@Captain-Krupp This seems to be a trend with some anime. I know the likes of Sailor Moon wasn’t popular with its airings on other networks before Toonami. To a lesser extent Dragon Ball, from what I could tell it had good ratings before, just didn’t explode until Toonami reairings.
Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
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Yeah 4kids one piece most likely would’ve lasted a lot longer if the company as a whole didn’t sink
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@Blake-Bakes-Cakes Well they only dubbed One Piece still they could legally drop it.
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What? I don’t understand what you’re saying. I was saying it was successful enough they probably would’ve been able to continue dubbing one piece if they didn’t go bankrupt for unrelated reasons
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Ehh, while it wasn't successful enough for 4Kids to continue it, it was successful enough that Cartoon Network still wanted more of it... if that makes any sense. This was also way before 4Kids' bankruptcy too. 4Kids dropped One Piece as quickly as they could (they confirmed it in December 2006) with the license being in limbo until April 2007... well, at least that's when they announced that Funimation got it. IIRC, Cartoon Network's desire to continue airing One Piece is what lead to the license going to Funimation so quickly and making the transition seamless, at least in the US.
The 4Kids dub was not popular at ALL. Actually, from what I've seen, One Piece was pretty hated because of it. At school everyone loved Naruto... and One Piece was that weird and annoying show that looked bad and sounded bad. Online this was a similar sentiment too, unless you went to specific forums dedicated to the One Piece manga or the anime in Japanese. When the Funimation dub came out I was able to convince a few friends to watch and become fans of One Piece but overall the damage had already been done. It wasn't until about the mid-2010s when I started to see One Piece's reputation start turning around in the west.
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If 4Kids One Piece was succesful, they would never have dropped it in the first place. They didn’t go bankrupt until many years later.
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@MugiMikey this is true. I was around 5 or 6 when 4kids dub was airing and I remember keeping the station on for the theme song, and then I changed channels after the opening.
Great theme song tho
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@Kaiolino said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
If 4Kids One Piece was succesful, they would never have dropped it in the first place. They didn’t go bankrupt until many years later.
I think they dropped it because yeah, while the ratings were good the MERCH which they wanted to sell just wasnt going to happen with how sucky the dub was. That and they never wanted One Piece in the first place if that interview is to be believed. Oh and perhaps selling it back to Toei was the biggest profit they could get from it.
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The toys were shit looking, anyhow.
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@Captain-Krupp The package deal thing is a bunch of bs since the 4Kids rep that said that at the time acted like all Shonen Jump titles are given to licensors by the same company, when they were dealing with Toei who didn't have the license to Shaman King nor a package deal with it and One Piece cause it wasn't their show. They naturally just went to a company they thought would make it a hit and it didn't pan out that way.
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I know and I was going to say that too, but since everyone here does believe it I just didnt fight it. Thank god you mentioned that's bullshit. Thank god indeed. I know this sounds like sarcasm but it isnt.
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https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-03-16/4kids-fiscal-2005-results
"Most of the shortfall was blamed on decreased revenue from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokémon, and was offset by increased revenue from Winx Club, One Piece and Cabbage Patch Kids. In regards to Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kahn stated that the decrease is sales was largely due a slower than expected transition to Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. While sales of older Yu-Gi-Oh! products have been tapering off, sales of GX products have been doing very well, but the products have been very slow to get to market."
Seems like One Piece was helping out during a rough period and the first set of toys were in December.
"Heading forwards, it was stressed that 4Kids wants to focus on properties it owns, as opposed to properties that it licenses. Fully owned properties and co-owned properties do not expire or have restrictions placed on them by licensors. New properties that 4Kids is committed to include "Viva Pinata," a game and TV series being produced with Microsoft, and Chaotic, a card game from Denmark for which 4Kids has purchased all rights."
Maybe wanting to own the properties/have a bigger cuts made they want to drop other than the BIGGEST earners.
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Wow so One Piece indeed was at least somewhat profitable and SO NOW My new theory they sold it back to Toei for cash, they sold Winx Club and Ninja Turtles despite those printing them money and ratings, Nickelodeon and Viacom paid them quite a penny for them! I see! This is shocking. But this actually makes more sense than Toei yanking it from them. Because later they gave 4kids their crown jewel: DRAGON BALL. And it was actually a good decision to do so! The ratings for Dragon Ball Z Kai on The CW are higher than just about ANYTHING The CW airs at all nowadays.
