We’ll see if anything happens related to One Piece. Not to get political, but I would hope there would be at least a little proof in order for them to fire him. And if he is guilty of any of these things, that’s a real shame.
Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
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I hate to go against the grain here, but unless evidence actually comes out about him doing something illegal or overly creepy, I don't think he should lose his job. Being overly affectionate is yards different from being molested, I'm sorry. These Metoo crusades have gotten way out of hand, with cases being made with shakey evidence and fueled by personal vendettas. Seriously, go after the real bad guys, like Weinstein and Cosby, and don't mar the message by turning it into some sort of smear campaign (unfortunately I think we're well past that tipping point, I'm afraid). Being creepy, social awkward, or having unpopular beliefs, though not ideal, should not get you fired or ruined. At some point you gotta separate the art from the artist, and just let it go.
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My one addendum to what I said earlier is that if rumors have been occurring for literally years among different people, there’s probably something to them—and hopefully proof to back at least one or two of them.
It’s all a shame. I loved the dubbed songs he sang for OP, and I’ve been excited to hear him more as Sabo.
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Oh, hey. I spent like two minutes looking for evidence and found plenty of pictures of him kissing underage girls without their knowledge beforehand. That’s pretty gross, though who knows if that’s enough to get him fired and blacklisted.
I hate to go against the grain here, but unless evidence actually comes out about him doing something illegal or overly creepy, I don't think he should lose his job.
Depends on what you personally consider "overly creepy." Him kissing underage girls–total strangers--on the cheek without clearing it with them beforehand, well, that probably qualifies as "overly creepy." Whether he should be blacklisted from a career he's spent decades in is another story; a punishment needs to fit the crime, and it's not up to us fans to decide if he's done enough creepy shit to get him blacklisted. Ultimately, that's the job or judges or the private company (but of course, the fans can pressure the private company to get what they want). This stuff is all more complicated than Twitter gives it credit for. But boiled down, if he did something bad, he should probably be punished for it somehow (whether that means no more invites to conventions or being totally blacklisted is up to people above my paygrade, so to speak).
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Special is out today. Anyone watch it yet?
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Special is out today. Anyone watch it yet?
Probably won't buy it till episode of sabo comes out and just do a binge watch.
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I’m more excited for Sabo, but looking forward to watching this tonight. It’ll feel good to watch dubbed OP again. Never though the hiatus would last over a year.
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My copy just came. Time to watch!!!
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
No voice replacements in this release. This was clearly dubbed before Ed Blaylock passed away. Julie Erickson is Tsuru, John Swasey reprises Brandnew, and they brought John Gremillion in to say a couple of words as Mihawk. lol
The special was directed by Joel McDonald.
New voices for characters introduced in the special:
World - Greg Carson
Byojack - J. Paul Slavens
Nightin - Judy Keith
Sebastian - Brian Barber
Gairam - Alan AyoPresentation notes: The footage was left as-is. The Japanese logo was left in, as was all Japanese text on screen. Only the ending credits were replaced with English text. I wonder why they aren't more consistent with this stuff. Maybe the specials and movies have different rules. shrug
No extras of any kind.
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Depends on what you personally consider "overly creepy." Him kissing underage girls–total strangers--on the cheek without clearing it with them beforehand, well, that probably qualifies as "overly creepy." Whether he should be blacklisted from a career he's spent decades in is another story; a punishment needs to fit the crime, and it's not up to us fans to decide if he's done enough creepy shit to get him blacklisted. Ultimately, that's the job or judges or the private company (but of course, the fans can pressure the private company to get what they want). This stuff is all more complicated than Twitter gives it credit for. But boiled down, if he did something bad, he should probably be punished for it somehow (whether that means no more invites to conventions or being totally blacklisted is up to people above my paygrade, so to speak).
Hard to say though if they really did consent or not though, he does have a lot of younger fans who were and still are crazy about him because of characters he's voiced. But I digress, I don't want to get too far off topic here.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Presentation notes: The footage was left as-is. The Japanese logo was left in, as was all Japanese text on screen. Only the ending credits were replaced with English text. I wonder why they aren't more consistent with this stuff. Maybe the specials and movies have different rules. shrug
No extras of any kind.
Was the logo unchanged for Film Gold's special, I can't remember off hand now.
