@Demon:
Madman is the Australian anime licensor for… everything... they're like the AU's Top company, I've never even HEARD of another existing in Japan. They mostly work with American companies and don't produce their own dubs though. They just get our Dubs and put those on DVD and possibly get them aired on TV.
They have the One Piece license in AU right now, they publish the Viz Manga over there (it's the Viz Version verbatum, even uses Zolo) and they currently sell the 4kids Version of the Anime.
When FUNi got the uncut license, Madman were skeptical as to whether or not to pick up the uncut version of the series, so they decided to take the first Uncut release FUNi did (Movie 8) and sell that to see if sales would be good enough to get the rest of the series too.
Most/All of the US fans realized that companies don't respond to petitions or fans asking for stuff so much as they respond to MONEY. They make money on something, they sell more of it. So PRETTY MUCH every single US fan who bought Movie 8 did so for the express purpose of giving FUNimation money for One Piece, so they would know the series is profitable.
Australian fans apparently didn't get this concept, because Movie 8 sold horridly there and Madman decided One Piece wasn't worth picking up uncut.
However, not all American fans get the message either, because I've been seeing people go "Bleh, this DVD has a few episodes of Alabasta Scorpion Filler? NO THANK YOU SIR!!" and a good fine bunch of people are already swearing they wont buy the Boxed Set that has the filler between Alabasta and Skypea, so I guess we're all a little dumb on this fromt.
I see, so they basically act as the people that get our dubs in America to Australia as well as other licenses for manga and such. I always wondered how that worked. I figured it was something like that, but I just wanted to make sure. It's a real shame though that they won't consider trying it again, despite petitions.
And I agree completely with everything else you said. As I've said on here before, if you like a series enough to pay money every month or so for a 13 episode box set, you should be willing to go all the way. People are so eager to get to Water 7 and beyond and get other movies and specials, but how do they expect to get that far if they aren't willing to ensure that the license earns enough money for them to get to that point? It's naive if you ask me. Not to mention just outright stupid. I understand that people don't like fillers as much but come on.
I'm also quite certain Funi, even if they don't know what filler is, will at least include the Robin joining episode on the all filler disk, but even if they don't, I'll still be buying that set.
@Demon:
Listen to the Commentary on the Apis arc. They were talking about how much they liked Apis and wanted her to stay and join the crew.
I really don't think they know what's filler and what's not.
Oh god, I remember that commentary. These are the same guys who have no idea what is going to happen until they get that part of the license, so I have a feeling they don't read the manga or anything before hand, thus they wouldn't know what is filler and what is not.
@Darkstorm:
Well I wouldn't expect the voice actors to.
I can't remember, was Mike McFarland or anyone else important in that commentary?
Mike is in like every commentary, isn't he? He's the director after all. At least I think he's been in almost every one, and if not him it's one of the main writers for that episode.
@Demon:
I wonder, would you guys still dislike the voices had you not seen the Japanese version so much already?
I think a lot of people dislike FUNi's version simply because it's different. You've spent a lot of time listening to Mayumi Tanaka as Luffy so now, anybody but Tanaka can only be "Ok" at best to you. At least, that's what I think.
100% true. I quote a few imbeciles on my Youtube clips as epic proof of how idiotic some of these very people can be. You guys judge for yourself.
english version…so horrible eye twitch i thought people exaggerated when they said how bad it was. but this is just ridiculous.
Okay, this guy doesn't even know the difference between 4Kids and Funimation and immediately bashes the dub upon his first hearing it, basing his opinion of what people say about the 4Kids dub.
the voices suck so muchhh!!!!!! i like japanese more .. i watch english subbed..
too bad the english dub is a desaster. the french and german did an excelant job thou
There are quite a few more but I won't bore you. This one guy I was fighting with removed his comment after he realized his argument was stupid and made no sense, but he was trying to accuse them of pronouncing their names all wrong, like calling Luffy "lowffy" for example…
Anyway, the point of this was to show that, despite a good dub existing, people refuse to even try it and stick to their beloved Japanese dub like glue, and this applies to much more than just One Piece. I love the Japanese versions as well, but you have to be willing to accept something that isn't in Japanese.
Oh and I see no major issues with any of the Straw Hat's voices. The guy who is supposed to play Franky plays Ishin on Bleach, and after listening to him on Bleach, I am confident he will play a great Franky once we get to that point. It'd be cool if we could get some sort of hint at who will play Brook.
