One Piece in Italy

Manga
One Piece manga is released in Italy by Star Comics since 2001 and as of June 2012 the first 63 volumes and the four specials Red, Blue, Yellow and Green have been released. So has been released the volume of One Piece Wanted! and the first two color walks. Star Comics, since 2008, started a monthly reprinting called "One Piece New Edition" which reached Volume 50, the new edition keeps the original logo, add extra content like Oda's sketches as well correcting major translation mistakes.

The original title is deliberately in Latin and uppercase characters, but outside Japan the most common title chosen is "One Piece", Star Comics follows this choice as well.

Anime
Italy is one of the first nations (like China for example) to have broadcast One Piece on a TV Channel outside Japan. The first 53 episodes are titled "All'arrembaggio! (stand by to board!)", from 54th to 195th "Tutti all'arrembaggio!", from 196th to 309th "One Piece - Tutti all'arrembaggio!" and from 310th onward "One Piece". It is broadcast since 2001 on Mediaset's Italia1 channel. The episodes are imported directly from Japan and dubbed by Merak Film.



Even if the quality of the voice actors is generally good, they often say wrong statements because of translation mistakes from the original dialogues. Especially in the earlier episodes, some names were changed to make them easier for children and the dialogues were changed to made them "softer" and some scene were turned sepia-tone or black and white in order to "mask" the blood. The episodes aired on Italia 1 are edited because the channel may be penalized if they contain something that can scare a child and when it's not cut, blood's colour is changed to brown, black or light red.

The first 195 episodes have been aired from 2001 to 2005, then it was transmitted no more until July 2008, when Italia 1 decided to broadcast new episodes in the summer, which they had been dubbed two years before. But it had such a success that they didn't stop it and dubbed new episodes.

After the ending of the Impel Down Arc with episode 452 on December 2010, One Piece stopped being aired until May 2012, when the anime continued from episode 453 on Mediaset Italia 2 channel with a pace of an episode per day until it reached episode 508 on July 4, after then One Piece anime re-started with episode 1.

Currently the anime has reached, but not completed, the Post-War Arc Arc and it is now airing the East Blue Saga.

From episode 207 onward the Japanese original anime is broadcast in 16:9 while Mediaset is still using the 4:3 format, resulting in a partial image cut.

Currently the anime has reached the Marineford Arc, being the dub closest to the Japanese version second only to the Taiwan dub that is usually only 20 episodes behind the original.

Movies
The first seven movies have been dubbed and transmitted on TV as well.

Reception
When the Water Seven arc was broadcast, One Piece often reached up to two million viewers and more than 13% of Italian viewers.

Openings and Endings
The dub features all new opening music performed by popular Italian singers, just like most of the other anime that is dubbed in Italian. The visuals change with each season by show clips from the japanese openings and actual scenes from the show. The credits air at the end of each episode, which has exactly the same visuals as the opening.

Songs
Brook's favorite song, Binks' Sake, was translated in Italian. Here the song performed by the Italian dub.