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That article was about information a full year before they decided to drop it, so I wouldn't take that as evidence that the dub was profitable. The show getting removed from their block and then outright canned a year later is all we need to know it wasn't the hit they were expecting. The merchandise was in clearance sections everywhere and its reputation was dogwater.
As for Dragon Ball Kai, I don't know the exact logistics behind it, but they didn't license the show in the same kind of way they did with other anime they got. It was the Funimation dub just with further edits. It's more like they were granted the rights to air Funimation's work... It was a special case kind of thing.
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That's true. And its a damn shame. Because despite the ridiculous edits it DBZKai was a hit and I bet any other anime they got from other companies and edited down to The CW's standards could have been hits too.
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Maybe, it just depends on how the dub's foundation is handled. For example, even if 4Kids never made ANY visual edits to One Piece, I bet most people still wouldn't like it due to the voice cast, the score replacement, or even script changes. That may have worked for Dragon Ball Z on Toonami a decade beforehand, but in 2010 things were different and Kai, at its core, was still dubbed with respect compared to everything else on 4Kids' block.
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That's exactly what I meant. I meant 4kids should have just asked other companies for their anime like they did with Dragon Ball Kai and edited it a bit for for the audience of kids. I know Funimation doesnt really have any kids anime anymore and pretty much didnt at the time of Toonzai but there were talks of VIZ and even other companies sharing their anime with 4kids. But the lawsuit and blah blah blah.
I cant help but wonder if they had hung up for Buu Kai and most importantly SUPER. If Only.
To make this about One Piece again, luckily Jason de Marco gave One Piece another chance on Toonami on Adult Swim even if by this point ratings are so low it doesnt really matter. But still I love it still makes the top 150 premieres on cable EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
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@MugiMikey said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
That article was about information a full year before they decided to drop it, so I wouldn't take that as evidence that the dub was profitable.
No, the article is dated March 16 2006. 4Kids stop dubbing/drop license on December 6th 2006, close to 9 months later.
4Kids corporate plan was to focus on shows that they had more direct control of/they were producing.
The only real anime 4Kids continue to focus on that wasn't there's was Yugioh because it was too big to drop. Big enough they went to court for this.
The Japanese licensors allege that 4Kids has been fraudulently hiding the income and deducting the fees they are contractually obligated to pay.
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Then I guess the truth is more complex than just One Piece flopped. But no matter what, dropping it was the best decision for everyone involved so I am super glad they did it. At the time there was a joke that 4kids saw Franky joined when Robin grabbed his balls and 4kids went Fuck This Shit I'm Out.
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Y’all think they’ll cast a trans person for Yamato?
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Well they certainly are casting a lot of trans people. I am hoping for Casey Mongillo. They had a role where they voiced a soft spoken kid like Shinji from Evangelion but I know they could rock a bombastic character like Yamato.
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@JustaGuy said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
@MugiMikey said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
That article was about information a full year before they decided to drop it, so I wouldn't take that as evidence that the dub was profitable.
No, the article is dated March 16 2006. 4Kids stop dubbing/drop license on December 6th 2006, close to 9 months later.
That's when the article was published, yeah, but the article is about their 2005 results. Which is at least a full year before they decided to drop the anime.
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Wow this is like seeing a Yu Gi Oh Duel. NOT SO FAST BUCKO!
EDIT: Also I wanted to clarify something about the current ratings One Piece is getting on Adult Swim. While they arent great at first glance, there ARE many factors one needs to account for.
1-The ratings are the bare minimum reported but are actually much higher.
2-The ratings for One Piece actually are the highest rated things Adult Swim has to offer. Outside of Rick and Morty.
3-The ratings for One Piece actually vastly outdo crap like Cocomelon on daytime CN which only gets like 50k people watching anyway. -
I wonder why dont they put a new One Piece episode each week day. The ratings of just about everything are so low they could do gangbusters no matter what. And why stop there? Why not three episodes each saturday so we go from One Piece to Eight Piece. This could be great but they dont realize. Steven Bombs did great for CN and they did wonders for DBZ? Why not try that.
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Nobody gives a shit about the middle of the night ratings of a cable channel except weird nostalgic nerds who think the Toonami brand is the key to success.
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You say that but not even Daytime CN brings ratings anymore. I just said they get shit like 50k AT BEST. If anything it's at least a step up.
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Do y’all think we’ll get a new set this Tuesday?
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I know this doesnt go here but I dont know where else to put it. The Saint Seiya movie made Toei put the 80's anime on Youtube in Latin America. I suspect they might try something like that for the Netflix series with One Piece. One good thing about all these adaptations is that for better or worse they promote the original anime and manga.
