Live Action Anime

American manga publisher Viz media announced recently that they plan to speed up the release of the hit manga One Piece.  One Piece was created in 1997 by Manga-ka Eiichiro Oda.  As of July 2009, the manga is still running, comprising 54 Tankobon volumes so far and has spawned an anime series, totaling more than 400 episodes (still running) and 9 theatrical features, with a tenth due out later this year.

Here in the US, Viz has been releasing Tankobon volumes of the english translation, as well as running it in the monthly Shonen Jump along with other hits such as Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragonball Z, and Yu Gi Oh. The anime was originally dubbed by 4kids entertainment, heavily edited, but after much fan criticism and low sales/ratings was dropped and picked up by heavy-hitter studio Funimation. Funimation has since completely redubbed One Piece unedited and began releasing it on DVD in 13 episode “quarter season” box sets.

This, however, leaves much ground to be covered. As of June 2009 Viz has only released 21 Tankobon Volumes (22 and 23 releasing in September and December 2009, respectively). However, akin to the Naruto speed-up, in which Viz released 3 volumes of Naruto manga during the final 4 months of 2007, Viz has announced that starting January 2010 they will be releasing 5 Volumes of One Piece manga per month through June 2010. This will essentially jump the release from 23 volumes to 53 volumes in just half a year, putting them only a few volumes apart from the Japanese release.  Viz has stated that this is “the most ambitious manga speed up we’ve ever done.”

Personal opinion: Plans like this seem to be trying to combat the online “scanlation” craze, wherein fans of the Japanese manga will translate the volumes unavailable in the US and post them online for others to read in English.  Many companies in anime and manga are taking similar steps to bring the industry out of a slump that seems perpetrated by fans that can’t wait for english releases of manga volumes and DVDs that are readily available in Japan.

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 ~ Stryyder