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Very few anime series can lay claim to running for over 1,000 episodes. Even fewer have received English dubs that have reached that point: “Pokemon: The Series” (dubbed continually since 1998) and now ”One Piece.”

“One Piece” follows Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates as they travel the high seas in search of the titular treasure that will transform him into King of the Pirates. But the anime’s journey to a faithful English dub was almost as rough as Luffy’s adventures.

While the series did have international name recognition not long after its 1999 debut in Japan, it wouldn’t be until June 2004 that it was licensed by 4Kids Entertainment, the company behind the “Pokémon” English adaptation. Fans were concerned, as 4Kids was becoming increasingly infamous for altering the anime shows they licensed to make them more palatable for younger audiences.

Despite the fandom’s trepidation, the first details...

The 4Kids dub of One Piece is infamous for its overly juvenile tone, but this quality is precisely what makes its theme song so great. Of course, just like many aspects of the 4Kids dub, the opening known as "The Pirate Rap" is seemingly pretty terrible. But ultimately, it becomes so bad that it's actually good.

Unfortunately, most other parts of 4Kids' One Piece dub are just plain bad. The company tried to make the anime suitable for American children by toning down its violence and censoring certain mature topics. While this approach was ok for other shows like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon (even if fans have their complaints with those dubs as well), it was ill-suited to One Piece's intricate narrative and complex themes. This led to the 4Kids dub being universally panned and ending after One Piece's Alabasta arc on a surprisingly dark note. The 4Kids dub...