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@Captain-Krupp said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
Steven Bombs did great for CN and they did wonders for DBZ? Why not try that.
It's a bit different with One Piece now though. Steven Universe was Cartoon Network's own show and it was the first and only place you could get new episodes. It worked for Dragon Ball Z because episodes usually aired on CN before they were released on very expensive 3 or 4 episode DVD singles, and there definitely weren't easy ways you could binge-watch it at the time. On top of that, watching TV was a normal thing back then and DBZ was helping lead the anime boom in the US.
One Piece on Adult Swim has always been airing a catalog of dubbed episodes that have existed on DVD for years, and subtitled Japanese version episodes have existed for even longer than that online in easy-to-binge ways. I'm pretty sure more people stream TV shows, especially super long ones like One Piece, rather than tuning in for cable these days.
Toonami is now just supplemental to the anime industry as a whole and retains its relevance through legacy. It is no longer the pioneer it once was.
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I didnt mean Toonami helps One Piece, at this point One Piece is a major bone fide hit thanks to streaming. I meant One Piece help Toonami, no ADULT SWIM in General. It's obvious at this point who needs who. And I am not saying this as some nerd who thinks tv is the way to go. Actually you can replace One Piece with anything and still get ratings. At this point the Watch Paint Dry Channel could be a bonafide hit now with how low ratings go.
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https://gamerant.com/one-piece-went-from-flop-to-hit-in-america/
This article sums up everything you guys discussed -
That article skipped all the heartache we went through, like when the simulcast episode got leaked and it seemed the simulcast would be cancelled entirely.
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Going to Japan this week. Beside the Mugiwara stores, anyone have anything OP-related to recommend?
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I know I was the one who sorta started this offtopic ness the thread has now but what does that have to do with Funimation or the DVD's they sell? I know by now Funimation doesnt even exist anymore but still.
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Oh, I don’t know. Do we really care that much?
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Not me. I love talking about stuff here. Oh well as long as its One Piece related its okay I guess.
EDIT: These are 4kids rating on the Fox Box. Boy they sure went DOWN!
FOX* (4Kids TV) 1.7/8 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 1.8/8 (10/9/05)
*2005-2006 Season Premiere WeekendFOX (4Kids TV) 1.3/6 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 1.1/5 (17/9/05)FOX (4Kids TV) 1.1/5 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 1.0/4 (24/9/05)FOX (4Kids TV) 1.4/6 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 1.1/5 (1/10/05)FOX (4Kids TV) 1.4/7 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 1.3/6 (8/10/05)FOX (4Kids TV) 1.3/6 Avg. (8a-12n)
One Piece 0.6/3 (15/10/05) -
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@Zephray Unfortunately, it's all sub-only. Also, all these episodes were briefly uploaded there several weeks ago, but then taken down. Guess someone jumped the gun lol.
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Ah. Hadn’t realized. Bummer. Also a bummer that we didn’t get a new set today, on that three-week mark. Here’s hoping the next two come out a week apart to celebrate the flashback.
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@Zephray Will the Oden flashback be one set or two sets?
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It’ll be two sets.
Funimation app hasn’t updated yet either, harumph.
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The first set only has the first three or so episodes of the flashback on it. The second set ends right at the end of the flashback, assuming their usual 12 episodes.
But the first set also has the first Ishitani episode. :D …which is why I’m so hyped for it and definitely bummed it didn’t drop today. I’ll be in Japan when it drops, likely next Tuesday. O.O
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The most recent set is live on FUNi today. I'm watching it now on my FUNi TV app. Happy to report no audio issues this time around.
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Literally an hour after I posted it updated, what the heck is their schedule?
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For some weird reason the premiere episode for One Piece was the highest thing on Toonami, with MHA not being on the list despite the description noting its ratings.
46 ONE PIECE ADULT SWIM 1:30 AM 30 0.07 144.000
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I've just this second finished Ep. 951. I purposely rationed that last set. I'm ready for the next voyage!
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@Luffy_80 What i would prefer is they release the next two sets together to cover the flashbacks and then release the next set in July
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@AceLuffy4ever that's a good idea.
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@AceLuffy4ever said in Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ):
@Luffy_80 What i would prefer is they release the next two sets together to cover the flashbacks and then release the next set in July
I been sayin’.
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Just finished the most recent set. I'm so excited to re-experience the Oden flashback in English.
