One Piece (ワンピース wanpīsu) also known as Drake or Drake and the Search for the Treasure in Greece, is an anime and manga about a crew of pirates led by Monkey D. Luffy who set out in search of the legendary treasure One Piece. The anime is currently shown on 4Kids TV (formerly Fox Box) in North America. It has been announced that One Piece is to air on Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block on April 23, 2005 and 'soon' on the UK's version of Toonami. In North America, the manga is serialized in Shonen Jump, and the anime is produced in Singapore by Odex.

One Piece was created by Eiichiro Oda. The series began its run in 1997 in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump and is still being serialized. The TV series was first aired in October 1999. As of 2005, more than 360 chapters and 36 collected volumes of the manga have appeared. Also, more than 230 episodes of the television series, which were produced by Toei Animation, aired on television in Japan. Five theatrical movies have aired as well with number 6 in the works. Each of the movies feature a short clip of the characters of the series doing various activities such as soccer, baseball or even dancing.

One Piece is set in a fictional world, where pirates run rampant in an era known as the "Age of Piracy". The story of One Piece follows the adventures of a young pirate named Monkey D. Luffy whose body was turned to rubber after he ate a cursed fruit known as a Devil Fruit (Akuma no Mi). Luffy's particular fruit was the Gum-Gum Fruit, or "Gomu Gomu no Mi" in the Japanese release ("gomu" means "rubber"). While Devil Fruits grant their eaters fantastic powers (Luffy, for example, can stretch like rubber), it comes at the cost of never being able to swim, and in fact becoming complete deadweight upon being submerged in salt water. (This weakness may have a historical basis, as many real pirates were unable to swim.) The story features many pirates with super powers gained from the Devil Fruit. The story relates the importance of following your dreams and of friends.

Because of its strong story, colorful characters and intense fights between bizarre characters, deep emotions, character depth, clever plot twist, and different plot flavors, One Piece has gained a level of popularity near that of Dragon Ball in Japan. Unlike Dragon Ball, it's an epic story of voyages across fantastic lands. Other manga that have recently gotten near (but not quite achieved) that level of popularity are InuYasha and Naruto.

The One Piece manga is published in English in the North American Shonen Jump by Viz Communications. The One Piece anime was licensed for North American Release by 4kids Entertainment in June 2004, changes made include removing the entire original score and replacing it with non-stop synthesised music to cash in on royalties and allow heavy visual alterations, replacing the intro song with a rap song despite having produced an English translation for the original opening theme which was the same length, making various cuts and editing episodes together to remove instances of characterization, replacing one of the main characters' cigarette with a lollipop, respelling Roronoa Zoro to "Roronoa Zolo", removing text and inexplicably altering every visual and audio reference to the "Marines" as the "Navy", and even changing the skin colors of some characters to downplay supposed racial stereotypes. In addition, 4Kids makes standard edits to remove violence and blood, but often takes censorship beyond required regulations by removing the deaths of several characters thereby completely altering their motivations and backstories, and altering firearms and various other weapons despite the fact that they are often shown on different shows within the very same block. The Viz manga later followed suit with renaming Zoro to Zolo for the same reasons that it was changed in the anime (though the story itself and the level of graphic violence remain untouched).

One Piece "purists", such as those who follow the original Japanese series closely, frown upon the actions of 4Kids, and to a much smaller extent, Viz. The biggest criticism against their adaptation of the anime is that despite the fact that the show was targeted towards a wide, general audience in Japan and consistently scored high ratings from adults, teens, and children alike, 4Kids insisted on airing the show on Saturday mornings and focus solely on the lucrative 6-11 demographic which the show was only minimally intended for in the first place. Uncut DVDs are said to be released in late 2005, but are expected to be treated separately as a low priority product.

In Brazil, One Piece maintains its original format. No changes or adaptations were made into the manga's story and currently, it is being published monthly by "Editora Conrad". Two Brazilian volumes are equivalent to one Japanese volume of the manga. The translation is made so it remains as close as possible to the original, to the point where some words, such as "nakama", are not even translated. The anime is currently not being aired in any Brazilian television network. Many other countries leave the series nearly untouched, with the notable exception of Greece, which changed the name of the series itself, as well as that of many of the characters. Versions aired in Italy and Germany do edit the program, but apparently the localisations are not anywhere near as extreme as in the US version.

In February of 2005, the comic set a record in Japan for the fastest manga publication to reach 100,000,000 copies.

Cast of characters

• Monkey D. Luffy (Captain)
• Roronoa Zoro / Roronoa Zolo (Swordsman and First Mate)
• Sanji (Cook)
• Nami (Navigator)
• Tony Tony Chopper (Doctor)
• Usopp (Sniper/Backup Captain)
• Nico Robin (Archaeologist)

• Ax-Hand Morgan
• Buggy the Clown
• Arlong
• Smoker
• Red-Haired Shanks
• Whitebeard (Edward Newgate)
• One Piece minor characters

Terms

• Seven Armed Seas (Shichibukai)
• The One Piece
• The Grand Line
• Devil Fruit (Akuma no Mi)
• The King of Pirates (Kaizoku-Ō)
• East Blue
• Merry Go
• Sea King
• Nakama (仲間): This Japanese term means friend(s), buddy(ies) or gang. In the Japanese version of One Piece this term is used extensively to describe friends whom are as close as or closer than family (especially in the context of Luffy's crew).

External links

English

• 4Kids TV One Piece website
• Arlong Park (One Piece fansite)

Japanese

• One Piece Dotcom (One Pieceドッコム One Piece Dottokomu, Japanese website)
• Shueisha's One Piece website
• Fuji TV's One Piece website
• Toei's One Piece website
• One Piece movie website