as well.

Vic Mignogna as Luffy, I dunno maybe it could work. I'd have to hear how he would do it first. But I think his work is consistently excellent.

[Yūgi's BM]

Originally Posted by TheVileOne

Wrong. Funimation is doing more importing now.

McNeil did work on Samurai Seven in addition to FMA. Same with Carrie Savage who I think is doing other Funi shows now as well.

Vic Mignogna as Luffy, I dunno maybe it could work. I'd have to hear how he would do it first. But I think his work is consistently excellent.

Ah, sorry. The only products they release that I watch are DB/Z, YYH, and once they begin releasing it, One Piece.

[Zombie_samurai]

yay

[Yūgi's BM]

Vic Mignogna (Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist) recently confirmed that he has auditioned for the roels of Monkey D. Luffy and Usopp.

[TheVileOne]

That's interesting. Though I'd probably put Vic in for Usopp over Luffy.

I'd say that Christopher Sabat is a shoe-in for Zoro.

[JP]

Well, I never watched it. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the 4Kids, but probably. Maybe I'll check it out now.

If it is successful, you can guarantee that Funi will redub the 4Kids episodes.

[Yūgi's BM]

Originally Posted by JP

Well, I never watched it. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the 4Kids, but probably. Maybe I'll check it out now.

If it is successful, you can guarantee that Funi will redub the 4Kids episodes.

The 4Kids English adaptation will not have anything to do with how this version is affected. The voice cast will be completely recast will the voice pool FUNimation has acess to.

If we're lucky some out of towners might do small roles (like how Scott McNeil did a role in FMA).

[TheVileOne]

Look in that top interview. Funimation announced months ago that they were going to re-dub the entire series from the beginning. But due to demand from Cartoon Network and Toonami they decided to continue on the episode 4Kids left off of in order to meet the demands of the TV audience, whatever.

But either way they are still going to re-dub everything up to that point as well.

[Yūgi's BM]

FUNimation's cast list

Neat!!! Krillian/Kuririn from Dragonball Z will voice Usopp, Future Trunks will voice Sanji and the voice of Piccolo, Yamcha, Turtle, Vegata, Kami, Elder Namek, Shenron, Porunga, Demon King Piccolo, Adjacent Black, Burter, Jeice, Reccoom, Omega Shenron, Korin/Karin, and Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho will voice Roronoa Zoro.

[JP]

Originally Posted by Yūgi's BM

FUNimation's cast list

Neat!!! Krillian/Kuririn from Dragonball Z will voice Usopp, Future Trunks will voice Sanji and the voice of Piccolo, Yamcha, Turtle, Vegata, Kami, Elder Namek, Shenron, Porunga, Demon King Piccolo, Adjacent Black, Burter, Jeice, Reccoom, Omega Shenron, Korin/Karin, and Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho will voice Roronoa Zoro.

Bwhahahaha.

[TheVileOne]

In other words. Sonny Strait as Usopp. Eric Vale as Sanji. And Christopher Sabat as Zoro. I figured it would probably be Sabat as Zoro.

But who is playing Luffy and Nami?

[JP]

The link has been taken down..

[Yūgi's BM]

Originally Posted by TheVileOne

In other words. Sonny Strait as Usopp. Eric Vale as Sanji. And Christopher Sabat as Zoro. I figured it would probably be Sabat as Zoro.

But who is playing Luffy and Nami?

Luffy will be voiced by Colleen Clickenbeard, Riza Hawkeye from FMA, and Luci Christien (I may have misspelt her last name) will voice Nami.

[TheVileOne]

Well all that sounds pretty good to me. Though I wonder how Colleen Clinkenbeard will sound as Luffy.

Also who will play the other straw hat pirates. And Luffy's brother, Trace.

Thumbs up to this cast though. Sabat as Zoro is a no-brainer and pretty much perfect.

[Yūgi's BM]

• Toon Zone Report on the One Piece panel at Otakon 2007.
• The actresses of Monkey D. Luffy and Tony Tony Chopper supply the crowd with sample of their characters' voices.
• Colleen Clickenbeard performs Luffy's signiture phrase.

[TheVileOne]

Thanks for the links. Good stuff.