The following is an editorial by Firecrouch. It does not express the opinions of The One Piece Podcast.
Welcome back to my special Top News Pieces of 2013 feature. I hope you all enjoyed Part 1; I know I enjoyed writing it. It’s fun going back and just looking up stuff I reported on the podcast last year to share with you guys, the fans. So without further ado, here is Part 2 of of Firecrouch’s Top News Pieces of 2013:
“One Piece” Gets Two T.V. Specials
My three big bad boys comin’ together
That’s right, not just one, not just one-and-a-half, but two — count ‘em TWO – television specials. The first was a crossover special with “Toriko”, this being the third one. But joining Luffy and Toriko this time around was Goku and his legendary friends.
I didn’t see “The Dream 9 Toriko & One Piece & Dragonball Z Cho Collaboration Special”, but I imagine it was full of lots of fanservice. Or rather it was fanservice-based. I’m not referring to fanservice in the stereotypical sense (panty shots and bouncing boobies), but rather when you think of a crossover special with three big shonen series, the first thing that comes to mind is an attempt to bring all these famous characters together just to get everyone excited. Regardless of whether there’s any good context to the story, I’m sure this special had its own appeal simply by having characters from these three awesome “Shonen Jump” universes interact with one another.
So if anyone saw the special I’d like to know how it turned out, because I didn’t look up any reviews or message board responses following its airing. Regardless, viewers in Japan got to see this epic hour of mashup-madness on April 7th at 9:00 in the morning. It actually aired in two parts, I imagine in similar fashion to the two “Toriko” and “One Piece” crossovers that aired the previous two years. The first part was titled “Run, Strongest Army! Toriko, Luffy, Goku”, while the second part was “History’s Strongest Collaboration vs. Glutton of the Sea”. I can only imagine the whole thing involved cooking matches, lots of gag scenes, and lots of battles. I think I read in another article that it involved a race too. Maybe it will get an English release someday, but I imagine it will be quite some time till then.
The tears just keep on coming
The second special that aired in 2013 was completely “One Piece”-oriented. Airing on August 24th at 9:00 p.m. on Fuji TV was “One Piece Episode of Merry: The Tale of One More Friend”, and as you can guess from the title it was focused on the Going Merry. The special had new animation that re-created moments from the series that focus on the Straw Hat crew’s first ship as a character, which seemed to mainly be within the Water 7/Enies Lobby arc. I didn’t see this special as well, but I know it included famous scenes such as Luffy and Usopp’s fight and the Merry’s final farewell. I imagine it’s one of those things that brings on the nostalgic tears. And of course “Episode of Merry” is definitely a follow-up to 2012’s “Episode of Nami” special.
Besides T.V., “One Piece” got some major exposure in 2013 thanks to digital distribution.
“One Piece” International Streaming News
Legal online streaming of movies and television has come a long way in the last few years, especially for anime. What was once designated as a negative force towards the anime industry has now revolutionized how new and old fans alike get their favorite shows each season. Streaming has essentially been gaining on television broadcast in terms of creating a major mainstream outlet that paves the way for healthy home video and manga sales outside of Japan. More importantly it’s given people all around the world a great way to watch and discover content. In that regard “One Piece” got a major boost in 2013.
Up until last year, legal streaming for “One Piece seemed, for a lack of a better term, limited. FUNimation had already been simulcasting the series since 2009, along with streaming earlier seasons, however their releases are still only available in America and Canada. While being able to watch episodes of “One Piece” with English subtitles almost immediately after they air in Japan is great, it’s a shame that for those several years the rest of the world was shut out. At the time I know that there were plenty of fans that were disappointed that they weren’t getting that same official digital release. In fact the only other official stream of “One Piece” that I’ve come across was from Boing, the television channel that had previously been airing “One Piece” in Spain. It looked like the typical stream television networks usually do, where they release episodes for their respective market as they air on T.V. But as far as I’m aware, you couldn’t find anything on the scale of what FUNimation has been up to.
A new anime streaming site debuts…
Thankfully that all changed last year, or at least “One Piece” started making those first steps towards truly worldwide distribution. In May 2013 Daisuki.net launched onto the online streaming scene, with the intent of giving fans around the world lots of anime directly from the Japanese production companies. Launched as a joint venture, the website is backed by Aniplex, Asatsu-DK, Dentsu, Sunrise, TMS Entertainment, Nihon Ad Systems, and Toei Animation. With Toei Animation involved, “One Piece” was launched on the site in July. However, I feel that “One Piece” was uploaded on this new platform with mixed results.
…and “One Piece” is right there.
I can’t complain about the anime becoming available in more regions. Daisuki’s stream of “One Piece” is available in the USA, Canada, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, which is great when you consider the website’s mission of bringing out content worldwide without region restrictions. Of course, that’s not entirely possible when different companies have exclusive rights to properties, but Daisuki has stated that they hope to expand into more regions, and I know it can take a long time for those types of matters to be sorted out. What’s problematic is the fact that they’re uploading “One Piece” so slowly. It’s been on the site since last summer, and yet as of this writing they’ve only uploaded the first 42 episodes. That’s kind of frustrating when you consider that the entire series has already been available online for years as fansubs. If they’re going to be releasing the first season at such a slow pace, I would at least like to see a simulcast as well, but Daisuki doesn’t even have that. Furthermore, “One Piece” on Daisuki only has English subtitles, despite the website’s advantage of making the series available in territories that use other languages. On top of that the video quality could be better.