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Watched it. Meh on all fronts. I've never seen this special before, but I liked it less than Nebulandia and certainly Heart of Gold, which I think is the best special so far. It just feels all to typical/standard and therefore boring. Some B-characters get kidnapped and Luffy has to fight through three rounds of generic enemies to get them back–but of course, only after getting easily beaten once or twice by the boss. Nothing too different really happened here, and the overall plot (let's kidnap a shichibukai and blow up HQ maybe eventually) was half-baked and underwhelming. They tried to add Buggy, Mihawk, Hancock, Perona, and a sympathetic (?) yet shallow villain to the mix to liven it up, but most of those feel tacked-on. Buggy doesn't do much; MiHawk certainly doesn't. It was nice to have them there, though--better than just Luffy and Hancock.
And I can better articulate why Joel suffers as director. Many of the lines feel like first takes; I'm willing to bet he didn't ask his actors to try again very often. This is fine for veterans like Colleen, but it suffers with some of the newer cast members, and there isn't always quite enough (or the right) emotion behind line deliveries; I would've pushed many of these actors for more emotion (god, I wish I could direct anime). I was also under-enthused by World's brother's performance--it felt like he was trying to focus on reading a lot of dialogue quickly rather than giving a performance. Needed more practice and takes to help that actor get it right (might not be his fault as much as Joel's for not giving him enough takes to get down the lines). The main problem with Joel is that he doesn't push the actors to convey enough emotion; I never feel gripped or emotional about episodes/movies he directs. I'd say I'm happy he's gone and Mike is replacing him, but it's probably because he's gone that Funimation is too understaffed to make more OP. And certainly I'd rather than Joel-directed OP than none at all...
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Was the logo unchanged for Film Gold's special, I can't remember off hand now.
I think it was changed. That's why I was surprised to see blue here.
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I'd make a joke about about how they cant even edit the video because they are so busy with other stuff but this place is just too sad already…
...I made myself sad.
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I mean, aren't the trailers for March usually out around now? Maybe they're too busy for those, too. I'm hoping a new voice will be in the Sabo trailer to tie us over.
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Man have not been on here in a minute and I've missed so much. WTH is going on at Funimation? It sounds like things are going down and they was on top for awhile.
And what's the reasoning for this hiatus? Has Patrick left Funi? So many questions then this stuff with Vic man first Scott now this I cannot. I hope we get some new episodes soon -
Man have not been on here in a minute and I've missed so much. WTH is going on at Funimation? It sounds like things are going down and they was on top for awhile.
And what's the reasoning for this hiatus? Has Patrick left Funi? So many questions then this stuff with Vic man first Scott now this I cannot. I hope we get some new episodes soonWell, Funimation is still top dog when it come to the industry, if that's what your talking about, but in regards to One Piece,we've been put into a strange standstill for some reason. Despite the entirety of Punk Hazard being (seeming) dubbed for at least over a year, there's been no word on any releases. We've got some TV specials coming out, but similarly, they were sitting in backlog and should have been released a long time ago because they were dubbed in 2016 or 17.
As we've been discussing for a while now, there's numerous reasons why we think this is happening:
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Funimation's simul-dub campaign has drained time and resources for regulars in the One Piece cast, and has effectively put the show on the back-burner.
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The sets have not been selling as well as they used to, and due to the high costs of licensing One Piece from Toei, there may be some financial issues on licensing new episodes.
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Toei is big into TV deals, and has always wanted One Piece to have a TV deal stateside. Things were good when it was on Toonami, but now that's it's off the block and no other network wants it, it may be throwing a wrench into licensing further episodes as well.
All just theories, but there is evidence to support all claims. We'll just have to see what happens by this summer. If there's no word on a Punk Hazard release by then, it's time to sound the alarms.
As for Partrick, he hasn't left Funimation, he was just criticizing the stressful environment simul-dubbing has created. For Vic, no one knows what's going to happen with him yet.
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Woah that's alot man we've come so far with OP for them to drop it now. I hope they can figure out something why dont they try to.get it back on toonami or get a streaming deal with Netflix?
As for the simi-dub situation I can understand. I'm sure the deadlines for the scripts and stuff is ridiculous. I hope Patrick isn't recast for Franky. Man I'm just gonna remain positive though. -
Why not simuldub OP? Then at least the property would be somewhere besides DVD and they could make money off it that way.
