Fun Fact: Toei originally gave FUNimation the rights to One Piece

[DBZAOTA482]

....though only verbally, nothing in written:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4579


Toei went with 4kids behind their backs at the last second because they offered a better deal plus they made Pokémon and YGO into massive hits (FUNi only had DBZ):

https://www.instagram.com/tarasandsvo/reel/C0k3jMTL88I/

Al Kahn was specifically interested in OP because he knew how popular it was in Japan, despite the staff's protests.

 

[Yoshi]

This makes me even more angry at them for this.

 

[Warmmedown]

The difference between Yugioh/Pokemon's Japanese content and One Piece's is huge. So I wonder if Toei had any idea that 4Kids would be censoring it to make it suitable for morning kids' cartoons.

Apparently quite a few people did become OP fans via the 4kids dub, so I guess it's not all bad. Maybe some of those people never would have seen One Piece if it wasn't on kids TV, in which case it's great (most other Anglosphere people who thought 4Kids was dumb just got into it later instead, as One Piece's popularity grew).

 

[Warmmedown]

"fuck Toei" tag, nice. Tags are an underutilised form of communication on here!

 

[Yoshi]

Toei Animation is worse than Studio Pierrot.