Character Piece: Monkey D. Luffy (Part 1)

Hello everyone and welcome to a new segment called Character Piece, where I review and analyze the numerous different characters in One Piece. Today's subject is the main protagonist of the series:
Monkey D. Luffy.

Manga: Chapter 662 (SPOILERS!)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Want Straw Hats? Our heroes can be found each week in SJAlpha!

Con Piece: Flow with Anime Matsuri

Hey! Did you hear about the anime convention that was back in the The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center? It was a calling to be there between April 6th-8th  for all anime fans! Anime Matsuri!

Anime Matsuri housed a garden of cosplays and anime fans! There was even some One Piece appreciation among the fans, along with Funimation. Anime Matsuri kept gold with guest such as Flow, Mike Mcfarland, Luci Christian, Stephanie Young, Vic Mignogna, Clint Bickham and many more!

Onto the details of Anime Matsuri!

Manga: Chapter 661 (SPOILERS!)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Be cool like Brook! Read One Piece on SJAlpha!

Zenithwillrule Joins One Piece Blog

Hello everyone,

My name is Zenithwillrule and it is my pleasure to become a member of One Piece Blog. I would like to thank Mikey-san for accepting my application and Superneku for introducing me to this site.

My job will be to create video content for the site and I will also write articles once a week. I am currently working on a video series for the site called History Of One Piece and, while I can't reveal much about it yet, I can say that it is something that hasn't been done with One Piece before.

Once again, thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to creating great content for the site,

Zenith

Manga: Chapter 660 (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Party with elephants. They read their One Piece on SJAlpha!

Manga: Chapter 659 (SPOILERS!)

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

This is looking like a baaaaad situation, but new One Piece chapters from Shonen Jump Alpha
shall cure these terrible puns

One Piece Treasure Hunt at Anime Matsuri

Are you going to be at Anime Matsuri? Do you have a camera? Do you want prizes?

Then you are in luck! I will be conducting a One Piece Treasure Hunt at Anime Matsuri. The convention this year will be at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center in the Woodlands during the weekend of April 6th-8th.

I will be at the convention, if you spot me then make sure to ask for the treasure list. Once you have that list, go around the convention and look for the items on the grid. Once you find these items then you need to take a picture of them. Once you find five in a row or you blackout the grid then you need to contact me for your prize. There will be several items to look for such as an old school Luffy cosplayer or the first volume of One Piece.

Please note that I will have a limited amount of prizes so it will be first come, first serve. I will have prizes for people who get five in a row and blackout. If I run out of five in the row prizes then you will have to try to win the blackout prize.

The hunt will start on Saturday and end on Sunday at noon.  Moreover, any good pirate knows that rules can be bent. If you want to start sooner than feel free to contact me at OnePieceatATimeBlog(at)Gmail(dot)com to get your treasure list.

Happy Hunting!

Also, make sure to check out the One Piece Fan Panel that will be held at Anime Matsuri.

April Fools: 2012

I hope you all enjoyed our little April Fool’s Day prank. It was a little something that I had in my mind for the longest time that I thought was clever and funny.

In case you are not familiar with SOVA, I tried to explain it in this  article. I had always found it strange that when 4Kids lost the rights to dub Pokemon that the fans were up in arms, while One Piece didn't get any sort of fan reaction. I can understand why: the dub wasn't beloved like Pokemon’s. However, several of the voice actors from Pokemon were working on One Piece. You would think that they would be upset to hear that once again their favorite voice actors had lost another role.
With the five year anniversary of the Funimation dub coming up, I figured that this year would be the perfect year to do this prank. It would serve as a reminder that five years ago, the One Piece dub was infamous for having 'colorful' voices. Also, it would be funny to make people think that there were diehard One Piece fans who would want to have the old voices, accents and all, back in the dub as shown in this article.

I was inspired to take action upon seeing Adult Swim's Toonami prank. I have to give a big thanks to Tsukento and PassionTentacle for their involvement in this prank. I couldn't have done this without their help because of how last minute the prank was. They both captured the spirit of this prank as seen in one of our SOVA articles.

Happy Beloved April Fools!

Don’t Give It Up

 It's Vanilla Rice!

Don’t give it up, Luffy. Don’t give it up Zolo. Don’t give it up Nami. Don’t give it up, give it up, give it up, give it up…

Five Years of SOVA: One Piece

It seems like we all long for things from our past these days. With Cartoon Network airing Toonami during the Adult Swim block, pangs of nostalgia begin to stir within us as we relive those days from our youth. This year marks the fifth anniversary when FUNimation made the announcement that they had obtained the rights to One Piece, a little after 4Kids had announced they would not be dubbing any further episodes of the series.

Within those 5 years, FUNimation has turned what was once a charming and wise-cracking series into a serious series about friendship, swearing, bloody fights and some goofiness. We got music that sounds like it was made actual instruments instead of made by a professional with a synthesizer, Sanji lost his accent and traded his lollipop in to become a chain smoker. Luffy's Gum-Gum attack names now involve guns in some way as if to come across as "edgey" and "cool." The worst of it all is that FUNimation seems to have animated new footage over what 4Kids made and even edited some things! For example, Kaya is originally unable to use a sword again, but for some reason, FUNimation made it so that she died!

Probably the most noticeable things is that they didn't use the same voice actors. Instead, everyone sounds completely different. The new voice actors don't even try to sound like them. As I mentioned earlier, Sanji lost his accent and isn't even deep voiced anymore. Zoro sounds like Piccolo and Usopp sounds like Krillin from Dragon Ball Z. They don't sound unique at all!

I wrote this as I want to raise awareness of how long it's been since this has happened and felt I couldn't stay silent any longer. We have to get the original cast back and show FUNimation that that's not the One Piece we all know and love.

What is SOVA?

It has been a while but I guess it is about time to remind people what SOVA is.

SOVA is Save Our Voice Actors. It first started back when 4Kids lost the rights to Pokemon almost six years ago. That was a dark day when the many wonderful voice talent that worked on the Pokemon dub lost their beloved roles.

Then almost a year later, One Piece fans witness the same thing happen to their beloved dub. No more would they hear the wonderful voice of Veronica Taylor as Nico Robin, Jason Anthony Griffith as Usopp, Marc Diraison as Zolo or David Moo's wonderful rendition of Sanji. It was a sad day for One Piece anime fans all over.

That is where SOVA: One Piece comes in. Inspired but the successful SOVA campaign for Pokemon, we wish that FUNImation would bring back the wonderful original 4Kids cast to work on their current One Piece dub.

So raise up Original One Piece dub fans! If you want see your beloved voice actors back in their beloved roles then let your voice be heard!