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I hope something positive comes up soon, would be ashamed to see this dub go the way of Toriko
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I really doubt One Piece will go unlicensed. In fact (And Im pretty sorry for the My Uncle Works At Nintendo nature of the rumor) what I feel will happen is that Funimation could lose One Piece to a streaming Service like Funimation lost Neon Genesis Evangelion to Netflix. I REALLY doubt Toei would give up on its biggest title getting a dub.
I feel this might happen because it turns out Toei will put One Piece on a Streaming Service on Latin America and Brazil (Which is part of Latin America but gets its own dub) I think this could be the reason for all the delays and secrecy.
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Why not simuldub OP? Then at least the property would be somewhere besides DVD and they could make money off it that way.
Funimation is probably on board with it, since didn't Mike or one of the brand managers talk about wanting to do one on the one piece podcast a while back?
It probably all boils down to Toei not wanting to play ball. It’s not like a simul-dub can’t be done, because there’s actually one going on right now in South Korea. They’ve aired the latest episode just two weeks after it does in Japan since 2016. The thing the Koreans have that we don't have…. a TV deal.
The fact of matter is, Toei is living in the past when it comes to flagship titles like Dragon Ball and One Piece. They think that the only way to justify licensing out these properties are to have them on TV and collect revenue from advertisers and broadcasters - get exposure to the widest audience possible.
It's why they are still passing out fliers like these at licensing expos. Subscription-based services like FunimationNow or VRV subscriptions (where an OP simul-dub would no doubt show up) are peanuts for Toei. They're for niche audiences and they don't bring in any real ad $$. That’s not what Toei’s looking for. The only reason we get the simul-cast of the sub on crunchyroll and FunimationNow is probably because Toei thinks that they are doing something nice for the niche fanbase who wants to watch the show in that format. That and to stop piracy (but that still didn't stop them from putting a legal subbed version of Dragon Ball Super up until it was half-way over and everyone and their grandma had already pirated it, so who know what they actually care or think about in that department). The dubbed and localized version, though, is something that should go out to the masses, in their eyes.
Also, Toei might feel like turning solely to streaming or subscription-based service is still too risky a prospect - and they wouldn’t be wrong about that, actually. Just take a look at the climate in the last 6-7 years. Viz's Neon Alley went belly-up. Amazon's anime streaming service virtually crashed and burned. Daisuke was a bust. Even the grand Funimation-crunchyroll marriage turned into divorce into just a few years. So, to a certain degree, their rationale does make a bit of sense. At least now they are experimenting with Netflix, since they recently added a bunch of old shows and OP episodes (in Japan only only), and added that new Saint Seyia show, but even that doesn’t bring in precious ad revenue like a traditional broadcaster would. So I don’t expect it to go anywhere internationally-speaking in the near future, unless what Captain Krupp says is true about the alleged Latin American redub going directly to streaming is true.
Would you say Toei is being greedy, and that having their property show up on a niche streaming service would be better than nothing? Are they off-base by thinking no-one would watch dubbed One Piece on FunimationNow or Netflix? I would say yes, but tell that to the folks at Toei. They view One Piece as one of their jewel-in-the-crown titles, and selling it off to small-time, risky streaming or subscription-based service for peanuts does not make good business sense for them. They want to go big or go home. Let’s just hope, for our sakes, they don’t decide to pack up and go home with dubbed One Piece.
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Thanks for the trust pal. I really didnt want to say it because I thought I would be laughed at, even I dont really believe One Piece will go to Netflix but Toei DID promise that we would see One Piece dubbed online in Latin America and Brazil and if that's indeed true it could be possible…But nah.
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All that is conjecture, but probably mostly decent conjecture. I doubt Toei isn’t willing to give Funi more episodes though. Probably Funi is just too busy with shitty cheap simuldubs and/or doesn’t want to shell out the cash since the DVDs make little money (or so we assume; the collections sell decently, don’t they?).
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I think releasing the specials shows they haven’t given up on the property.
Isn’t anyone going to ask them at conventions or on twitter what’s going on?
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We know they havent given up. This special was dubbed way back when Sengoku's first VA was still alive. Its Toei. Funi probably have dibs on the Stampede movie too but for some reason is giving Funi a hard time actually giving the go ahead to release the episodes.
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Was the logo unchanged for Film Gold's special, I can't remember off hand now.
Heart of Gold's logo was apparently left as-is, as it's the blue version and the Japanese characters for One Piece and the special's name are there (while the cover art had the Japanese text from the logo removed). Apparently the pointless logo changes are a thing of the past, for the TV specials at least.