While it’s a shame that Daisuki has yet to live up to my expectations, I’m at least happy that “One Piece” has another major venue. Even so, despite Daisuki’s underwhelming performance the later half of 2013 held even better news for online “One Piece” viewership. On November 2nd “One Piece” began simulcasting on Crunchyroll.com, starting at episode 619. Like FUNimation’s simulcast, it’s available for free right after it airs in Japan, while premium members of Crunchyroll get to watch episodes in HD. At the time of initial announcement only simulcast episodes were available, however it was mentioned that the earlier episodes would become available at a later date.
The original promo art from Crunchyroll’s announcement
And in a timely fashion Crunchyroll began to add catalog episodes recently. In early March this year they started adding the original episodes at a rate of 20-30 episodes per week. I have to say here that I was concerned about the anime’s initial performance on the website; every once in a while I check the show rankings on Crunchyroll and for the most part “One Piece” wasn’t really cracking even the top 10. That all changed once they started adding the first season. Now it’s almost always in the top five most popular anime on Crunchyroll. It makes sense; whoever was already a fan of “One Piece” was probably watching it on sites it had already been available on for years. Naturally the people who are most likely to watch it on a new site are new fans, and the beginning of the series seems like the most natural spot to get into it.
Crunchyroll’s release of “One Piece” is not only available in America and Canada, but also Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Latin American, with English as well as Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. Aside from the issue of being available in different territories, Crunchyroll’s deal is a step up in every way from what Daisuki is doing. And I have to say right here and now that the Crunchyroll news story is hands down my favorite “One Piece” news item of 2013. If this article was organized by rankings then this would be #1. Seriously, I saw this news right when it got uploaded online, at midnight when literally my birthday started. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything at the time, because I did a double-take when I saw that and I would’ve been spitting juice all over my laptop.
Well that’s all I’ll say on that matter. Next we have some “Strong World” news.
More “One Piece: Strong World” Releases
FUNimation’s boxart for the movie
By 2013 “Strong World” had already been out for a while, but it still had love to give. Specifically it finally came out in North America. FUNimation released the highly-anticipated movie on November 19th on DVD/Blu-Ray to the delight of many eager fans. I would’ve preferred that FUNimation go back to the beginning of the film series and just release them in numerical order, but hey “Strong World” was heavily demanded by fans and understandably so. From the way it was produced to the final product, “One Piece: Strong World” changed the way “One Piece” movies are done for the foreseeable future.
Around the same time of the North American release of “Strong World” Madman Entertainment announced they would be putting it out in Australia and New Zealand on February 19th 2014.
Someone came home happy
Besides the English version coming out in 2013, “Strong World” also made its way to Japanese television earlier in the year, on January 12th. Good times indeed.
“One Piece” Goes to the Aquariam
Seriously why wouldn’t you go to this?
As I’ve previously mentioned in this feature, fans in France get some pretty awesome “One Piece” stuff, and this is no exception. Seriously this promotion makes so much sense it’s not even funny.
During the French Easter holiday period (from April 15th to June 4th) the Aquariam de Paris held some pretty heavy “One Piece” promotional activities and items. At the aquariam’s cinema they showed off episodes and movies from the series, and even had “One Piece”-themed activities at the facility’s children workshops. On top of that you could buy “One Piece” products at the aquariam.
Honestly I haven’t been to an aquariam in ages but those places are super fun and so is “One Piece”. I mean that would be so epic that you’re just walking around seeing all these exotic underwater animals and then you got your favorite anime right there. What’s not to like? Plus “One Piece” is all about ocean traveling, so combining aquariams and “One Piece” makes perfect sense.
New Opening: “Hands Up”
Everyone raise your hands up to “Hands Up”
Like any long-running anime “One Piece” gets a new opening theme song sequence whenever a new season or story arc begins. I always consider it a sort-of “event” whenever one of these new openings debuts. It gets me hyped up to see the new people and places an upcoming arc will bring to the table, along with a catchy J-pop tune.
We’d have to wait a while for the next intro though. “We Go” had been playing along with the anime since October 2011, and while it’s a great theme to kick off the journey into the New World the Punk Hazard arc had already been in full in swing since early 2013. After two years it was about time for a new opening, and we got it on April 14th. “Hands Up” by Kota Shinzato debuted with episode 591, and it was certainly nice to get another happy-go-lucky pop song along with some new happy-go-lucky animation that showed off what to look forward to in 2013. I can’t really say anything else beyond that, other than that I listened to it a bunch of times later on.
What sucked is that we didn’t actually get “Hands Up” for the official simulcast. I don’t know the details of the situation but there must have been some licensing issues with that song. It’s not a huge loss, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. Hopefully FUNimation and Toei Animation can clear up whatever licensing issues exist when they’re ready to start dubbing the Punk Hazard episodes. Oh well. Next up I have something “nostalgic yet awful” to share with you.
AdultSwim.com Uploads the 4Kids Opening
Anyone remember this? Good times…
I don’t know exactly why I decided to give this one its own separate section. I could have just put it under the Toonami heading but I guess my sense of humor just won me over.
But basically Adult Swim decided to give long-time fans a little “treat” by putting up the original 4Kids theme song sequence on their video site. Now I’m sure some of you people reading this article don’t care about that, or maybe even resent it. But at this point it’s been so long since the 4Kids dub was even relevant, and FUNimation has pretty much cemented the anime’s good standing in the American market. I can’t help but laugh or smile whenever I see random pieces for the 4Kids dub here and there. Besides, I don’t think Toonami will ever even run any of those bastardized episodes. It would be kind of funny as an April Fools joke…maybe….
And with that I end Part 2 of our exciting “One Piece” journey throughout 2013. Come back soon for the third and final part, I saved some of the best news for last. And in the meantime feel free to leave comments and discuss what went down in 2013. What did you think of the different news items? Anything stick out to you, or was there something I may have left out? I’d love to hear all your thoughts.