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All that is conjecture, but probably mostly decent conjecture. I doubt Toei isn’t willing to give Funi more episodes though. Probably Funi is just too busy with shitty cheap simuldubs and/or doesn’t want to shell out the cash since the DVDs make little money (or so we assume; the collections sell decently, don’t they?).
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I think releasing the specials shows they haven’t given up on the property.
True, some of what I said is conjecture, but I've kept up on Toei's International dealings for a while now, and I can safely say they are quite stubborn and unbending when it comes to contracts and licensing costs. In Italy, for example, the company that licenses the show over there has come out and said that they’ve had trouble getting new episodes due to high licensing costs and failing to compromise with Toei. That is despite the fact they have a TV deal and the show is still immensely popular there. I went to Pisa last year, and without even flipping the channel, the first thing I saw was a charity concert where they were singing One Piece’s Italian theme song. It was really cool. But the point is, popularity and fanbases don’t amount much Toei in the grand scheme of things, only sales figures and quotas do. And apparently their expectations are set just way too high for many international distributors.
The specials are definitely a good sign that Funimation is still committed, to some extent, but the thing that worries me is why they were just sitting in the vaults for so long. It almost feels like they were just contractually obligated to release them after a certain amount of time. The fact that they’re sitting on Punk Hazard for so long is weird too. These things could mean nothing, but usually stuff like this and long radio silences are causes for concern. It'll be a year in May since the last Voyage, that's a long time. And as you said, there's no doubt simul-dubbing is screwing up Funimation's priorities.
With that said, I don't want to sound like a gloomy gus, or turn into Romanmack for that matter, but I just want to temper our expectations a bit in the off-chance that Toei pulls the plug on the series (at least for a while). I think future movies like Stampede will be ok though, in any event, since the latest crop of movies have seemed to do well at the box office and on DVD. Hopefully I’m wrong and just need to be more positive.
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I worry about taking the blame off of Funi here. I really think they're just too busy. Pricing has never been a problem before, and I'm not surprised Toei wanted more money in Italy, where it's more popular.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
We also knew the music rights for this arc are tricky, which would explain why they had enough rights to dub the content but not enough to release it. I think maybe that slowed them down and the simuldubs really stopped the momentum.
It’s anyone’s guess. I wish the company was more responsive, but maybe someone can ask directly Colleen or mike on Twitter to see if they respond.
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Well, what I can tell you, is that if FUNi reads the comments in their Facebook and Twitter posts, every One Piece-related thing they post gets a lot of comments like, "When are we getting more dubbed episodes? Where's Punk Hazard??"
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I wish the company was more responsive, but maybe someone can ask directly Colleen or mike on Twitter to see if they respond.
They won't. You aren’t the first person to think of something like that…
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So they just refuse to answer anything… Well, the most we can do is keep reminding them it's wanted.
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Smh they should at least release some type of statement to clarify a few things and to put people minds at ease or give a solid reason for the delay and hiatus even if it is a PC response, it's better than nothing
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Not exactly OP news but it could shake up Funimation depending on who replaces the President:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-02-01/variety-funimation-founder-gen-fukunaga-steps-down-as-gm/.142890 -
All these shake ups down inspire me with confidence that we’ll get more dubbed OP anytime soon. I’m not counting on it coming next month, though I pray I’m wrong. This hiatus is very frustrating.
Had a dream the other night that Nebulandia was on the solicits for this coming month. Hah.
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Had a dream the other night that Nebulandia was on the solicits for this coming month. Hah.
I mean at this point, I kinda expect to get Nebulandia, Episode of East Blue, and Skypiea before Season 10 lol but at least it would be something
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@Elektrik:
I mean at this point, I kinda expect to get Nebulandia, Episode of East Blue, and Skypiea before Season 10 lol but at least it would be something
Ugh. I'll take anything, but I really wish they'd make their priorities something other than those two recaps. I'm down for the Sabo recap since it's new material to the dub, but East Blue and Skypeia are pretty bad. Maybe Episode of Nami would be fine to do, since most folks agree that's the best recap. Maybe now's a good time to go back and do the older movies? Dunno how much effort they're putting into these or what the episode hold-up is.
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OPP doesn't bother to try asking them on their show? Boo.
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Maybe Episode of Nami would be fine to do, since most folks agree that's the best recap. Maybe now's a good time to go back and do the older movies?
I almost want Episode of Nami and Baron Omatsuri more than Season 10 honestly. All the old movies would be awesome to have dubbed. Might as well get Episode of Merry and Luffy to complete the set too
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@Elektrik:
I almost want Episode of Nami and Baron Omatsuri more than Season 10 honestly. All the old movies would be awesome to have dubbed. Might as well get Episode of Merry and Luffy to complete the set too
Hm. For me:
1. Movie 6
2. Movie 4
3. Any specials with original stories
4. Movie 2
5. Movies 7/5
6. All other movies#2 & #3 can duke it out for me; I haven't seen any of the original specials besides what's been dubbed and Nebulandia. So I'd probably like to see something new more than movie four again. Dunno.
But season ten takes priority for me over all else.
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I have some sort of tangentially related news. Remember how I said Gold and Stampede's dubs were going to be based on the Funimation version? I was wrong. They are apparently based on the Japanese versions so hard it hurts. Like the attacks and terms are kept to a depressing degree. Like Gomu Gomu no Pistoru, Diaburu Jamburu and so on.
This on top of being horridly awful, puts the whole Funimation will license more One Piece into question again.
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I have some sort of tangentially related news. Remember how I said Gold and Stampede's dubs were going to be based on the Funimation version? I was wrong. They are apparently based on the Japanese versions so hard it hurts. Like the attacks and terms are kept to a depressing degree. Like Gomu Gomu no Pistoru, Diaburu Jamburu and so on.
This on top of being horridly awful, puts the whole Funimation will license more One Piece into question again.
So are you saying that if it is dubbed they will be pronounced in that same manner if so that is just awful
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I have some sort of tangentially related news. Remember how I said Gold and Stampede's dubs were going to be based on the Funimation version? I was wrong. They are apparently based on the Japanese versions so hard it hurts. Like the attacks and terms are kept to a depressing degree. Like Gomu Gomu no Pistoru, Diaburu Jamburu and so on.
This on top of being horridly awful, puts the whole Funimation will license more One Piece into question again.
I don't know what you're trying to tell us here.
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Oops! That's me sucking at explanations again! What I meant is that if Funimation provided the footage for our dubs of future movies that could mean Funimation would be retaining the One Piece license in the USA. I know its an insane leap of Logic but it made a least a little sense to me.
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Well, what I can tell you, is that if FUNi reads the comments in their Facebook and Twitter posts, every One Piece-related thing they post gets a lot of comments like, "When are we getting more dubbed episodes? Where's Punk Hazard??"
I tweeted at few times at the new funi one piece twitter account, but I was the only one doing it so I stopped bothering with it.
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This is somewhat One Piece dub related and It's not good…
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I wonder if Funimation will either redub the songs Vic Mignogna did or just drop the dub songs from the seasons that have them.
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This is somewhat One Piece dub related and It's not good…
I say its good, Vic shouldn't be on One Piece after all this recast Sabo.
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They probably won't go back and redub of the older song at this point. It's going to be interesting to see if they are going to redub his roles for Broly(Dragon Ball Super: Broly) and Rohan (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, which this is airing on Toonami currently.) for their bluray releases.
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I say its good, Vic shouldn't be on One Piece after all this recast Sabo.
I agree. At this point he shouldn't be involved with the series.
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Maybe the long delay was a blessing in disguise.
Think of how awful it would have been if we were in the middle of Dressrosa right now.
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Amen. It truly was.
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This whole thing with Vic has gotten ridiculous but that's a topic for another time.
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Maybe the long delay was a blessing in disguise.
Think of how awful it would have been if we were in the middle of Dressrosa right now.
Totally agree. Like I said before its going to be interesting to see if both Funimation and Viz are going to redub his current characters that he voices for things like the Dragon Ball Super Broly and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
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It official now Vic is done for. It's crazy how many Funimation VA has come forward. I just hope they are truly coming forward and not just tryna throw him under the bus. As for vic I have no sympathy for him
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Episode of Sabo has ended up with the worst timing. The thing's only six weeks away, it wouldn't surprise me if they've begun manufacturing the discs already. As a reminder, Mignogna wasn't just Sabo and a theme song singer, he was also Captain Nezumi (Arlong Park arc) and Wetton (Rainbow Mist arc). Obviously they could just replace his songs with the Japanese versions if need be, although I don't expect Funi to redub his old stuff anyway.